CommentsGELFAND’S WORLD--This year, April Fools' Day was kind of a bust. There have been a few jokes including Jack Humphreville's March 29 column, but things have otherwise been kind of dry in the hoax biz. Perhaps this is because April 1 happened to coincide with Easter Sunday, but I suspect that the main reason has to do with the tsunami of fakery we've been getting drowned under since Trump started his run for the presidency. It's been a real life restaging of Lily Tomlin's famous old line, "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."
If two years ago I had told you that we would have a president who uses Twitter, you might have doubted me. If I had foretold any of what he said in those Tweets, you would have thought me a loon. If three years ago, anyone had told us that the words in the Constitution about emoluments would become a matter of public controversy, we would have rolled our eyes in wonder.
There is a back story to this column. I suggested to the publisher of CityWatch that we send off an email blast on April 1 with an April Fool joke. It wasn't all that great a joke (a story about the City Council interfering with neighborhood councils), but the reply I received from the publisher was better than the original joke. I was told that we've had enough fake news already.
That's pretty blunt, but when you think about it, you realize that it's next to impossible to outdo the serial April Fooling that the president has played upon the American people.
The only difference is that he is spinning April Fool stories chronically, and he somehow seems to expect that at least some people will believe them. Lincoln said that you can fool some of the people all the time, and Trump must have figured, "Hey, that's my base."
In his latest big lie, he referred to the suddenly well known right wing broadcasting system Sinclair as follows: "Sinclair is far superior to CNN, and even more fake NBC, which is a total joke." It's the old DC comic story of Bizarro World all over again, but this time the Bizarro character -- played by the president -- is real. Just like the old comic book characters, what is true to normal people is a lie to them, and vice versa. Sure, Sinclair is superior to CNN and the sun rises in the west.
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It's interesting how a certain fraction of the American people like to vote for presidential candidates who can be expected to act immorally. I thought (and wrote at the time) that George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 in spite of his poor performance in office, and because enough voters knew deep down that he would act with cruelty and violence toward suspected terrorists, in spite of international law or Constitutional restrictions. He didn't have to say so, and his core voters could pretend that it was otherwise, but they understood that this was a man who could be counted on to do the things that nobody would admit to wishing for out loud.
With Trump, it was even more overt. It went beyond the casual racism and xenophobia that was expressed on the surface both by the candidate and by the people who cheered for him at his rallies. Beneath the surface there was the same dynamic at play. People felt that Trump would act the mad man in office the same way he had played the part of the mad man during the campaign.
The inference was that there was some cunning beneath the bluster -- Trump as modern day Richard Nixon as it were.
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And that's where the American people have been the butt of the biggest April Fool joke in our history. Numerous accounts told to credible reporters (not to mention a building wave of tell-all publications) reveal a president who can't concentrate on facts or logic long enough to reach the level of rational thought required of a national leader. We've been told about his unwillingness to sit still for the security briefings that all modern presidents prior to Trump were provided. He also has revealed an inner malice that is projected outward on pretty much anybody who says anything critical about him.
He has postured and blustered about dealing with America's opponents, only to fold, or merely to reverse himself, claiming that he never said what everyone heard him say.
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Worst of all, he came into office full of strange ideas about international trade. He seems to think of it as war rather than peace -- there's the Bizarro World all over again. It's a strange idea, but listen to the words he uses in expressing his views. He also seems to project a view of trade as occurring between antagonists who are fully as dishonest as he is himself. That's the Trumpian projection of his inner dishonesty.
Put together the lack of ability to concentrate on complexities, the inner dishonesty projected outward, and the bluster of the schoolyard bully, and you have the 45th president, the worst April Fool joke this nation has yet endured.
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Speaking of schoolyard bullies, a couple of them by the names of Laura Ingraham and Ted Nugent made the news this past week. Each one took on an opponent too tough for them to deal with. Ingraham attacked Florida high school student David Hogg and came out the worse for the encounter.
Using an approach similar to that of his classmate Emma Gonzalez, Hogg skipped the academic style of response. Instead, he invited people to contact her advertisers and complain. And they did. And then some of her advertisers (18 at last count) dropped her. And then she made an insincere apology.
Hogg, as reported by the worldwide media, rejected her apology. "A bully is a bully."
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Nugent went on talk radio and spoke patronizingly of the Parkland survivors as "mushy-brained children." It turns out that Nugent is a board member of the National Rifle Association, which has, so far, avoided coming to his defense. I suspect that Nugent will fare slightly better than Ingraham simply because he is already known as a flake.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
