Writing about Donald Trump is a lot like gazing at the ceaseless tides of the ocean lapping against the beach, if the beach were strewn with garbage and discarded condoms and the waters themselves were mostly mucus-clogged spit. That is: Donald Trump does so many utterly crazed, despicable, disgusting things, and he does them so quickly, that it’s hard to keep track. By way of example, let’s talk about the last 24 hours of Trump’s life.
Trump possesses a short-fingered man’s innate anger and resentfulness, a defensive need to lash out at every human being he thinks might have wronged him, or is thinking of wronging him (or whom he just doesn’t like because of something reasonable like their religion). He also doesn’t possess a politician’s usual sensitivity to public opinion, or a normal human being’s sense of personal shame. That means we don’t go through the usual apology cycle that characterizes most public figures and their missteps: You fuck up, you refuse to say you’re sorry, you eventually say you’re sorry, you try to move the public’s eyes towards something else.
Instead of doing any of that, Trump has taken an entirely different approach: he does something that would be career-ending for any normal person and then just moves on, jeering and attacking and denying and lying his way out of it until everyone gets tired or distracted by the next terrible thing he’s done.
In the past day, he has:
Followed by an enraged statement that begins with a criticism of President Obama, segues at some point into a criticism of Hillary Clinton, and blaming both of them for creating ISIS. Here’s just the first paragraph:
“Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilized the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to ISIS, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi. Then they put Iran on the path to nuclear weapons. Then they allowed dozens of veterans to die waiting for medical care that never came.”
Is that it? Have I even remembered them all? How is it even possible for one man to have this many hours in the day, and yet so many ways to misuse them?
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
