It's Fawning In America.
Many great figures in history leave slogans by which they are known. FDR’s was The New Deal. JFK’s was The New Frontier. LBJ’s was The Great Society. Ronald Reagan went with It’s Morning In America.
So. It’s about time we settled on one for DJT. Aaaaand… there it is, at the top of the page.
The degree to which Donald Trump demands fealty and obeisance and anus adulation as the price of his attention has risen from troubling to grotesque to comical. It is so ordinary and amusing now that the Mainstream Media often ignore it in their reporting, in favor of the more obvious and more alarming things Trump does, such his sleeping in public like a street vagrant, and his unapologetic bigotry, and, you know, that which must be ignored or euphemized, his caducity anility senectitude dotage senility occasional inattention to detail.
Trump actually dozed off at a recent marathon cabinet meeting while listening to his lickspittle stooges serially praise his bodaciousness, such as this gentle tongue bath delivered by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard: “This is such a great opportunity, really, to recognize your leadership as a true champion for working people, and I know we’ll hear, as we go around the table here, how your focus singularly on putting the well-being and interests of the American people first is that common thread we are seeing in your policies being implemented across your administration….”
Recently, a transcript of a leaked phone call revealed that Trump’s international envoy Steve Witkoff actually advised his Russian counterparts to get Vlad Putin to kiss Trump’s ass in negotiations over Ukraine: “The only way to get a good deal is to flatter him.”
Consider the contempt Witkoff must feel for his boss.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante depicts flatterers in the Eighth Circle of Hell wading in human excrement — because their words, uttered insincerely to prop up the egos of the unworthy, are pure shit.
Is this really so bad, though?
In fairness to Trump, let us judge him among other notable historical figures, many of whom who also had egos — and bellies — the size of weather balloons.
Idi Amin, former bloodthirsty dictator of Uganda, demanded that his official title be this, which he bestowed upon himself: “His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular…”
Donald Trump similarly claims to be master of the modern world. Over the last ten years, he has bragged that he knows more about the following subjects than just about anyone else on Earth: Courts, politicians, social media, the history of the United States, the U.S. system of government, drones, ISIS technology, lawsuits, the visa system, the construction industry, campaign finance, trade, taxes, renewable energy, infrastructure, environmental impact, the power of Facebook, renewables, polls, steelworkers, golf, banks, nuclear weapons, money, and debt. (All of these are captured on videotape. The compilations are hilarious.)
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Turkmenbashi the Great, former asinine dictator of Turkmenistan: Turkmenbashi really liked naming things after himself. This included the former month of January, which he renamed Turkmenbashi. He named April “Gurbansoltan,” who was his mother. He also declared that the new word for “bread” was Gurbansoltan.
Donald Trump also likes naming things after himself. He has re-named, or has proposed re-naming, the following in his name: The huge and grotesquely gilded new White House ballroom; the re-built RFK Stadium; the Kennedy Center for the Arts; a tax-sponsored investment program for American kids; a $1 coin, and, most recently, the former U.S. Institute of Peace, an organization Trump gutted into functionlessness, but which is now officially renamed The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.
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Kim Jong Un, giant baby madman despot of North Korea, is an expert at both receiving and administering flattery for strategic gain. He courts obsequiousness from the citizenry by having the state-run media deify him with elaborate mythology. (This runs in the family: His father claimed never to have to urinate or defecate because his body was so perfectly designed). The younger Kim says he learned to drive at three, and that he won a yacht race at the age of nine, competing against the chief executive of a foreign yacht company. The people are told that he is also a world-class musical composer and an internationally recognized artist.
His greatest skill is real, though. He is a shameless flatterer. When he met Trump, he called him “Your Excellency.”
Donald Trump liked being called “Your Excellency.” He did not correct Kim. (George Washington famously declined that title, considering it disturbingly monarchical.)
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Caligula, the demented Roman emperor, forced senators to grovel before him and kiss his bare feet.
Donald Trump has those cabinet meetings.
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People demanding flattery are people with no self confidence, people with enormous insecurity, people who simply cannot laugh at themselves. Donald Trump cannot laugh at himself. Here are some presidents who could:
Abraham Lincoln: When, at a debate, Stephen Douglas accused Lincoln of being “two-faced,” Lincoln said: “I leave it to my audience: If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?”.
Franklin Roosevelt framed, and hung in his office, a cartoon from Esquire magazine that showed a little girl telling her mother that her brother wrote a dirty word on the sidewalk: “Roosevelt.”
And finally, consider George W. Bush. He was a leader with many flaws, but pompousness was not one of them. Mr. Bush could laugh at himself. Watch this interview by Jimmy Kimmel. It’s short. It’s magnificent. And grieve over what we have in The White House today.
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Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
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