Remember, Everything 45 Says Is A Lie

For American adults who are aware of politics, or follow election results and what happens in Washington DC after elections, 2017 has been a very bizarre, chaotic, inconsistent year so far, and it shows no signs of getting better.  I preface this with "American adults" because as kids, or even as teenagers or in my very early 20s, I really didn't pay any attention to what was happening politically in my state (Indiana and then South Carolina, both were led by Democrats back then) or in the nation's capital for that matter.  It was only after my son was school aged, and came home from parochial school during the Bill Clinton administration asking me 'why do people have abortions?' and 'what's a blow job?' that I began to pay more attention to who was running, why I should vote for them or against them, and what they might do once in office.

After we moved to Arizona in 2007 (10 years ago, yep), began this blog in 2008 at my friend Ron's recommendation, and then moved to California in 2012, I increasingly began to pay more attention, to filter out shrill voices, hyperbole, and nonsense, and embraced my own informed opinions about politics, our elected leaders, Congressional Oversight, and Constitutional checks and balances.  Visiting China, India, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Suisse, Austria, Australia, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, UAE, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and Scotland for work also helped my perspective to compare parliamentary systems, command economies, and different versions of democracies with various levels of transparency, corruption, effectiveness, and quality-of-life for their citizens.  While some of my friends, 1/2 of my family, and many visitors to this blog may not agree with my view points and positions, I consider myself to be better informed than most Americans, and at least as informed about about American politics as a citizen of any of the developed nations I just mentioned (most non-Americans know far more about American politics than the average American, by at least one standard deviation on the curve).

So with that preamble, as I was trying to make sense of the election last November, and the aftermath and consequences it has led to in the subsequent months, with all the "disruption" and "chaos", the illogical choices and downright stupidity that has been unearthed, I no longer try and see a pattern or a reason behind anything except for these following 2 principles:

1) Everything that President Drumpf says (Drumpf is his real name, he got from his father, just like all the seed money daddy gave him) is a lie, or at best, a gross exaggeration.  He is incapable of telling the truth, except by accident - give a million monkeys a million type writers, and eventually one of them will type out a coherent sentence or two.  He is a habitual liar (pseudologia fantastica or mythomania) who believes himself a "disrupter".  Facts, reality, and the truth have no influence upon his actions or what comes out of his mouth.  Think of Jon Lovitz on SNL, and the Tommy Flanagan character he played where he was incapable of telling the truth.  That's who 49% of America elected.  When Donald accidentally tells the truth, he still thinks he is lying, or that there's a thread of obfuscation in there somewhere but in his perspective, the person he is speaking to is not bright enough to figure it out.  Everything he tweets, everything he says in interviews, everything he says in public, it's all a lie, or a gross exaggeration.

2) While he didn't think he was going to win the election, and he is completely unprepared to be chief executive of a local water district much less the largest economy in the world with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, he HAS and WILL take full advantage of his unexpected position of power to enrich his own coffers, empower his family and friends, and rake in as much money as quickly as possible, before anyone figures out just how corrupt 45's executive branch really is.  He doesn't want Putin to be the only plutocrat to be worth 60+ Billion dollars.  Heck, 45 doesn't even have 1/2 a billion to his name, or he would have proudly shown his tax returns, like a 4th grader who signs his name for mommy and daddy to see "look what I signed!".  Mark Cuban, a real billionaire (+3 Billion, with a "B") estimated that Drumpf's worth is probably south of 75 million dollars, and perhaps closer to as little as 25 or 50 million when all is said an done.  Drumpf doesn't want to "Make America Great Again".  No, America was already great.  He wants to enrich his own family's wealth and the wealth of his friends.  That's why he's appointed such incompetent-and-or-corrupt heads of agencies who want to dismantle the agencies they run.

Keep these two things in mind, and you won't be confused or shocked or aghast at what you see or hear in the news.  I've found that they help me tremendously, daily, or even several times a day on some days.

45 doesn't care about facts, or science, or helping the little guy, or being a "populist", or what is right or wrong.  He cares only about his own image,  his own self aggrandized "brand", which has become synonymous with corruption, incompetence, made-in-China goods, bluster, and a longing for a return to the 1950s by Americans who enjoyed outstanding economic growth and social privileges in that era (and to everyone else who was a 2nd class US citizen or not in the US at that time, too bad; "get him outta here!").