{"id":308043,"date":"2017-05-13T22:33:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T21:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/sorry-folks-but-donald-trump-is-everything-we-deserve\/"},"modified":"2017-05-13T22:33:36","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T21:33:36","slug":"sorry-folks-but-donald-trump-is-everything-we-deserve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/sorry-folks-but-donald-trump-is-everything-we-deserve\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorry, Folks, But Donald Trump Is Everything We Deserve"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The main reason (besides the grinding repetition) why I can\u2019t bear to watch comedians do their self-congratulatory Donald Trump shtick is that their phony indignation is based on the premise that this guy is somehow unworthy of being our president, which is ludicrous. \u00a0Trump is not only worthy of being president, he\u2019s perfect for it.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0The U.S. is, first and foremost, a nation of dedicated consumers. \u00a0The world knows this, we know this, and Trump knows this. \u00a0Indeed, there\u2019s nothing we Americans won\u2019t consume if it’s properly advertised and promoted. \u00a0And say what you will about Trump, but the man is, first and foremost, an accomplished salesman and promoter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We pretend to be surprised that we have elected a shallow, dishonest, narcissistic bully as our president.”<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0We Americans don\u2019t form long queues outside of poetry or literature readings. \u00a0There\u2019s no shame in that. \u00a0We simply aren\u2019t a nation of poetry lovers. \u00a0\u00a0But we do form long queues outside of Best Buy, beginning at midnight, waiting for the store to open so we can purchase the newest technology. \u00a0That\u2019s because we\u2019re a nation addicted to buying stuff on sale. \u00a0And Trump is a brilliant salesman.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0We idolize rich people. \u00a0Because that seems vaguely and uncomfortably “unchristian,” we pretend we don\u2019t, but we do. \u00a0We tell our kids that money “isn’t everything,” but we don\u2019t even believe it ourselves. \u00a0We are in awe of Wall Street because Wall Street is rich. \u00a0And Trump is rich.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0We idolize TV celebrities, and Trump was a TV celebrity. \u00a0He had his own show. \u00a0We idolize glamour, and the Trumps are glamorous. \u00a0Wife Melania and daughter Ivanka are exotic beauties. \u00a0Granted, that is more a tribute to recent advances in plastic surgery than the generosity of Mother Nature, but exotic beauties nonetheless. \u00a0And as much as we pretend to respect “authenticity,” we don\u2019t. \u00a0Plastic is good.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0Unlike much of the world, we Americans despise intellectuals. \u00a0We pretend we don\u2019t, but we do. \u00a0We hate know-it-alls, we hate smarty-pants media types, and we hate “deep thinkers.”\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to be reminded of how ignorant we are. \u00a0We like brevity and plain talk. \u00a0We like certitude. \u00a0We hate nuance, ambiguity, and self-doubt. \u00a0Arguably, not counting Ronald Reagan, Trump is the most anti-intellectual president since Andrew Jackson.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0We Americans respect muscle, strength and power, which is to say, we prefer war to peace. \u00a0We pretend we don\u2019t, but we do. \u00a0If that weren\u2019t the case, our defense budget wouldn\u2019t be so absurdly bloated, and we wouldn\u2019t have been engaged in all the military adventurism that has defined us since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

Consider:<\/strong> \u00a0We Americans are a narcissistic people. \u00a0We pretend we aren\u2019t, but we are. \u00a0We don\u2019t have to be tied down and water-boarded to blurt out the fact that we think we\u2019re the greatest country in the world. \u00a0Not only the greatest country in the world, but the greatest country in the history of the world. \u00a0\u00a0If that ain\u2019t narcissism, what is it?<\/p>\n

And yet, for all this, we pretend to be surprised that we have elected a shallow, dishonest, narcissistic bully as our president? \u00a0As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Mother Night<\/em>,\u00a0 “We are what we pretend to be. \u00a0So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The main reason (besides the grinding repetition) why I can\u2019t bear to watch comedians do their self-congratulatory Donald Trump shtick is that their phony indignation is based on the premise that this guy is somehow unworthy of being our president, which is ludicrous. \u00a0Trump is not only worthy of being president, he\u2019s perfect for it. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-308043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}