TRUMP: THE POST TRUTH PRESIDENT.

In the year 2016 the prestigious Oxford Dictionary named “post truth” as the word of the year. They defined it, with consummate British understatement, as “relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”. Donald J. Trump fits the bill even though he has ratcheted up the concept several notches.

There is no precedent for the conduct of the present POTUS. His behavior defies analysis because there is not a single demonstrable consistent strain of honesty, morality and decency in his nature, not to mention that he has no definable or discernible political philosophy or foreign policy. He thrives on his inappropriate behavior repeating and repeating it, more often than not, upping the ante. In every area of conduct he reaches and rereaches a new low. His personal, conventional and legal standards are rock bottom demonstrating the features of a sadistic, racist, narcissistic, bullying and destructive sociopath. He is an unashamed liar - what other President has witnessed a whole front page of a newspaper replete with the lies he has spewed out within less than being six months in office? As an aside his knowledge of American history and civics is so putrid that he would fail the examination immigrants need to take before being admitted as citizens.

So it had to be an environment out of the ordinary that a Trump could emerge as the leader of the American nation, which the Post Truth milieu is.

THE RESPONSE TO THE POST TRUTHER

It is fair to say that his manifestation of toxic attributes have flummoxed conventional critique. Any one of his behaviors would normally have finished a public figure’s career. The tactic The Donald employed seems to be, to follow an outrageous episode with another one immediately thereby not giving the bewildered and shocked fourth estate and public time to fully digest and comment on the first one as they wrestle with the second. 

Commentators have claimed that he is not fit to hold office. His sanity has been questioned. In November a book is out where several mental health care professionals will put forward their arguments as to what makes up his psychopathology. His sycophantic staff have, in their support for him, embellished the Oxford English Dictionary Definition of Post Truth claiming he has “alternative facts”, “the voters knew what they were voting for” or they just follow the teacher and outright back an obvious lie. His fellow Republicans have heaped faint praise on him or rationalized, “He is new at this game of politics”. All that the fourth estate can do is respond by exposing each incident to full public view and reveal more and more about him and his unscrupulous actions. This in the hope that somewhere in the future there is a last straw that will break the camel’s back. (It happened to Senator McCarthy and Richard Nixon they argue.) 

WHAT TRUMPISM MEANS TO GOVERNANCE

From a governing point of view there is nothing that he says or does that means anything. Unlike Alice in Wonderland where words meant what she said they meant, with The Donald, words mean nothing they are meaningless. He may claim that he undyingly supports Medicaid but will go on to support a Bill that axes it. He will then attack the Bill he backed with a celebration at the WhiteHouse, by describing it as being “mean”. He will emphatically state that Obamacare must be repealed and replaced simultaneously and then come out forcefully for first repeal and then replacement. 

There is an overwhelming consensus from the seventeen investigative agencies that Russia perpetrated an act of war by attempting to impact who should govern this country. Rather than reassure the nation that plans are being put in place to prevent a recurrence he challenges these well founded findings as “fake news” and a “Democratic sideshow to excuse themselves from losing an election they should have won”. He riles up the mob attacking the media and even tweeting wrestling with them. 

There is a strong prima facie case that his campaign colluded with the Russians to which case he responded by firing the principal investigator. In the teeth of all the latter he meets with the Russian Ambassador confides in him that now that he has axed the “nut job” who was investigating the Russian thing and this will make their relationship easier. To add insult to injury he then blurts out highly classified information to the Russians putting our ally's operatives, that provided the sensitive data, at risk. 

For the first time Jay H. Ell actually is fearful as to what he might say and do with Putin at the G20 Meeting. It is on the street that he has had no briefings for this important meeting. He is going to wing it. As per usual no one has any idea as to what he is going to say and neither, probably, has he. Will he defy Cabinet Members as he did at the NATO Heads Meeting when he pointedly omitted to reassure our allies that he would come to their aid if attacked - the basis of maintaining the post war peace?  Will he announce a new detente with Russia as thanks for their act of war or will he if Putin looks at him wrong, attack him? 

The even more fearful reality is that this unstable man is entrusted with the keys to the nuclear arsenal. 

He can however claim one major foreign policy achievement - he has in six short months relegated America from being the most influential country in the world to sixth place behind China, Russia, India, Germany and France. From America First to America Sixth! (The good news is that America is ahead of Great Britain which also has an acute case of Post Truthitis). 

HOW DID TRUMP GET TO THE TOP? - THE POST TRUTH ERA

The miracle in all of this is that how did this aberration become President in the first place? How did he float to the top like scum on the waves. In the first place his survival, let alone success, in business is a condemnation of American business practices and the legal system. Six bankruptcies, refusing to pay scores of workers, suing or threatening to sue anyone who looked like crossing him and practicing fraud and deceit was not enough to halt him. An egregious example of his practices was played out in front of the electorate’s very eyes when his defrauding of hundreds of students with his “fake” Trump University was litigated. Inter alia he claimed the Judge was biased against him because he was of Mexican lineage and that he never settled litigation. He then settled the case for $25 million and claimed victory.

The answer to Trump’s emergence is that we are in the Post Truth era where emotions and beliefs triumph facts.

The Post Truth era is characterized by an abandonment of values, morality and accountability. There is a scapegoating of the other. There is a crying of victimhood. The only virtues are profiting and winning. Corporations who dominate the world economy are not interested in the constituencies of their employees, society and nation but rather quarterly profits. Rather than employ more workers and expand the company they buy back shares inflating their own and shareholders wealth. Wages haven’t risen in decades. High paying jobs have been lost, either through automation, progress or outsourcing. Healthcare costs are going through the roof. Student debt is humungous as College fees have risen unbelievably. There is a drug epidemic as society self medicates itself out of despair. The disparity between rich and poor has expanded exponentially. The Walton family who own Walmart have more wealth than the lowest forty percent of the population. 

In all this the conventional politicians have not done much to alleviate the situation. Some are portrayed as aiding and abetting the plutocrats and the oligarchs. It is the same old same old. They are all are said to promise everything but deliver nothing. Washington is a swamp of self serving fat cats. They legislate for the rich to keep their wealth. 

SO ENTER TRUMP THE SAVIOR

In this milieu the slickest salesman in the world emerges and promises the world. Enough people believe him and they unleash the monster. He lies that he is a self made billionaire. He argues he is a blue collar billionaire. He understands the people. He will make the corporations bring back jobs and the money they have stashed oversea, spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure, open the coal mines, give healthcare for everyone and get rid of the disastrous Obamacare, axe the Trade Deals, put America First, cut taxes for everyone and on and on.

The mantra continues. America is being taken for a sucker. The Muslims all of them are out to kill us, the illegal Latino immigrants are stealing our jobs and undercutting us while raping our daughters and robbing us blind. He will keep the Muslims out and chuck the Latinos out  He will Make America Great Again - code for Make America White Again. 

He tells the Conservative Evangelicals that he is their Jesus candidate and he has redeemed himself. He will deliver them an anti abortion judge. He says that in this country under his rule they can get back into politics and people will be allowed to say Merry Xmas again. He tells the law and order people he is their law and order candidate. These are two constituencies that he just may not renege on.

He declares war on the media which cover him almost exclusively, to the ching ching of ratings through the sky. So in the Primaries he demolishes an army of the Republican Swamp. He takes up all the oxygen and no one else gets a look in. The media try and expose him when a Trump Presidency becomes a possibility. But it is too late. He attacks them as Fake News -. they lie, they are politically correct, they are in cahoots with crooked Hillary and the Establishment.   He confides that the system is rigged against him as it is against his beautiful people. He uses his history with wrestling promotion to work up the crowd just short of real violence. Trump is strong. He is tough. He is one of them. He tells it how it is.

His adoring hysterical stadiums of tens of thousands are only too agreeable that the media lie as do all his opponents - facts are not facts anymore its how you feel. (It is futile to point out that he has claimed that his majority was the largest in history, that Hillary obtained three million votes more than him as a result of voter fraud and that his inauguration was attended by the largest crowd ever). Crooked Hillary is protected by the Fake News. They are all against him as they are all against his people…..

They are the true believers and deliverers of Trump in the Post Truth World.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

* The America system is durable but it is being tested to the core. If the checks and balances got rid of Nixon, who was a choirboy compared to Trump, there must be hope that the present POTUS will go too. 

* It must, however, be realized that Trump didn’t emerge in a vacuum. The fact that he was far more corrupt than those he was attacking was deemed irrelevant. He was attacking, with some truth, the system that they thought was fat and wracked with cronyism and corruption. He was advocating paradigm change via a virulent form of populism. The last century saw three examples of how dangerous and malevolent these demagogues can be - Hitler, Stalin and Tojo. Others populists once in power became totalitarian but at least didn’t commit mass murder. None are accredited with having done more good then harm.

* To prevent and hopefully reverse Trumpism in the age of the Post Truth society, society has to once again embrace a value system and morality where the neighbor and the stranger are cared for. The underdog needs to be reassured that she has not been forgotten. Also the spoils of society need to be shared. CEO’s with compliant well paid boards need to stop voting themselves salaries over a thousand times more than their lowest paid worker. Governments have to once again become more caring of those less fortunate. 

* It is blasphemous Jay H. Ell supposes, even in these circumstances, on July 4, to quip - “Come back King George all is forgiven”.

* They say that President Washington couldn’t tell a lie, President Nixon couldn’t tell a truth and President Trump couldn’t tell the difference.