“Just as Trump so often comes across as a racist’s idea of a black man — lazy, stupid, hyper-sexualized — he also manifests as a misogynist’s idea of a woman, spending two hours a day on his hair, while fixating on picking out the perfect backsplash for the new designer kitchen while the world burns.” — Paul Campos, pointing out that the Toddler is completely obsessed with his ballroom project: “No matter the subject (child-rearing, public policy, baseball, death) or the audience (billionaire businessmen, Cabinet secretaries, children who have faced housing insecurity), he’s probably going to bring up the ballroom.” Click the link for example.
We’re in a war and we’re losing. The economy is starting to reel from the effects of the Toddler’s tariff. There are wildfires all over the country. But the ballroom is what’s important to him. Well, that and posting non-stop memes online. Showing the “new” Iran resembling his head. Imagining himself wielding Green Lantern’s ring and reciting the oath (dude, your own party are the ones who worship evil’s might). Suggesting New Mexico be renamed New America. Claiming he led a rescue team of his employees to help out at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Which as one person put it online, is an obvious lie: if he’d been there on 9/11, he’d have publicized that non-stop ever after. And he didn’t. I suspect the Toddler knows he has to say something about 9/11; the only way he can focus on that is to make it about him.
Heather Cox Richardson: “Whwat is really doing is demonstrating that he is no longer even trying to govern and is instead retreating into a world where he simply does whatever he wants without regard for the country.” Nothing’s working the way he imagined — other than the huge amounts of bribes and other corruption he’s apparently steering into his pockets — and he’s not being showered with enough praise (which is why he needs Natalie Harpe as his emotional support human). So he’s retreating into fantasies about the big, beautiful ballroom and AI slop that presents any reality he wants.
None of this is startling. By the end of his first term it was well-known he didn’t give a crap about policy, could barely focus on discussions and had no regard for any restraints. All the talk about responsible Republicans as the “adults in the room” who’d manage him? Someone who needs that kind of management shouldn’t be in the Oval Office. Enough voters disagreed that here we are — but he doesn’t belong there and he’s never going to miraculously become presidential.
