Understanding America

 I guess I just do not understand. It seems less than a mystery to me. Donald Trump experienced six bankruptcies. Now what does that mean exactly? Well, he started in or took over six different commercial entities. He ran them for some period, and then gradually ran out of money to continue them, so he had to close them and declare bankruptcy.  Here is the fact check on his bankruptcies:

“Let’s do some fact checking about how many times Donald Trump has filed for bankruptcy protection and why  there is some debate over this number.  During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton correctly pointed out that Donald Trump had filed bankruptcy 6 times. Here is a quick breakdown of the six Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings by companies owned by Donald Trump.  All six of Donald Trump’s bankruptcy filings were prior to him becoming our current U.S. President.

1.      1991: Trump’s Taj Mahal

2.      1992: First of two Atlantic City casinos owned by Donald Trump.

3.      1992: Second of two Atlantic City casinos owned by Donald Trump.

4.      1992:  Trump’s Plaza Hotel in New York City

5.      2004:  Trump’s Hotels and Casinos Resorts

6.      2009:  Trump’s Entertainment Resorts

Since each bankruptcy case is assigned a unique case number and takes on it’s own life, there should be little disconnect between the number of filings related to any one person or entity. So Hillary Clinton claimed that Donald Trump filed for bankruptcy relief six times, while Mr. Trump rebutted with the number of four such filings.  One possible reason for such a disconnect is whether Donald Trump recognizes his 1992 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings as one, two, or three.  The correct number of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings related to Donald Trump in 1992 would be three, while Mr. Trump may perceive them as one larger event.”

So, The Donald was in bankruptcy six times, which defines just how incompetent he is as a businessman. And it’s curious. I commented recently on Facebook that Trump had experienced bankruptcy six times, and one person remarked that I obviously did not understand business. He remarked. . . . “ six bankruptcies out of how many businesses?”  It was as though, it was OK if Trump had created, say, 20 businesses and ONLY experienced bankruptcy six times.  Well, sport, that is not OK. To me, it is pretty obvious that Trump is completely incompetent at running businesses. So, why should we expect him to be able to lead our Nation as President? Is that LESS COMPLEX?

So, we know he is incompetent as a manager. Well, then, what is it he is good at that might resemble the Presidency? Oh, but before that, we also know he has failed at the marriage game two times and maybe even three times, depending on your view of his marriage to Melania.  Now, to me, that strongly suggests he is also lousy at managing personal relationships.

So remind me again why he might make a good President? Or is it the case that the folks who voted for him were actually unaware that he is incompetent as a businessman and incompetent as a husband? They didn’t know? Really? But it seems that everyone on the planet knows, just not American voters?

Well, is there something else that recommends him to be President? Well, he was good at acting out The Apprentice, right? Well, that depends on whether you ever watched it.

Oh, but then he was actually President once before right?   The Pew research Center wrote a piece examining Trumps’ first Presidency. See -- How America Changed During Trump’s Presidency | Pew Research Center. It would seem his first go was not a marvel of the universe. His presidency ended as the most unpopular in our history, Partly, I suppose, his complete incompetence at managing that nasty COVID attack that emerged in China and then arrived to kill thousands of Americans, at least in part because of Trump’s incompetence at overseeing and directing a National response.  Did he actually tell Americans to drink bleach? Well, Yes and No. Here's what he said:

"A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. (To Bryan) And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?"

He continued.

"And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful."

Classic Trump.

But thousands of Americans died as a result of the incompetence of his Administration’s response.

So, he ended his first attempt at being President with a massive Public Health crisis wherein thousands died.

He had other questionable approaches during his Presidency, but little that he said or did should have encouraged folks to vote for him.

So, now he is appointing people to run our government who seem completely incompetent and maybe even simply dangerous—Gaetz as Attorney General springs to mind, although Rober Kennedy, Jr. seems as potentially dangerous at managing our Health Care Structure and systems.   Also, his promises to fire thousands of Federal career civil servants to replace them with Trump loyalists seems to me to be autocratic to the point that I now wonder whether he sees himself as King, rather than President.

So, that is why I keep looking at places to retreat—New Zealand anyone?  See. But I am way too old to move to New Zealand. At 90, I ain’t going anywhere. But trust me, were I 30, I would now be actively looking to move my citizenship to someplace more civilized and intelligent.

But I guess I will have to sit back and watch America disappear as a civilized society.

And if you disagree with me, well, good on you. But don’t just sit there in your comfy chair with a nice cold beer. Get off your ass and do something to defend our Democracy. Maybe impeach him??? Sure, why not?

By by . . .

Trump?

I no longer know what to say. Given what we know of Trump, that anyone actually voted for him is a total mystery. But that millions voted for him goes beyond the notion of a mystery. I wish I could blame this event on Kamala or maybe on Joe. But really, Kamala ran a pretty good campaign. She is intelligent, ethical, experienced and altogether a good candidate for the first woman president. I had really high hopes. But instead, we now have one of the worst individuals I could imagine as our next, 47^th President. His campaign was also one of the worst. At the end, he was actually threatening the life of one of his opposition folks—Liz Cheney.

Now that the American people have spoken, I wonder who he will select as his cabinet. So many people, military officials especially, spoke out against him that he may have difficulty finding intelligent people to serve under him.  On the other hand, he has promised to appoint Kennedy, Jr. as his head of the health sector. Imagine that, RFK, jr. who seems to believe in or understand almost nothing about the health sector will now run that sector.

I don’t really understand what to say. I feel like maybe moving to New Zealand is the only sensible course of action, but I’m pushing 90, and have almost no spare money.

But, seriously, how could any thinking creature actually vote for him? He lies every time he opens his mouth and words come tumbling out. He is incompetent as six bankruptcies and three failed marriages will attest.  We even know what he will be like as President, since we experienced four years of a Trump presidency.  He succeeded in overseeing the deaths of some 400,000 Americans as a result of a mismanaged COVID response.

And we now face at least two foreign crises—in Ukraine and Palestine.  Now, since Trump is favored by Vlad Putin, we can only guess what will happen in Ukraine. Putin is largely now free to do whatever he wants.  And the Middle East is a mess. HAMAS began the killing, but Bibi will oversee the final stages of killing.  He seems disinclined to cease, and there is no serious effort being made by anyone to force an ending there. HAMAS is disinclined to act ethically, and so Bibi sees his only alternative as more killing.

Trump says he will end the mess in those two places, but he has no intelligent positions to play. So the killing messes may well simply continue.

And then there is our own in-migration situation. Trump has been railing about the folks who have been arriving on our shores from afar, especially from Latin and African places.  He speaks of them all as gangsters, murderers, rapists, etc.  And he promises to deport them all.  Once again, he will build his wall, which he failed to do during his first term, But he has never really succeeded in doing anything worthwhile.

But I find myself, cringing in terror at the thought of him returning to our presidency, but no longer having any serious idea of what he may elect to actually do. I am guessing that he may well do things such as impose his tariffs, which could be awful economically, or introduce the ideas in that Project 2025 proposal, which could result in destroying the fabric of our government.

And unlike almost every other political administration I have been here to observe, I can find no room for positive thinking.  Whatever I thought of Reagan, or Nixon, or Shrub, they were not uniformly awful. Trump may well be uniformly awful. He is that incompetent. I assume his Administration will result from the ideas and proposals of the people who he allows to spin his web,  people like Elon. So we should now be looking to who he begins to include in his inner circle for ideas on how he will set about destroying America.

Ah, and folks?? Should you find yourself hoping his age and dementia state may relieve us at some early stage? Remember, JD Vance is, if anything, potentially worse than Trump. So, be careful what you wish for.