[UPDATE: Arizona senator Ruben Gallego says that he thinks Trump is literally insane and that “Everyone needs to stop pretending this is rational.” We need to encourage more people to say this.]
Trump has been doing many cruel and absurd things, too many to list, and besides which most readers of this blog are already aware of them. It has provided late night comics with plenty of fodder. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show provides many examples over a few days from just the past week.
But this is no laughing matter. It is tempting for people who are sane and rational to try and find reasons for Trump’s bizarre and erratic behavior. One of the most popular ones is that he is a master of distraction and uses these things to take people’s attention away from his declining popularity, the high cost of living and housing, lack of health care plans, and of course, the Epstein files.
But his actions over Greenland, his weird text message to the prime minister of Norway complaining about not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize being a factor in his attempt to annex Greenland (even though it is a protectorate of Denmark and not Norway) and that he would impose tariffs on European countries if they did not agree to his demands, suggest to me a level of irrationality that cannot be easily explained away as some kind of deep fake.
Republicans in congress and European leaders and are expressing serious concerns.
European leaders have lined up to condemn Donald Trump’s “new colonialism” and warn that the continent was facing a crossroads as the US president said there was no going back on his goal of controlling Greenland.
After weeks of aggressive threats by Trump to seize the vast Arctic island, which is a largely autonomous part of Denmark, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Tuesday he preferred “respect to bullies” and the “rule of law to brutality”.
Macron told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that now was “not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism”, criticising the “useless aggressivity” of Trump’s pledge to levy tariffs on countries that opposed a US takeover of Greenland.
The US was seeking to “weaken and subordinate Europe” by demanding “maximum concessions” and imposing tariffs that were “fundamentally unacceptable – even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty”, he said.
European countries are looking at ways to retaliate, even considering using a trade weapon called the “Anti-Coercion Instrument”, known colloquially as the ‘bazooka’.
Regional diplomats held an emergency meeting in Brussels on Sunday afternoon to discuss their response to Trump’s threat to escalate tariffs, with France reportedly pushing for the EU to use its strongest economic counter-threat to the U.S., known as the “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI).
The much-vaunted instrument is seen as a nuclear option when it comes to economic counter-measures as it could see the EU restrict U.S. suppliers’ access to the EU market, excluding them from participation in public tenders in the bloc, as well as putting export and import restrictions on goods and services and putting potential limits on foreign direct investment in the region.
Despite being seen as a “big bazooka” against Trump’s tariffs playbook, it has not been used before, and regional leaders have already said they want to pursue dialogue with the U.S. in the coming days to resolve the rift over Greenland.
The Financial Times reported that the EU was contemplating imposing 93 billion euros ($108 billion) worth of tariffs, as well as considering the use of the ACI.
I am beginning to think that Trump is in fact suffering from serious mental illness. It is not always present or visible. There are times when his behavior and words, even if exceedingly ugly, seem rational, driven by the hate and anger that form such a basic part of his psyche. But his Greenland obsession and some of the other recent behavior that Stewart shows in the above clip signal a level of monomania and disassociation from reality that cannot be easily dismissed as performative theater on his part.
It goes without saying that I am not a medical professional with any expertise in diagnosing mental illness. But when you reach my age, you sadly get familiar with elderly people you know who start to behave in ways that suggest dementia, enough to recognize warning signs that it is maybe time to take away their car keys and keep them under supervision.
It may be time for the country and the world to come to terms with the fact that the president of the United States may well be, literally, insane.
Seriously, this has been clear for quite some time. Yes, he was always stupid, lazy, hateful, and vindictive, but he is also now very obviously out of his tiny little mind. Everybody has been in complete denial about it, but the Emperor is
stark bollock nakedcompletely fucking nuts.I keep wondering how long it’s going to be until he has a complete psychotic breakdown on live TV, because apparently that what it’s going to take for people to admit the obvious.
After all the other outrageous stuff he’s done that has been rationalized away, I don’t know if there is a line he can cross, other than dying, that will stop this. Coprophagia, maybe? I dunno.
he could reach in his slacks, pull out a steaming handful, and gargle it on live tv, and his followers would cry deepfake.
No, trump is no less sane than your average run-of-the-mill sociopathic narcissist. He simply does not care. He obviously hates the USA.
European leaders wanting dialogue gives trump exactly what he wants -- an excuse for blaming them for failing to agree to his demands.
Implement a massive sales tax on those goods that trump doesn’t tariff (there are always carve-outs) that target only US buyers. Hell, just up the price for all goods heading to the US.
The USA can no longer be trusted when the majority of those who can be bothered to vote there think trump is a good option (more suitable than a far better qualified brown skinned woman) simply because he feeds their hates and fears.
I don’t think we need to get into insanity to explain why a supremely egoistic , highly vindictive person, surrounded by enablers and grifters and manipulators will end up with crazy demands. (See any tech Billionaire)
The doctor who has hitherto been in charge of meting out Trump’s carefully finessed hour-by-hour meds regime is now in on the run..
I can understand those who are saying in the comments that what we are witnessing is just the behavior of a narcissistic, vindictive, sociopath.
Yes, he is all those things. But I am suggesting that there could be an extreme manifestation of those traits that cross over into derangement, and that he is displaying it.
As I said, I do not really know. But I think that the use of the word ‘crazy’ to describe him is moving from being a metaphor to literal..
Nick @4, I have to agree with Mano that there’s been a noticeable escalation into true insanity. But, you are quite right that the US can’t be trusted, with or without Trump, and I think that’s been the case for a while now.
As Nick so rightly says, the EU “talking” to him is worse than useless. They should say that they’re implementing the nuclear option, the most severe form of it, right now, and that they’re imposing all the worst tariffs too. Because, Big Money is actually what governs America, and the slightest change in the status quo will shake their system to the foundations.
The Achilles’ heel of Big Money’s global power structure, depending as it does wholly on no change in the status quo, is that it makes the structure very vulnerable to the actions of the rest of the global players.
So, the EU doesn’t have to actually *do* the nuclear option or the tarriffs: it just has to *say* that it’s doing them (this is not testimony under oath.) It’ll definitely not take months for Big Money to panic and stop Trump so that they can keep their position of absolute power and wealth. I think that just the threat of implementing it will bring a lot of Big Money around to forbid Trump doing any such thing.
(And, if not, kick him a few billion under the table as well. If that doesn’t get his attention, or if the screams of Big Money don’t sway him, it means he is unquestionably insane, and other measures must be taken. Maybe….doping his Diet Coke with large doses of antipsychotics? I’m not kidding. They are quite sedating, so at least he’d be down for some periods of time.)
Perhaps we’re down to hoping that the military brass, when ordered to send bombs and troops to Greenland, will just refuse to obey.
“Crazy Stupid” or “Stupid Crazy”, The Orange Turd is the stupidest person to have EVER been elected as POTUS, and maybe any office ever. He has done so much damage to the country, and the world, that it will take generations to recover (if ever).