While there’s always a learning curve for individuals assuming a new position, it seems it was never realistic to assume our current President would ‘pivot’ from being one type of human being to another let alone being one type of political thinker to another.
The mold that cast Donald Trump seems to have hardwired his personality traits long before he decided to run for President. One only has to listen to his interviews or read his own book, “Trump The Art of the Deal” to recognize this situation.
When Laura Ingraham asked our current President about unfilled State Department jobs during a television interview in November 2017, his response was, “I’m the only one that matters.”
Such a statement, to me, smacks of narcissism and has dictatorial undertones and overtones. I think it would help our current President’s outlook if he would read history books and learn – or, re-learn – that Americans threw out its last King in the 1700s.
George Washington refused the title of “King” for the good of our republic…thus, honoring the separation of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of our government. It is obvious that George Washington did not believe he was the only one that matters in our great country.
In Trump The Art of the Deal, when discussing what he would have done if he were involved in another businessman’s seemingly failed deal to obtain licensing and fend off a takeover threat of a hotel, our current President asserted, “I would have closed the hotel and let it rot…..That’s just my makeup (p. 236).”
In my opinion, such an approach to not-getting- what-one-wants confirms a very spoiled, immature, and spiteful nature.
To me, such an approach would have discarded any concerns for the thousands of employees that would have been immediately unemployed as a result of such a tactic. Is this a desirable trait in a morally-centered businessman or, in an American president?
I think not.
It is worth mentioning, again, that, in his book, “Trump The Art of The Deal,” our current President tells how, in the early 1980s, his construction site was going to be visited by a board of directors considering partnering with him in Atlantic City (pp. 210- 214).
Donald Trump related, “…the board would have an opportunity to see the proposed site and also to assess our progress in construction. It was the latter that worried me, since we had yet to do much work on the site.
I called in my construction supervisor and told him that I wanted him to round up every bulldozer and dump truck he could possibly find, and put them to work on my site immediately.
What the bulldozers and dump trucks did wasn’t important, I said, so long as they did a lot of it.
If they got some actual work accomplished, all the better, but if necessary, he should have the bulldozers dig up dirt from one side of the site and dump it on the other.
They should keep doing that, I said, until I gave other instructions” (pp. 214-215).
As I stated last year, what is indisputable, in my opinion, is the current President, with his repeated, manipulative, inaccurate statements, has been bulldozing something at the American public and, it isn’t dirt.
In his aforementioned book, when discussing other business pursuits, our current president mused, “In the end, we won by wearing everyone else down (p. 113);” “….we tried to play to their guilt and their fear (p. 129);” “We were selling fantasy (p. 181);” and, “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition (p. 108).” I believe his last quote foretold of his future, negative-adjective-labeling of his Presidential primaries’ competitors, “Low energy Jeb,” “Little Marco,” “Crooked Hillary,” and “Lyin’ Ted.”
By his own book’s words, Donald Trump’s repeated use of denigrating-negative-adjective labeling appears to be his calculated tactic to appear superior or more valid by “denigrating…competition (p. 108).”
I guess that is why he keeps referring to our magnificent free press as “fake news.” Perhaps, Donald Trump keeps using that same denigrating-negative-adjective labeling technique against the members of the Robert Mueller probe for the very same reason.
However, as regards the critical thinking public, our current President’s apparent tactic does not seem to be working.
Is Donald Trump trying to brainwash American citizens by repeatedly labeling those whom he may perceive as potential threats/competitors with his self-described, denigrating-negative-adjective labeling technique? If so, that would be sad.
It will be interesting to scrutinize carefully our current President’s future comments, interviews, and “tweets” in order to ascertain if he persists in utilizing his self-described, denigrating-negative-adjective labeling strategy and/or, if he ramps up his denigrating-negative-adjective labeling strategy as the Robert Mueller probe on Russian election interference continues.
If our current president is trying to de-legitimize Robert Mueller’s investigation by escalating his own use of denigrating-negative-adjective labeling of Mueller and his investigators, the American public may see that as Trump’s being afraid Mueller may be getting closer to detecting a potential prior wrongdoing.
Is that possible? If so, that would be sad.
Regardless of our current president’s seemingly sad attempt at brainwashing the American public by repeatedly using denigrating-negative-adjective labeling against those whom he may perceive as threats, Americans need to embrace the institution so cherished by our founding fathers that they included it in our First Amendment: Our free press.
Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, some great advice can be found in the Bible when John (8:32) advises, “the truth shall set you free.”
Thank you, free press and media for persistently trying to keep us all free, especially, for trying to keep us all free from anyone who may aspire to be a king.
Kathy Rittel
East Williston
