'Trumped': An OpEd

THE DUOPOLY WATCH | Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

“Trumped” is a word that has at least three distinct dictionary meanings.  One refers to card games in which a particular card or a particular suit outranks another, at all times during a given game, as in the game of Bridge. Then there is: “to excel; surpass; outdo.” And then there is “trumped up,” that is “to devise deceitfully or dishonestly, as an accusation; fabricate.” 

After this U.S. election season, another meaning may well be added to the list, if not in the dictionary cited, then perhaps in one or more others.  That would be something like “to be taken in/mis-led by, to be beaten by, to be evaded by, to be assaulted verbally and/or physically by, to be civilly or criminally discriminated against by, Donald J. Trump.”  In the context of Donald J. Trump, “Trump” is of course a proper noun.  However, since U.S. persons have never met a noun they didn’t want to verb, “Trumped” will like take on another verb identity in the U.S. lexicon (if not in that of English in general).

Many of us political observers/analysts have written extensively about this particular Trump for quite time.  One question about him that many of us have dealt with over time is: “is he crazy or “crazy like a fox.”  After being on one side, then the other, I have now come firmly on the side of “crazy like a fox.”  I think that this man is not out-of-control, ever.   I think that he only appears to be, on occasion, and I think that that is planned.  Since he started the Republican Party towards an openly racist platform in 2011, when he was one of the inventors of the fake news story about President Obama’s birthplace, religion, and etc., he has had the whole thing completely under control.  [Eds. - Obama, of course, and the DLC, have their own style of deception, but their brand is actually far more effective in many ways the GOPers have yet to master.]

In sum, I think that his speeches, gestures, yelling, put downs, personalization's and vehement personal attacks, are all planned, and unless he is really good at improv as an actor, rehearsed.  After all, if Hitler could rehearse all of his seemingly “spontaneous” gestures, facial expressions, and etc. (and it turned out that he did), Trump could too.  Trump is a past-master at following the number one Lee Atwater dictum of how to practice effective politics: “always attack; never defend.”

Trump may well write his famous tweets himself, but who can say that they are not ghost-written.  For he never seems to be sleepy during the day, and if he is up for significant hours during the night, following events and then tweeting about them, when does he sleep?

But what is happening now?  How are we and the nation going to get “Trumped” in this newest sense of the word?  Following what has been going involving both Trump, his cabinet-designees, and his staff appointments since the election, l don’t think that he is going to stay in the Presidency for very long.  (From the progressive side, I don’t think that this outcome should be met either by cheering or even feeling of relief for, as I have written, Mike Pence is even, in some ways, more dangerous than Donald Trump.)  I think that either he will be impeached (as I have projected in the past) or he will resign, with the appropriate flourishes about “patriotism and being able to serve the country better” on the one hand, and a series of vicious personal attacks and attacks on the media on the other. The latter—leaving aside the Trumpian character being discussed—well merited, as the mainstream media in the United States is a national and international disgrace.

If he hangs around long enough to be impeached, by his own party of course, it will have to do with policy.  As is very well-known, the Military-Industrial Complex is an essential engine of the US economy.  If it were not for the massive Federal government spending that supports it, the U.S. economy would likely collapse, not to mention stop enriching a cabal of defense contractors, hangers-on and sundry affiliated plutocrats that constitute a singularly malevolent power within the folds of the so-called Deep State.  So, any Trump-talk against NATO is against the interests of the dominant sector of the U.S. ruling class. 

One must also note that talk of cozying up to Russia has, unfortunately, entrapped more than one progressive into thinking that there is a “good side” to Trump.  There isn’t.  (I am not oblivious to the huge bonus of de-escalating tensions with Russia, a peer nuclear power, a good that requires no further comment. If that is accomplished, it is something entirely desirable, for the United States and humanity, and something that no genuine progressive can obstruct or complain about. However, I will be explaining my rationale for suspecting even this promised deterrence in a future column.) 

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Source: The Greanville Post