Trump’s First 100 Days... -The iPINIONS Journal

It is mainly the feat of an idiot, full of lies and hypocrisy, accomplishing nothing.

In fact, Donald Trump became a billionaire and the most powerful man in the world by telling big lies and being brazenly hypocritical. He calls it his “flexible” strategy for success.

In truth, this nouveau fascist figured out long ago that the bigger the (repeated) lie, the more likely people are to believe it; and the more brazen the hypocrisy, the more likely they are to accept it.

This is why I cannot overstate that the Trump phenomenon says far more about his supporters than the man himself. Not to mention the long-term danger inherent in so many of them aping and thereby ‘normalizing’ his self-aggrandizing, mendacious, boorish, sexist, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist (etc.) behavior.

(“Rant about Stupid Voters…,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 19, 2016)

But it behooves those of us who know better to resist the cognitive dissonance afoot. This is especially incumbent upon those in the mainstream media – who are now blithely reporting and commenting on his big lies without even bothering to mention the most salient point, namely, that they are big lies.

This was thrown into stark and infuriating relief yesterday. Frankly, I could barely contain myself as I watched anchors on every network – from Fox to CNN and even the BBC – read the following drivel not only as factual but also as breaking news:

North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2017

None of the anchors bothered to point out that, foremost, North Korea disrespected the wishes of the United States and its blowhard president. In other words, this launch was that country’s fat gnome of a president, Kim Jong-un, giving the defiant middle finger not to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, but to the American president, Donald J. Trump.

After all, it was Trump who made a public show of warning the menacing Jong-un to “behave.” Moreover, it was Trump who dispatched an “Armada” to the Sea of Japan, off the Korean Peninsula, to prevent North Korea from launching more missiles.

Having done so, he should have reacted to Jong-un’s defiance with deadly and direct reprisals for, in effect, crossing his red line. Especially given the way he ridiculed Obama mercilessly for failing to mete out reprisals after Syria’s Assad crossed a similar red line so infamously.

Instead, Trump reacted with nothing more than that weak and feckless tweet, compounding his big lie about who was being disrespected with brazen hypocrisy. Trump often led Republican carnival barkers in ridiculing Obama for “leading from behind.” But there’s probably no clearer example of a US president leading from behind than the childish and sycophantic way Trump is trying to goad Xi to protect the United States from a menacing North Korea.

Again, lies and hypocrisy are Trump’s MO. Alas, there’s no denying the success they have wrought, making a virtue of his congenital incompetence. It’s no wonder then that they have become pathological traits.

For example, by all objective criteria (from polling data to legislative record), Trump’s “First 100 Days” have been the lest successful in US history. Yet this shyster is peddling this big lie:

I truly believe that the first 100 days of my administration has been just about the most successful in our country’s history.

(WhiteHouse.gov, April 28, 2017)

In fact, one need only refer to his pre-election “Contract with the American Voter,” in which he delineated his “100-day action plan to Make America Great Again.” He got a right-wing justice onto the Supreme Court. But this is the only part of that 28-point contract he can fairly boast about honoring.

So far, however, Trump has kept only six of the 103 promises he made during the campaign, according to Politifact. All were unilateral actions [executive orders] that didn’t require approval by Congress.

(San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2017)

Of course, Politifact won the Pulitzer Prize for its political fact-checking. Therefore, its finding that only four percent of Trump’s public statements are true is noteworthy. This means that he tells an average of four whoppers a day, which must make him the biggest liar of any politician in US history.

True to form, he compounded his big lie about the success of his presidency with the brazen hypocrisy inherent in dismissing the first-100-days marker as “a ridiculous standard.”

Incidentally, no politician cites polling data that favor him or news stories that flatter him more than Trump. And no politician dismisses polling data that do not favor him or news stories that do not flatter him as rigged and fake, respectively, more than him.

The latter explains why Trump began dismissing this long-recognized presidential marker. For he began doing so only when it became clear that, despite practically begging his team for legislative wins, his first 100 days would end today with no significant legislative achievement; you know, like building that wall, repealing and replacing Obamacare, reforming the tax code, or implementing immigration reform.

Never mind that he contradicted himself, as he invariably does, by scheduling a rally in Pennsylvania tonight to tout his accomplishments — complete with “alternative facts.” Trust me, if he had real accomplishments to tout, he would have done so at tonight’s annual White House correspondents’ dinner. But he’s too thin-skinned to face the facts about his lack of success or to take a joke at his expense.

Which brings me to his open and notorious flip-flops on everything from naming China a currency manipulator, withdrawing from NAFTA, and ripping up the Iran nuclear deal.

Remember when he used to deride the Electoral College as a “disaster” that makes a “laughing stock of our nation”? He insisted that presidents should be elected based solely on the popular vote. Then, after losing the popular vote to Hillary by millions, he began shamelessly extolling the Electoral College as a “genius” invention of the Founding Fathers.

But none of his flip-flops is more egregious than his whining now about how difficult everything is. After all, he spent his campaign selling gullible voters snake-oil promises about how easy it will be for him (and him alone) to fix everything. Actually, this flip-flop makes about as much sense as a 90-pound weakling boasting that it would be easy for him to lift 500-pounds and then, after failing to even budge it, saying he didn’t realize it would be so heavy.

Then there’s his unprecedented use of “executive orders,” which constitutes just another example of his brazen hypocrisy. After all, Trump spent much of Obama’s presidency accusing him of acting like an “imperial president” for using executive orders for “power grabs of authority.”

Now Trump is on pace to sign more executive orders than any president in US history. Never mind that his successor could spend her first 100 days signing executive orders to nullify his, just as he did to nullify so many of Obama’s.

Enough?

But, for the sake of not just America but the whole world, I urge reporters and commentators to call out Trump on his lies and hypocrisy at every turn. Because he’s banking on them getting tired of doing so. I also urge you, my loyal readers, to never miss an opportunity to call out his die-hard supporters on them too.

NOTE: Almost all of Trump’s executive orders seem drafted to either whitewash or undermine Obama’s accomplishments. You could be forgiven for thinking that Trump has predicated his presidency on vindicating his birther conspiracy; you know, the one he peddled about Obama being an illegitimate interloper (a.k.a. an uppity African) who does not belong among the ranks of American presidents, certainly not in the top 10 – as Obama seems destined to be ranked.

What’s more, with their determination to repeal and replace Obamacare (no matter the cost in terms of money or the loss in terms of healthcare coverage), congressional Republicans seem all too eager to help Trump … succeed.

* I interrupted my fishing trip to write and publish this commentary on Saturday at 9:43 a.m. I trust it’s obvious why I couldn’t wait until today.