Another crazy Christmas with Donald Trump
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump is not necessarily wrong, after all, in his über-Scrooge belief that rich people’s crimes drive the world’s economy. Much of what his fans appear to love about him is that he makes no serious effort to hide his greed, cruelty, shallowness and lechery. His almost explicit question to Americans is: Why pretend to believe in anything? Why pretend to be better than we are? He would answer Abraham Lincoln’s famous rhetorical query about whether a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” can make it in this rapacious world, is pretty much STFU LOL.
However you make sense of the story of the Son of Man and its intersection with the turning of the solar year, their intermingling is no accident. Whether or not you are religious in the modern meaning of that word, this is a season of contemplation and celebration, of family gatherings in lighted caves, of reflection on everything that connects us and everything that dies, is born again, renews and continues. That part of it, at least, reaches deep into our primordial brains, or our species DNA. We witness the death of one year and the birth of a new one, which cannot help but remind us that we are all here for only a short time but that life, somehow or other, will go on.
I don’t need to tell you that all of this is lost on Donald Trump, whose close association with evangelical Christianity has revealed the moral bankruptcy of that entire movement. Frankly, I’m sorry I have to bring him up. As you already know if you’re reading this, the president whose boundless vanity cannot tolerate anyone else, or anything else, being the center of attention is determined to hijack Christmas 2018 and turn it into a spectacle of his own self-immolation, or another episode in his startlingly successful campaign to render America a mockery of itself.
There is a partial government shutdown, staged either to get billions of dollars out of Congress for a border wall that will never be built and no one actually wants, or to make Ann Coulter love him again. (My money’s on the latter.) Stock prices are in free fall, and Wall Street has officially entered a “bear market” following its worst week since the Great Recession of 2007-8. Trump abruptly decided to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, which might well be the right decision made for the wrong reasons, and without any semblance of strategy or planning. That finally drove Defense Secretary Jim Mattis out of the Pentagon, which — at least according to the mainstream media narrative — leaves the president surrounded only by zealots and toadies, freed from adult supervision.
Behind or above all this, there’s the sense that Robert Mueller’s long-running investigation, which has begun to resemble a series of clues that all lead in different directions, has taken an important turn. While the depth and character of Trump’s Russian connections remain as mysterious as ever, everyone in the country can feel that the boundless criminality of his entire career is beginning to catch up with him. Trump’s defenders argue that the campaign finance violations revealed by Michael Cohen are surely not grounds for impeachment, and they’re right. But the larger portrait being unveiled by Mueller and federal prosecutors is of a man who has committed numerous crimes, large and small, over many years, and who assumes that’s simply how the world works.
One could argue that a Trumpified Christmas of bitterness and chaos, with a petulant president who shuts down the government, retreats to his godawful Palm Beach resort and refuses even to pretend to observe the seasonal rituals of nonpartisan beneficence, is no more than we deserve. As we are all acutely aware, Christmas itself long ago became an orgy of marketing and merchandising, wedded to painful travel experiences and awkward family gatherings. It exists as a season of introspection, discovery and renewal mostly in simulated form, in beloved stop-motion TV specials, endless retellings of “A Christmas Carol” (here are a couple of good ones you may not have seen) and the troubling ambiguity of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Trump is not necessarily wrong, after all, in his über-Scrooge belief that rich people’s crimes drive the world’s economy. Much of what his fans appear to love about him is that he makes no serious effort to hide his greed, cruelty, shallowness and lechery. His almost explicit question to Americans is: Why pretend to believe in anything? Why pretend to be better than we are? He would answer Abraham Lincoln’s famous rhetorical query about whether a nation “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” can make it in this rapacious world, is pretty much STFU LOL.
Whether Trump himself believes in any of his so-called policies or half-baked promises is, I suspect, a meaningless question; he believes only in his own glory, reflected back at him by others. Whether his followers actually believed Mexico would build the wall, all the factory jobs would come back from China and America would become “great again” is difficult to say. I think they believed it in exactly the way a 10-year-old believes in Santa Claus: Amid the cognitive dissonance and the creeping awareness that the whole story makes no rational sense, there lingers a spark of faith. For some of us, that spark becomes the first awareness of the power of symbol and metaphor; for some of us it just turns to cynicism.
As I have argued repeatedly in this space, Donald Trump is not the fundamental problem with America; he’s like a tumor or opportunistic infection that took advantage of our weakened national condition. But there is no question his presidency has debased and demeaned us, revealing things we didn’t want to look at but probably needed to see.
One could argue that Trump is less of a hypocrite than leading Republicans of the recent past, who pretended not to understand that their voters craved a spectacle of cruelty and bigotry and had no actual interest in “conservative” principles or policies. The late George H.W. Bush, a decent and dignified man who tolerated a growing current of vicious racism in his party (in pursuit of policy goals that were dubious at best), offers an obvious case in point.
But we respond very differently to Bush and Trump, I think, because in the former case we identify with the universal human pathos of aspiring to better things, and the universal human tragedy of falling short. Both of those things are entirely alien to Trump, who may seem superhuman or subhuman, depending on your perspective, but is simply inhuman: He cannot imagine being better than he is, and according to his own story has never fallen short of any goals whatsoever.
Christmas is also about human pathos, human failure and human imagination, another attribute Trump entirely lacks. Most of us have come to terms with the fact that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, and most of us (churched or otherwise) likewise perceive the story of Jesus largely in mythical or metaphorical terms. That doesn’t mean that they don’t matter; that doesn’t mean that amid the overamped commercial clutter of the season we can’t sometimes feel the brilliant threads of meaning passed down from our ancestors, the piercing winter light of the year’s shortest day, when our half of our planet begins to turn back out of darkness.
Those moments of aching clarity, of feeling connected to the generations, of longing for better things, of understanding that change is constant — if there’s actually a “Christmas spirit,” that’s where it is. Find those moments when you can, stand with them quietly and watch them go. Donald Trump can never touch them, and will soon fade away.
Andrew O’Hehir is executive editor of Salon.
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In A Christmas Carol , Trump would be Scrooge, in It's A Wonderful Life he would be Potter.
His "character" is alien to the good side of our most treasured modern fables about the secular meaning of Christmas, let alone the religious one.
The lights at the National Christmas Tree have been turned off.
How appropriate. The lights are off but he is at home.
You'd think that Trump could afford to hire his own contractor and have it fixed (some mental case tried to climb it).
And the hits just keep on coming.
Trump is a lying sack of shit
Trump's 'Merry Christmas' pledge fails to manifest at his own businesses
But despite Trump’s repeated claims that “people are saying Merry Christmas again” instead of the more inclusive “happy holidays”, there are several places where the Christmas greeting is absent: Trump’s own businesses.
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On a more serious note - I hope you and yours have a super Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
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1st warrior copied and pasted an extensive list of sentences from some website that contained an article by the conservative commentator Ruben Navarette. He did not indicate that he was posting someone else's words. I believe that is not allowed on Newstalkers.
I'll assume it was an unintentional oversight by 1st.
For YEARS, 1st warrior has been complaining about what I seed. He's lucky he hasn't been suspended for it yet.
Still waiting for yours John.
The list was from USA Today and it disagreed with what John wanted someone to parrot.
Same ol' - same ol'.
Ruben Navarrette Jr., a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group and host of a daily podcast, “ Navarrette Nation. ” Follow him on Twitter: @RubenNavarrette .
Don’t misunderstand. This doesn’t mean I think Trump has been a good president, or that he hasn’t produced more negative than positive. It only means that he did some things right.
Spelling them out reminded me that under different circumstances, I could have voted for Trump for president. I like people who keep their promises, battle elites, and give voice to the overlooked. If only Trump hadn’t embraced an ugly and dangerous form of demagoguery to attack and vilify women, Muslims, Mexicans and others, things might have been different.
You may disagree with every item on that list. What I call a positive, you might consider a negative. Or you might be able to cite two negative items for every positive one.
That’s fine. Make your own list. I’m not looking for agreement, or trying in vain to convince Trump haters. Life is too short for that. I only want to be fair, not just to the president but to those voters — my fellow Americans — who gave him the job.
I'd welcome impeachment but fair is fair
I’m surprised the number climbed that high. I’ve been a consistent Never Trumper who hopes the president’s first term is his last. I would even welcome impeachment. Even so, I’m also a journalist trained to look for the truth and share it whether it’s popular or not.
Thus, even as someone who has criticized Trump on issues ranging from trade to immigration to education, it's only fair to do what much of the news media refuse to do — admit that Trump has done some things right. Such as:
►Move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
►Pull the United States out of the Iranian nuclear deal.
►Stand up to NATO countries for not ponying up enough money to cover the organization’s expenses and their own defense costs.
►Take on the news media and not back down, exposing bias and agenda-driven journalism intended to run him out of office.
►Put an intense focus on immigration, the importance of border security and the cost of illegal immigration, including U.S. citizens killed by the undocumented.
►Target the ruthless Salvadoran street gang MS-13.
►Picking James Mattis as Defense secretary, Nikki Haley as ambassador to the United Nations, John Kelly as White House chief of staff and Kellyanne Conway as senior adviser.
►Begin a dialogue with North Korea about ending its nuclear weapons program.
►Focus attention on Rust Belt states and give respect to white working-class voters, overlooked by the elites on both coasts.
►Challenge elitism and question what it means to be “elite.”
►Create millions of new jobs (the White House claims as many as 3 million ) and bring unemployment down to 3.9 percent , the lowest since 2000.
►Focus national attention on the opiod crisis, including a look at doctors who overprescribe pain pills.
►Nominate impressive Supreme Court candidates Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
►Propose and help pass a tax cut and cut federal regulations .
►Pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change and defy global warming alarmists.
►Renegotiate unfair trade deals in search of better terms.
►Target racial preferences at colleges and universities, which often hurt intended beneficiaries by lowering standards.
►Refocus immigration debate by ending DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and trying to force Congress to confront the thorny issue of what to do with "Dreamers," who were brought to the USA illegally when they were kids.
►Shake up both the Republican and Democratic establishments and remain independent from the Washington cartel.
►Make politics more accessible to people who have rarely voted or cared about it, and widen the door of civic engagement.
Now John - if you were half the "open-minded" person you claim to be, Navarrette should fit right into your mold - he also hates Trump.
Making a list of things that conservatives think Trump has accomplished neither proves he has accomplished much worthwhile nor does it make up for his unbelievably abominable behavior, nor his psychologically disturbed and erratic behavior. He does not remotely belong in the presidency of the United States.
Is Trump the only person in the country who can advocate for right wing policies? lol. I hope not.
The majority of Americans did NOT want Kavanaugh confirmed. Why is it an "accomplishment" for Trump to do what most people didnt want done ?
hint : It's not.
John - seriously? Navarrette is far from a Conservative. Hell, according to him, Trump trashed Robert's Grandfather 'cause he's Hispanic, so he don't have no luv for Trump.
True, Trump "may be" all those loving things you call him - BUT - he has done some good things that "some" folks just totally ignore.
And, no, the majority of Americans didn't fall for that crap shoot with the Dems and Kavanaugh. That was a hate-fest from the word go.
BTW - may be coming to Chi-Town in May or June. Interested in having a cup of coffee??
Trump is not qualified to be president. There isn't even the slightest doubt about that.
Virtually everything on this list appeals to conservatives and not liberals, so it is questionable how much they qualify as "accomplishments".
And items like this
►Take on the news media and not back down, exposing bias and agenda-driven journalism intended to run him out of office.
are just nonsense. If anything , the media went far too easy on Trump. If they had taken him seriously and exposed all his unethical activity it is likely he never would have been elected.
Sure why not? We can discuss it more when the time gets closer.
Polling clearly showed the majority of Americans did not want Kavanaugh confirmed.
Ignoring polls allows Trumpsters to fantasize that they represent "the American people" when the truth is there is no evidence of it whatsoever. Clearly Trumpsters represent a minority of the American people and one that is shrinking all the time.
It is a shortcoming of Newstalkers that we are not allowed to respond to such an idiotic comment with the disapproval it deserves.
The only joke here is those who continue to support trump.
The most delusional people in America.
Border security is so important that Trump closed down the Department of Homeland Security in a temper tantrum over building a wall.
Trump was embarrassed over the course of this year when it turned out that more people were crossing the border than when he took office. He had of course been bragging about how great his team was doing in "getting tough" down there.
This embarrassment fueled all this current tantrum about a "wall".
Trump wants to wear everyone down with all this insanity in the hope everyone will say "the hell with it" and let him do whatever he wants.
It will probably work.
I'll be resisting until he's gone.
No big deal. The Trump is still at the WH, Mnuchin is vacationing with his hot wife, Melania is adoring the red Xmas trees and Ivanka is practicing her pole dancing.
All is good and a Merry Christmas to all.