Skip to main content

A Canadian Tells Us Like It Is

 

I had intended to take Thanksgiving week off, then I realized I had to have a piece ready for the World Cup Draw, which, you may have noticed, turned out to be just as embarrassing and horrifying as I predicted last week. Being right comforts me no more than it does you. Regardless, I’m taking this week off instead.

But rather than rerun one of my oldies, I thought I’d direct you to what I consider a must-read article, coming to us from a Canadian, Andrew Coyne, who has a knack for saying what the entire mainstream media of this country refuses to say.

I apologize in advance that this piece is behind the paywall of the Globe & Mail, so some of you might be frustrated. But I urge you to find it, however you can (Apple News is one way). The article is titled “Donald Trump – and American democracy – is getting exponentially worse.” 

Here’s an excerpt, with a brief commentary afterward, then I promise to shut up until at least next week:

…On a most basic level, Mr. Trump’s mental and physical state has noticeably deteriorated. He now openly sleeps through cabinet meetings and public gatherings. He posts on social media at a hysterical pace, in increasingly agitated tones, on ever more lunatic themes. He boasts of having “aced” a cognitive test that is only administered when there are real doubts about a patient’s acuity, and cannot explain why he was given an MRI – or even what body part was screened.

All of which might be cause for sympathy, even pity – as, in a way, does his vast insecurity, his desperate need for praise and affirmation, symptoms of a childhood deprived, it seems, of everything but money – were it not for the consequences. His multiple emotional and psychological issues – the malignant narcissism, the pathological lying, the utter, sociopathic absence of empathy, and yet also an almost childlike manipulability – would be disturbing enough in an unemployed drifter. Manifested by the most powerful man on Earth, they amount to a global emergency.

I point you to this piece, not so much for its frank content — which is extraordinarily thorough and unblinking — as for the sad fact that everything Coyne points out is both well known and intuitively understood by absolutely everybody, or at least everybody who doesn’t have a stake in perpetuating it. And that includes the mainstream media.

But there is no way you would see an article like this in the New York Times. Some unfathomable code of silence prevails, giving Trump the benefit of every doubt, and pretending he’s almost normal, when he is clearly, and dangerously, off his rocker. Global emergency indeed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iran Plays Rope-a-Dope, and Guess Who’s the Dope

     I n 1974, Muhammed Ali and George Foreman went to Africa to fight for the heavyweight championship of the boxing world. Billed as the “Rumble in the Jungle,” this was widely regarded as a mismatch — Ali was past his prime, while Foreman, the current champ, was seen as a violent force of nature. Ali won, through sheer brilliance. He spent most of the fight with his back against the ropes, arms in front of his face, calmly deflecting anything Foreman threw at his arms or body. Foreman, known for putting away opponents with one punch, spent most of the fight having his blows harmlessly absorbed by Ali’s arms. When Ali was able, when he saw an opening, he “stung like a bee,” taking Foreman by surprise with quick shots to the face. But rather than “float like a butterfly” — his trademark dance-like style — Ali decided instead to stand still, conserve energy, take the abuse, and hit back when he could. Foreman was not ready for this. This was surely...
1 comment
Read more

Rewriting History has a Long and Ugly History

  I n 1937, Nikolai Yezhov was the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union. He was head of Stalin’s secret police, the dreaded NKVD, which was rebranded years later as the KGB. Most important, he was, at least for the moment, in Stalin’s good graces, a precarious place to be. As he well knew. Yezhov was everything Stephen Miller wants to be. He was the guy responsible for carrying out what became known as the Great Terror. His job was the systematic and ruthless elimination, often through summary execution, of anyone Stalin suspected might be an “enemy of the people.” This was a lengthy list, numbering in the many thousands, and from all reports Yezhov made a substantial dent in it. That year, there was an official photo taken of Stalin, Yezhov, and two others  walking along a canal in Moscow.  (One of the others was Vyacheslav Molotov, whose notorious cocktails had not yet been introduced).  A mere three years later, Yezhov was out of the ...
2 comments
Read more

Is Anyone Surprised There’s No Plan for Iran?

     It’s a given that Trump has no idea what he’s doing. But that hasn’t stopped him from launching a devastating attack on Iran which, looking back, was always going to happen. Not that there’s a rational reason for war with Iran, or for burning through a billion dollars a day, or for tanking the global economy, or for putting literally billions of lives at risk. He’s Trump, he doesn’t need a reason. But as much as Trump lies, when it comes to the big things — mass deportation, Venezuela, election denial — he generally means what he says, insane as that might be. Are you listening Cuba? Do you think he’s forgotten you Greenland? So when he started signalling that Iran was next on his bucket list, I suppose this day was always going to come. We knew there would be no real plan or objective, just the sick whims of a senile sociopath, drunk on power. Of course, Republicans have fallen all over themselves trying to stay ahead of the narrative du jo...
1 comment
Read more