- Thu Jun 25, 2020 10:50 am
#126061
Reliably, johnforbes is entirely missing the point again.
It is not a matter of Trump feeling exhausted by another day at work. It is not a matter of him persevering and pressing onward. Of course he does.
I'm sure Trump has had dozens (if not hundreds) of days where he felt like that over his life. He faced many bankruptcies and business failures, he's been hundreds of millions in debt, he's run projects that walk the frightening line between success and disaster many times, and then he got up the next day and did it again.
But there is a difference this time. Sure, he got back up the next day. But that ignores the hard realities of life that he's facing.
Trump is 74 years old now, not 35. He doesn't have the stamina (mental or physical) he had when he was 35. Nobody does. He's taking on a job that is even more stressful than property development in New York City.
I'm sure johnforbes will pretend that he read The Art of War. But even if he did, he forgets the most basic concepts it discusses. One being that when you are weak, you appear strong, and when you are strong, you appear weak.
It is widely understood in the U.S. and around the world that Trump is not strong politically. So he understandably attempts to appear strong with silly high school pep rallies, surrounding himself with mindless, bleating acolytes. What Trump had to face on Saturday night was that he could no longer shore up his ridiculous public image by using his go-to childish ploys. The mobs of people just aren't going to show up any more. People watching TV are not the same thing. As johnforbes points out, "that's life." You keep going.
But what did Trump do in front of the world? He didn't just allow himself to APPEAR weak. In his trudge across the lawn, his mask came down and he allowed the world to see just how weak he actually IS. He did it in front of Putin and Kim and Erdogan and Duterte and Xi. I've never seen him like that and johnforbes has never seen him like that. I don't believe Trump would have ever allowed such a thing 20 years ago in his business dealings.
The job takes the same toll on everyone who holds it. You saw what it did to Johnson and Nixon and Carter and Clinton and W. Bush and Obama--- and now Trump. Without his hair dye and orange makeup we would see a wraith trembling in our midst or shuffling uncertainly down a ramp.
Presidents like Carter and Obama and Bush had family and real friends to support them at the end. Trump essentially has no one. He has thrown them under the bus or massacred the rest in the name of his ego. His wife won't touch him. His kids (other than Ivanka perhaps) are not close. His friends (if he ever really had any) are opportunists that don't really care for him personally. The only 'friends' he's likely to have are those he pardons of their crimes.
(Incidentally, Obama and Biden never faced defeat in 2016. They weren't running for President so they couldn't be defeated, could they. And Hillary won by 3 million votes, so they didn't even 'lose' by that standard. The Democrat Party was defeated by superior technical finagling, that's all.)