Don't (Necessarily) Get Your Knickers In A Twist
Advice for the Trump era
Our Jack-in-the-box President popped up again on Air Force One, sticking his head out from the curtain to his palace cabin and once again dumping every random, unfiltered, and unthought-out thought that passes through his brain.
The panel on my local NPR station’s morning news roundtable (the best of it’s kind,1IMHO)2 had their dander up today about what Trump said about resuming nuclear testing. That story in the Times says (it’s a gift! you’re welcome!):
In the hour before Mr. Trump met Xi Jinping, China’s leader, in South Korea on Thursday, he sent out a social media post saying he had ordered the “Department of War,” as he calls the Defense Department, to resume tests “immediately.” His qualifier that the tests would occur “on an equal basis” with U.S. rivals left many national security officials scratching their heads. (It was also puzzling because the Energy Department, not the Pentagon, is responsible for testing.)
Mr. Trump provided no rationale for resuming the testing, other than his incorrect statement that others were doing the same. He boasted that “the United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” which is incorrect — Russia has more. (Many of the weapons in Russia’s arsenal are small battlefield weapons of the kind American officials worried in October 2022 would be used against Ukraine.)
This is another example of what I recently observed is the truth by parentheses campaign apparently underway at the New York Times.
I suggested a new parlor game for news junkies—count the parentheses that follow reporting on an absurd statement or “sky is pink-polka-dots” claim Trump makes intended to add what editors call “context,” and I called “a polite way for the Times to say, “liar, liar, pants on fire!”
I wish I had put money on the prospect of Donald Trump actually ending up having a summit with Putin when he announced it in similar, popinjay fashion. I will be very surprised if this particular favorite from Project 2025 becomes a reality. Donald Trump isn’t happy unless he’s stirred a dozen pots a day.
Let us now praise3 once again Maggie Haberman, who said one of the two smartest things I’ve ever heard about Donald Trump while reporting on his Manhattan criminal trial:
Mr. Trump has treated his own words as disposable commodities, intended for single use, and not necessarily indicative of any deeply held beliefs.
I don’t remember where I read the other pearl of wisdom (anyone?):
Donald Trump doesn’t see the difference between what is true, and what he thinks should be true.
Add those together and you understand our current conundrum. What do we do about a President who acts like a twelve year old (when he’s not acting like a five-year old), speaks the way this professor of psychiatry described:
If a patient presented to me with the verbal incoherence, tangential thinking, and repetitive speech that Trump now regularly demonstrates, I would almost certainly refer them for a rigorous neuropsychiatric evaluation to rule out a cognitive illness.
and has no interest in using the office of President for anything other than personal glory and profit?
Can we find a way not to panic every time Trump says something stupid, dangerous, dangerously stupid or stupidly dangerous? Of course some things, lots of things, are worth panicking about, but maybe not everything he says on Truth Social.
I’ll say it again, and keep saying it here. We can focus on winning back the House in 2026. (And hopefully also making some gains in the Senate).
It’s the only thing that matters.
Though with apologies, I’m still not always in the mood for what can feel like garment-rending among friends.
Three letters expressing shock while invoking a deity! (I don’t use emojis or text slang—that was a first. I’m not sure I can look at myself in the mirror…Graphic symbol representing rueful chagrin.
Click on that link to see something Trump hasn’t removed from a government website yet! (And please, people, click on the songs of the day). (We put a lot of thought into those)