The Greatest Meeting On Earth

Over the course of The Don’s campaign and tenure in the oval office, we have had to deal with so many of the Greatest Things Ever, that it’s exhausting! It’s like having a friend who is really great at everything. You toil along in your world of mediocrity, every once in a while breaking through to another level, while your friend is just checking off the list of accomplishments, living on a higher plane of existence, accolades falling from the sky like pennies from heaven.

The Don is the greatest president ever, accomplished the greatest amount of stuff in the first year of a presidency, will build the greatest wall ever, dwarfing the Wall of China, (ok, that’s a future greatness), has the greatest words, had the most people at his inauguration, ever, has greater knowledge of the military than the generals, knows more than anyone about taxes (true, if you look at it from the perspective of cheating), is the greatest athlete, is the greatest deal maker ever. (“We will win so much, you will get tired of winning!”)

Exhausted yet?

He also went to the greatest schools, has the greatest intelligence, has the greatest affection for women (No one respects women more than him!), is the least racist person you have ever met and most recently the greatest lover of people from Norway (or as a press release from the White House called it “Normay!)

He also is great at some things he doesn’t champion because, well, maybe they are not so great. He is the greatest liar on earth, he is the greatest divider this country has ever seen, he is the greatest lover of uneducated people and he is the  most ignorant, unfit, impulsive, anti-democratic, unethical person to ever inhabit the White House.

He also has the lowest approval ratings of any president at this point in their presidency (that’s the greatest at being the lowest, right?), watches TV news more than any other president (probably all of them combined!), the greatest non-reader of any president, has the greatest need to be loved, the greatest flip-flopper, the greatest at having no principles, the greatest cry-baby, the greatest malcontent, the greatest narcissist and the greatest at needing to be reminded that he is the greatest. Phew.

Exhausted yet?

And Now Ladies and Gentlemen, to borrow a phrase from Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus: “Welcome to the Greatest Meeting on Earth and, oh yeah, a follow-up meeting that, well, wasn’t so great.

The ‘Greatest Meeting on Earth,” was the one where The Don gathered a group of Republican and Democrats in a room, had the cameras rolling and led a lively roundtable discussions about DACA and immigration. The man who once claimed that Mexicans were rapists and criminals was transformed and titled his reality TV show, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, most recent episode: I Am a Stable Genius and We Will Come Together to Form a “Bill of Love.”

And the love was flowing. It was like Woodstock all over. The president was high, but not on a mind-altering substance, but as usual, on himself, and was doing his version of the song “Feeling Groovy.” He was saying yes to everyone, everything, like the way someone stoned just agrees with whatever you say by mindlessly repeating “Hey, that’s so groovy man,” because they have no idea what you are talking about.

According to The Don, the media went wild for the meeting and declared it the greatest meeting. The peace and love was flowing so bigly it made me want to go out in to the rain, find a field and do some mud sliding.

If you were watching the meeting unfold, and knew nothing about The Don, you would have seen someone who appeared in control, open-minded and shall I venture to say, avuncular. Didn’t you just love it when he said he “would take the heat” for any fallout? This from a man who takes responsibility for nothing that has anything negative attached to it? What was he smoking?

There is something about The Don’s psychology that is important to understand here. When the Don is in control, being adored and the center of attention of a love fest, his internal world is stabilized and he is on top of the world–he is disconnected from his insecurities, vulnerabilities, smallness. and nastiness.  In this scenario, everything is great: Dreamers are great; Dianne Feinstein is great, even the wall is negotiable. He was so filled with his own shit that it is surprising he didn’t admit to collusion with the Russians!

Ironically, it is that very state of his imagined greatness that ultimately deludes him in to believing he can do or say anything and because we are so smitten by his greatness we will just say “groovy, man.”

And that brings us to the not so great meeting where the greatest A-Hole on earth wondered why we just didn’t take more people from Norway instead of shit holes like Haiti and Africa.

A few facts about immigration from those shit-holes:

Michelle Mittelstadt of the Migration Policy Institute notes, sub-Saharan Africans have “among the highest college-completion rates of any immigrant group.” As for Haitians, MPI found they had a higher labor participation rate than the overall work force, and had median household incomes of $47,200 — lower than the overall U.S. median, but robust by any developed nation standard. So much for shit hole countries!

In general, The Don’s claims that undocumented immigrants pose a threat to public safety have been debunked by many research studies that show crime rates for undocumented immigrants to be much lower than U.S. citizens. Immigrants are necessary for our economy as they do the work many Americans won’t.

In fact, in August of 2017, Lindsey Graham had this to say about The Don’s “merit based” (read: only people who have high level skills and not from shit-hole countries)

“South Carolina’s number one industry is agriculture and tourism is number two. If this proposal were to come law, it would be devastating to our own state’s economy which relies on this immigrant workforce.”

But let’s get back to the greatest A -Hole to ever inhabit the White House. This is a man whose real estate practices with his father in the 1970’s was sued, not once but twice, by the Department of Justice, during the Nixon administration for discriminating against blacks renting apartments in their buildings. This is the man who started the Birther movement, said that some of the White Supremacists in the Charlottesville protest were “fine people” and who, it was recently reported, stated back in June, that all people from Haiti had AIDS and Nigerians would never “want to go back to their huts “once they came here. So his latest Shit Hole statement should surprise no one. In fact, it was reported that the evening after the incident The Don was chatting up his rich friends to get their read on what he said and how it would play to his base.

Fox News was all in. Breitbart celebrated. Though there were a few Republicans who spoke out, most said little or nothing. My favorites were Senators Cotton and Purdue     who were in the meeting, but initially didn’t recall what was said. Then two days later they decided they did remember that The Don didn’t say whatever they were saying they said he said.

Paul Ryan said he was disappointed and it was unhelpful and some of his best friends were Nigerian doctors. Lindsey Graham said he ‘spoke his piece’ directly to the president–guess he didn’t want to say out loud what The Don said to the rest of the country, fearing his tee time at Mar-a-lago would be given to Cotton and Purdue.

In a written statement, Raj Shah, the White House deputy press secretary, did not deny the account of the meeting on Thursday or directly address Mr. Trump’s comments.

“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people.” Translation: And if that means excluding people from asshole countries so be it, as The Don wants to Make America Great Again

Secretary of Homeland Security Nielsen also did not recall. Representatives McCarthy and Goodlatte have issued no statements. (Too bad Mr. Goodlatte didn’t bring some good lattes to the meeting–perhaps that would have been a game changer.)

 

So here we are again at another moment of truth for what America stands for. And sadly with the greatest A-Hole in the Oval Office championing White Supremacy, he is fast turning America in to greatest Asshole on the planet.  The Don’s canned statement about Martin Luther King was followed up by the following question from a reporter: Mr. President, are you a racist? A few days later he answered: “I am the least racist person you ever interviewed.” In other words, he is the greatest at being the least. And to show his respect to the cause of Martin Luther King he played golf!