Thursday, November 12, 2020

Trumpty Dumpty: "Smarter and Less Competent"


Maggie Haberman at 2018 Pulitzer Prize Ceremony

In his Times piece (NYT, 11/8/20, “The Trump Presidency is Ending. So is Maggie Haberman’ Wild Ride") about his fellow journalist Maggie Haberman’s White House beat coming to an end, Ben Smith makes the following comment, “She has consistently painted a portrait of a man who is both smarter and less competent than his enemies believe.” When you think about it it’s a rather brilliant remark about the President. In the unlikely event the election ever goes to the Supreme Court, he would simply say the courts were corrupt, if they failed to rule in his favor.” Such a statement epitomizing Trump’s approach throughout the election exhibits both a keen intelligence and incompetence at the same time. The intelligence resides in the questioning of reality. Is there a virus? Are the QAnon people right in seeing it as a conspiracy by a deep state. Who’s to know? To propose a value-free view of reality is the kind of solipsism and skepticism practiced by some medieval scholastics. The incompetence lies in the fact that the impotent speculating in the service of a Panglossian optimism, has only made a bad situation worse. The President may propose any idea he wants but the fact is,  he lost the election and failed to produce a cohesive strategy for combating the coronavirus which is currently raging everywhere. Trumpty Dumpty sat on a wall/Trumpty Dumpty had a great fall...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.