Tag: trump

Subject to whim and caprice?

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“He has moved to keep a number of the scary promises that were easier to dismiss as unfeasible during the campaign than to accept as actual policies in the real world. But the big stories he has generated have had nothing to do with these actions.

[…]

This is the result of a manipulation strategy described long ago by historian and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky: ‘Keep the adult public attention diverted away from the real social issues, and captivated by matters of no real importance.’ Leftists such as Chomsky argue that this is what capitalist elites do, but I know it as a common tactic of kleptocratic regimes such as Vladimir Putin’s in Russia.”

 

Trump is a master of diversionary tactics
Leonid Bershidsky, Opinion, Chicago Tribune

 

Graphic by Rafael Barker

 

We keep hearing, almost without cease,
That he’s subject to whim and caprice.
If you buy it, you’re dreaming;
His act is the scheming
Of a wolf who is costumed in fleece.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

An incompetence crisis is coming

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“The normal incompetent person flails and stammers and is embarrassed about it. But the true genius at incompetence like our president flails and founders and is too incompetent to recognize his own incompetence. He mistakes his catastrophes for successes and so accelerates his pace toward oblivion. Those who ignore history are condemned to retweet it.”

 

The Coming Incompetence Crisis
David Brooks, Opinion, The New York Times

 

 

An incompetence crisis is coming,
a notable prospect that’s numbing;
’cause it seems there are still
key positions to fill
just to keep their ineptitude humming.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Are we witnessing still more distractions

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“And on it goes, day after day, a thickening fog of diversion and obfuscation, taking public attention away from the FBI’s investigation into possible treason by Trump and his aides, and focusing it instead on a thickening smog of other controversies.

 

“Trump knows that reporters need stories, and he is only happy to oblige. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous or baseless they might be. The more they obscure the big story, the more useful they are.”

 

Trump cranks up fog machine to confuse American public
Robert Reich, Opinion, San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

Are we witnessing still more distractions
and assessments of worldwide reactions
as the POTUS and crew
launch a trumped up preview
to prepare us for coming attractions?

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Tonight, as the gibbous moon waxes

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“The notion that military action salvages a president on the defensive, boldly underscoring his role as commander in chief, is nothing new. But there’s a fresh wrinkle in this case, because those bombs put Trump at particular odds with Russia at a moment when there’s enormous advantage in that.”

 

The Riddle of Trump’s Syria Attack
Frank Bruni, Opinion, The New York Times

 

 

Tonight, as the gibbous moon waxes,
Consider how crisis distracts us:
Eighty million-plus bucks
Spent on Tomahawk strikes—
What portion of that from his taxes?

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

Our “prez” thinks assault is a sport

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“There’s at least one person who’s defending O’Reilly, calling him “a good person” and even declaring “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”

 

That person is the President of the United States. Oh yeah, this is the same President who just proclaimed that this is sexual assault awareness month and touted the need to “protect vulnerable groups.” He does this by defending a powerful man repeatedly accused of sexual harassment? Talk about raising awareness.”

 

Of course Trump defended O’Reilly
Mel Robbins, Opinion, CNN

 

 

Our “prez” thinks assault is a sport
With women he loves to cavort
He brags of his grab
Or makes fun of their flab
In O’Reilly he’s found a cohort.

© 2017 Bettijane Burger

 

In a show of dramatic incaution

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“Of course, as many people have pointed out, there were scores of images of dead and injured Syrian children well before this chemical attack — like the photo of young Aylan Kurdi laying face down on a beach and Omran Daqneesh, covered in dust and blood after being pulled from the rubble of an airstrike — but instead of being compelled to act in their favor then, Trump took measures to ban them from coming to the United States in search of safety.”

 

People Are Pointing Out Trump’s Hypocrisy In Bombing Syria Instead Of Accepting Its Refugees
Bustle

 

Graphic by Rafael Barker

 

 

In a show of dramatic incaution,
He’s suddenly full of emotion
For children who die,
Though he’s turned a blind eye
To small refugees drowned in the ocean.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

Puttering, sputtering

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“The British called it ‘Window’; the Luftwaffe dubbed its version ‘Düppel.’ For the Americans, ‘Chaff’ was the code name for the top-secret weapon that, in July 1943, allowed the US Army Air Forces to obliterate Hamburg in broad daylight. For the past two weeks, the Trump administration has been using a Chaff approach to media management—and if we don’t learn how to deal with it, we may suffer the same fate as Hamburg.”

 

This WWII Military Strategy Perfectly Explains What Trump Is Doing to the Media
The Nation

 

Puttering, sputtering
POTUS keeps uttering
venomous, vacuous
gobbledegook.
Calling for action he’s
melodramatically
tweeting distractions we
never should brook.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

The Blame Game

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“One of the most destructive human pastimes is playing the blame game. It has been responsible for mass casualties of war, regrettable acts of road rage, and on a broad interpersonal level (social, familial and work-related), a considerable amount of human frustration and unhappiness. The blame game consists of blaming another person for an event or state of affairs thought to be undesirable, and persisting in it instead of proactively making changes that ameliorate the situation.”

 

Stop Playing the Blame Game
Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D., Psychology Today

 

Graphic by Rafael Barker


 

 

He’s up again, in his pajamas,
Tweeting about all his traumas,
And no matter what’s wrong,
You can bet, before long,
He’ll be claiming the fault is Obama’s.

© 2017 Colleen Anderson

 

The devious merchants of war

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“In a coincidence we all hope isn’t prophetic, the US entered World War One exactly 100 years ago on the day Trump ordered the military intervention in Syria.

 

“On April 6 1917, Congress voted to enter the then bloodiest war history had ever seen, which had already been raging for three years.

 

“The war took the lives of more than 17 million worldwide.

 

“Historians argue that US’ intervention altered the outcome of the war, and the course of history.”

 

Donald Trump bombed Syria exactly 100 years after the US joined the First World War
Indy100

 

 

The devious merchants of war
are busily picking the sore
so it never starts healing
and they can keep dealing
their killing machines evermore.

© 2017 Mary Boren

 

Slickery, Dickery

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“Someday they’re going to study this era in American history and they’re gonna study it alongside the Know-Nothing movement, and they’re gonna ask the question of all of us: ‘Where were you in 2017, when we had the worst president in the history of the United States?'” – Tom Perez, DNC Chair

 

Phillips’s conclusion is that those bewildered by current political affairs simply haven’t looked far enough back into history. “One can’t possibly make sense of [current events] unless you know something about nativism,” he says. “That requires you to go back in time to the Know Nothings. You have to realize the context is different, but the themes are consistent. The actors are still the same, but with different names.”

 

How the 19th-Century Know Nothing Party Reshaped American Politics
Smithsonian

 

 

Slickery, Dickery
Donald J. Trump must be
quite undeniably
clearly the worst
POTUS in history.
Slathered with mystery,
incontrovertible
truth stays submersed.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode