A Merry Trump Christmess to You
On Sunday, Trump held a Christmas reception with families at the White House. (The part that has not yet been torn down.) I don’t have the heart to post the video of his Christmas speech, but a few of his comments leap out.
Again, keep in mind two things:
1) This was his speech at a Christmas reception.
2) Dementia is degenerative.
Trump says that he won California in 2024, but the election was rigged.
(For the record, Kamala Harris won her home state of California by 20 points, which was 3,195,000 votes. That’s much rigging would probably cause a power overload and crash the computers. That said, I think I may have figured out what Trump is talking about when he say the election was "rigged" -- -- he means it like "rigging" a sailboat. Putting all the sails, masts & ropes in proper formation so that the boat works properly & sails smoothly with no problems!)
Trump addressed the tragic shooting at Brown University late Saturday night where two people were killed by a gunman and nine people were injured, some still in critical condition, by saying: “Things happen.”
(The only positive in this is that Trump didn't try to show false compassion by merely offering nothing except "thoughts and prayers." And at least it's far better than what he said yesterday about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.)
Trump told a 10-minute story about a man (supposedly) getting bit by snake on a trip to Peru and was (supposedly) near death – again, a reminder that this was at the White House Christmas party...with children -- and how 28,000 people die of snakebites there every year and then he suddenly stopped to comment, “Look at how quiet everybody is. You know, it's funny. When you talk about snakes and things like that, people find it interesting."
(Actually, no, what is overwhelmingly probable is that people were utterly aghast at what they were hearing. By the way, fun fact: each year in Peru, about 10 people die of snakebites.)
Trump brought up the disastrous economy and says, “You’re going to see results in six months to a year.”
(For the record, we’re seeing results now. But to translate Trump here, he’s saying, “I have absolutely no idea. And don’t ask me again about me saying this because I’ll say I never did, and you’re a nasty person.” P.S. A few months ago, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that Trump’s economy would kick in this January. Not six months after. Or a year after. But then, of course, Trump promised he would lower prices on Day 1. In fairness, he never said which day "Day 1" would be.)
Trump said that he “assumes” that the (non-existent) $18 trillion of investment which foreign countries keep telling him they may possibly do but none has actually been invested yet, if ever, will start showing up in the economic data soon.
(Nations have long-since learned that they can promise Trump anything and not follow-through, which largely happened in his first term, since Trump will ride the promise as far as he can push that horse before it gives out.)
Trump said that “truckloads” of evidence is about to be released, proving that the 2020 election was stolen.
(I knew someone with dementia, and he kept repeating the same false stories over and over and over, and couldn't be convinced there was nothing remotely real about what he was saying. We'd often watch baseball games together, and he'd say "I've seen this game." Asking him, "Oh! Who won?" didn't budge him from the delusion. He'd just keep saying he'd seen the game already.)
Trump saw a woman in the audience, got distracted by her and said that she looks like his daughter Ivanka and told her to turn for the cameras. (Being Trump, for all we know, it was Ivanka. And even if he knew that, he still might have told her to turn around for the cameras.)
Trump started to rave about a “triumphal arch” he is going to build in Washington, D.C.
(No word on what he's talking about. When France built its Arc de Triomphe in 1836, it was to commemorate the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Perhaps he was misunderstood and said he was going to build a "Trumphal arch," which -- being Trump -- would at least make more Trump sense.)
Trump said “We had three great patriots terminated” in Syria by ISIS.
(Cold-hearted as this is, though not by Trump standards, at least he didn’t just say, “Things happen.” Also, in his first term, Trump said that he wiped out ISIS.)
And as a bonus, Trump invited pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau to the podium. DeChambeau – who left the PGA Tour to play on the Saudi LIV Tour when they paid him to a $125 million – went on to praise Trump for creating “the greatest economy we’ve ever had”.
(What Bryson DeChambeau, who is not most people’s go-to guy for economic analysis, left out is that what he means is when you leave the PGA Tour and make $125 million from the Saudis for joining their LIV Tour, that is what's the greatest economy he's ever seen. Everything else is collapsing.)
I only have one comment to add to this –
I know that Trump's dementia has been normalized so much that we give such things a pass because saying "Imagine if President Biden said this" would be an endless loop. Well... it’s not normal.
Imagine if President Biden said this. Any of this. But especially all of this.
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