Talk Loudly and Carry a Big Shtick
Not long ago I read Vice-President Mike Pence thinks Donald Trump is like Teddy Roosevelt.
After I spit out my coffee I decided to debunk that idiocy. But first, a word about Trump's recent and repulsive video tweet where he hits Hillary in the back with a golf ball and knocks her down. (Ironically, the worst offender of Melania's anti cyber bullying campaign is her husband!)
And then there was Trump's bombastic and incoherent speech at the U.N. on Tuesday. Once again, I spit out my coffee. Apparently, I can't watch Trump while enjoying a beverage, unless I'm wearing a bib.
Reaction at the U.N. to Trump's speech went from muted to stone-faced. I suppose when you call a world organization “incompetent” and “worthless” the members have a tendency to take it personally.
Chief of Staff General Kelly appeared to be looking for a hole to disappear into and I thought Melania was about to weep. (Whenever I see her secret service, I think to myself it takes a lot of people to keep Melania from running away.)
One wonders how world leaders view Trump's maturity or lack thereof. At best the golf ball tweet was juvenile, at worst it's severe misogyny.
That said, 33% of America loves Trump. After eight tumultuous months and scandals everywhere, the question that haunts me, is why?
Ironically, 33% is the percentage that put Hitler in office. BUT save your emails, I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler. I am, however, comparing him to Mussolini whom he has affectionately quoted in the past. Actually, the two look so imperiously alike it's spooky.
Sounding more like a schoolyard bully at the U.N. than the leader of the free world Trump mockingly called Kim Jung-Un “Rocket Man.” Can you imagine Ike doing that? Or Reagan? Of course not. They were adults.
Trump also called terrorists “losers,” talked of the total annihilation of N. Korea and withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. Why would anyone negotiate with Trump when his word is so thoroughly worthless? Ask the Trump U students he defrauded out of $25 million. As for Trump's robotic speaking style, nobody is going to confuse him with JFK or Churchill.
Among the 66% who aren't fond of Trump is David Letterman. “If the guy was running a Dairy Queen, he'd be gone,” Letterman said, “but let's just stop whining about what a goon he is and figure out a way to put him in a home.
”
Famed author, humorist and social commentator Fran Lebowitz noted that New Yorkers voted 9 to 1 against Trump. Why? “Because we know him. He's a Three Card Monte dealer.” She describes his presidency as “unbearable.”
Pulitzer prize-winning N.Y. Times columnist Bret Stephens, a conservative, says “Trump's isn't a presidency it's a neuroses. Hillary would have been a survivable event, I'm not so sure about Trump.”
I've seriously digressed from the Mike Pence comparison of Roosevelt and Trump, so here goes. To begin, TR, at 42, was the youngest person to become president. At 70, Trump was the oldest elected president in history.
(Also the orangest.)
TR's other jobs were: cattle rancher, deputy sheriff, historian, naturalist, explorer, police commissioner, assistant Secretary of the Navy, governor of New York, war hero, lawyer and author of 35 books. In his lifetime, it's doubtful Trump has read 35 books. (Tony Schwartz, the real author of “Art of the Deal” thinks it's doubtful he's read three.)
TR was a Rough Rider in 1898, and led the charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War. During Vietnam, Trump got five deferments, including a medical one for a bone spur. (So painful he couldn't remember which foot!) Such was his wild sex life, Trump bragged shamelessly, “My personal Vietnam was avoiding sexually transmitted diseases.”
As the first conservationist president, TR established five new national parks. During his administration, 42 million acres were set aside as national forests, wildlife refuges, and areas of special interest (including the Grand Canyon). Trump longs to open national parks to commercial interests and, until the White House, he lived in a hermetically sealed tower. He's not big on the environment as he believes climate change is a Chinese hoax.
While TR was responsible for the Panama Canal, Trump talks about a wall Mexico is going to pay for after we pay for it first. (Huh?) TR was the first president to host a black man at a White House dinner.
For his part, Trump thought Frederick Douglas was still alive. TR believed in physical fitness, Trump eats Taco Bowls and buckets of KFC. TR was the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Peace while Trump talks glowingly about fire and fury “like the world has never seen before.”
Lastly, TR is on Mount Rushmore. After Trump is impeached, maybe he will visit Mount Rushmore.
Jack is at facebook.com/jackneworth, twitter.com/jackneworth and jackdailypress@aol.com
