Donald Trump: The Sly Buffoon

Now that the suspense is over and the Republicans at last have chosen their candidate for President, well, I have a few comments. First: We cannot blame Donald Trump for the coronavirus pandemic, just like we could not blame George W. Bush for Hurricane Katrina. We can hold him accountable for the lack of response, as we did Bush at the time. But Bush at least worked to undo the damage. Trump keeps amplifying it, and in the bargain has made Covid-19, testing, and wearing masks political issues. Second: Trump sounds like an idiot every time he opens his mouth or posts a tweet. He cannot help himself. He throws out crazy conspiracies, calls upon experts he never names, denies his own words, attacks dead people, and can't seem to find the words his speech writers give him. He mispronounces simple words. He reads the teleprompter with utter flatness. His malaprops make Yogi Berra look like a genius—which, of course, Berra was. That got me to thinking, and worrying, that Trump is merely playing the role of buffoon and playing it perfectly while cleverly entrenching his power and doing things to ingratiate himself with his true base, the one tenth of one percent who really run things. I mean, no one could be that out of touch and that stupid yet lead a country, right? Third: Trump's advocates point to Joe Biden's acceptance speech by saying, “Anyone can read off a teleprompter.” Have they watched their man? If competence were a genuine issue in this race, I would question Trump's. He can't seem to read without evoking the worst monotone in snooze control or getting through without mispronouncing half a dozen words. As to his sense of reality, reality is whatever Donald Trump says it is. He's pushing imaginary armies against invading forces—wait, that was a certain Austrian whom his generals were terrified to tell the truth. Fourth: I have been told that it is too easy, a cheap shot, to make Hitler comparisons. And yet, I listened to our President rant on about how the far left had kidnapped Joe Biden and plans to ruin America. From where I sit, America is already in ruins and that is on Trump's watch. Then again, Trump is very good at accusing others of doing exactly what he himself is doing in the hopes that no one will notice him doing it. Right now, he is trying to rig the 2020 election, trying to incite violence in cities across America, and actually making America the exact opposite of “Great Again.” In his thinly veiled attempt to undermine and possibly destroy the United States Postal Service, he now says that he did not say what he did say, but many people, many fine people, excellent people, heard him. Some even recorded him. Finally, a quote: Not my words; a comment from acerbic wit H. L. Mencken almost a century ago: “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” That great and glorious day is here. Help me prove Donald Trump is an anomaly. VOTE!