“The fake images and the false boast are not separate stories.”
Sure, I LOATH his politics. But, beyond that, he’s a weird man. I saw someone complain on their Substack, “Why does the media ignore his madness?” Lately, it’s been too difficult to avoid.
Why did he explain executions to kids? Was the lesson for children “to fear difference, obey power, and treat vulnerable people as threats”?
From April 13: His Erratic Behavior and Extreme Comments Revive Mental Health Debate. As he “threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope, even some former allies and advisers are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced, describing him as ‘lunatic’ and ‘clearly insane.'”
Thomas Meisenhelder complained in Common Sense that the man “isn’t mentally ill; he’s evil.” Moreover, “repeating time and time again that [he] is crazy not only negatively affects the mentally ill but also seriously misunderstands the man and his policies.” Yeah, I get it. But isn’t it possible that he’s BOTH crazy and evil?
NOT a genius
I’ve been reading the Facebook feed, It’s a Lovely Life by Heather Delaney Reese. Here’s just a part of her June 1 feed:
“In the middle of the night, while most Americans were fast asleep, [he] was awake inside the White House. Unable to get any much-needed rest, he opened Truth Social and shared a post that had the complete opposite effect he hoped it would.
“And at exactly 12:35 this morning, [he] decided it was the perfect time to announce to the world that a cognitive screening exam, the kind doctors use to help identify signs of cognitive impairment and dementia, proved he possessed what he called ‘extreme intelligence…’
“But what he either doesn’t understand, or what nobody told him, is that these tests are not designed to measure genius. They’re not IQ tests, and they’re not difficult for those without impairments to pass. They are screening tools used by doctors to determine whether someone may be showing signs of significant cognitive decline. Healthy adults are expected to perform well on them. The goal isn’t to identify extraordinary intelligence. It’s to identify potential impairment.
This “makes [his] insistence that this was a ‘high difficulty’ test proving his ‘extreme intelligence’ far more revealing than the score itself…
“During a seven-hour posting spree on [May 30] alone, he shared more than fifty posts, including fake images of himself standing beside George Washington, multiple depictions of himself carved into Mount Rushmore, and jealousy that China has a ballroom and he doesn’t. And later, he even posted a bizarre power-fantasy image of Air Force One surrounded by a military escort…
Falsehoods galore
“The fake images and the false boast are not separate stories. They are the same story. Both are attempts to manufacture a version of himself that reality will not provide. He cannot place himself alongside anyone alive today who is of historical significance these days, so he commands others to create fake images of himself with George Washington. He cannot point to actual evidence of extraordinary intelligence, so he points to a test that was never designed to measure it. The medium changes, but the impulse remains the same. Image by image. Post by post. Claim by claim. He is constructing a version of himself that the facts cannot sustain…
“That is why we should expect more chaos, more spectacle, and more manufactured crises. We need to prepare now for more attempts to make us exhausted, divided, frightened, and distracted because they know the clock is ticking.”
Another Heather
Here’s Heather Cox Richardson on June 2: “His posts seemed designed primarily to reassure himself. By Saturday, so many of the musical acts his team had lined up to play at his Freedom 250 “Great American State Fair” from late June through the beginning of July had bailed that he posted that he was ‘thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History…’
“A series of AI images in the style of the 1950s Dick and Jane readers show a town parade festooned with flags and patriotic bunting, little girls laughing together at an old-fashioned town fair, and little boys in a suburb playing ball. All of the images read: ‘AMERICA IS BACK!’ And in them, all of the people are white.
“He posted an image of a white family from that era standing beside a Cadillac Coupe DeVille parked on a suburban street, with the caption: ‘BILLIONS WERE SPENT TO CONVINCE YOU THIS IS EVIL.’
djt is 80 and appears to be utterly daft. Kim Wehle, opinion contributor for The Hill, says he’s “losing it and must be removed.”
