Does Turmp really blink? By Hal M. Brown

 

I read the following in RawStory:

The word “blink” in the title stood out to me. Here’s where it was used in context:

“It just made sense for Trump to blink given the political or economic cost he faced,” said Myron Brilliant, a senior counselor for the Albright Stonebridge Group. “The pressure is different for Xi even with a weak economy.”

When I thought of writing this Substack I wanted to lead with a GIF of Trump actually blinking. I found one (here) and then it took me a half hour to figure out how to upload it. If anybody is interested (and perhaps a few of you are) this is what the code for this GIF looks like:

I tried and tried again and again to get this to work but then figured out how to upload it to Photos and literally slide it into the editing part of this Substack.

I digress:

The gist of what this article describes is as follows:

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other aides told the president that the blue-collar workers that he considered to be his political base would be hurt if the tariffs weren't lowered, according to two source familiar with the matter who spoke to the Washington Post.

“The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump’s supporters — Trump’s people,” said one person briefed on the talks. “It gave Susie a key window.”

“Does this really mean Trump cares about what pain he inflicts on his supporters” I asked myself, and furthermore, would this cause him to “blink” meaning to reverse position on this, or on anything.

Changing course 180 degrees on something Trump bragged about doing because he was convinced it hurt people would indicate that he actually had a human quality. We know he not only doesn’t care about hurting people he doesn’t care about, but has a sadistic streak where he enjoys having the power to hurt them. If he cared about the feelings of his supporters it would show he can experience more than just feelings of anger, irritation, boredom, and self aggrandizing pride. 

It would suggest that his “caring” is more that just transactional. This would mean he blinked because he was a normal person with a normal feelings.

Could I have been wrong about him when I wrote this?

Was I overly harsh in saying he was a sadist.

This isn’t me, although it kind of looks like me. I did manage to get it here without much trouble.

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Trump lives in my house and my mind like a giant disease carrying housefly. I just ordered a fly zapper. If only it was that easy to rid the country of this troublesome pest.

 

When it comes to airborne evasive maneuvers Trump reminds me of the common housefly. When one gets in the house my partner won't let me use Raid which she insists is toxic to people (and she hates the smell) and I can't find the fly swatter which I swear used to be in the kitchen cabinet. By chance yesterday I managed to smash one with a tissue box when it lingered too long on a window. Now I am visualizing a giant fly with Trump's face flying around taunting me.

Above is the comment I posted on Dana Milbank’s Washington Post (subscription) column, Trump needs that Qatari 747 — for all his evasive maneuvers, this morning.

Milbank writes:

“There’s a new word that I came up with, which I think is probably the best word,” he announced from the Roosevelt Room. “We’re going to ‘equalize,’ where we’re all going to pay the same.”

He has the best words.

A stickler might point out that, according to the Online Etymology Library, the word “equalize” has been part of the English language since the 1580s. But let us not be sticklers. Let us give Trump credit for the greatest linguistic innovation since the Gulf of America. In fact, let us call him the Great Equalizer.

He included this odd description of the person he says led him to address the high cost of prescrption drugs:

Trump described coming to his prescription-drug epiphany in typically whimsical fashion — because of a rich friend’s complaint. He told reporters on Monday about “a highly neurotic, brilliant businessman, seriously overweight, and he takes the fat — the fat shot drug.” The friend, in Trump’s telling, called from London and told the president “I just paid for this damn fat drug I take.”

One has to wonder whether this person considers it a complement to have Trump refer to him as a fat neurotic.

Milbank doesn’t bring up the plane until he concludes his column as follows:

The latest evidence of this incorruptibility: Trump will accept the gift of a $400 million Boeing 747-8 “flying palace” from the royal family of Qatar — which will go to his library when his presidency ends rather than remain government property.

Trump explained on Monday that it would be “stupid” not to accept this emolument, which he likened to being offered a “gimme” in golf: “When they give you a putt, you say, ‘thank you very much,’ you pick up your ball and you walk to the next hole.”

A $400 million bribe or a two-foot gimme putt? To the Great Equalizer, they are the same.

Every morning Trump is in my house and mind. He’s like a giant housefly. I consider him to be like a giant dung eating disease carrying housefly (see reference). I just took the photo below of him no doubt feeling like royalty, for example. 

If I knew I was going to write this when a managed to send that fly to insect Heaven I probably would have taken a picture. Instead I had to make a photoshop.

I just ordered one of those fly killing gadgets because you can only buy six packs of the manual ones on Amazon and they are the same price. I had one many years ago and they work very well because when you manage to trap a fly in a corner or against a wall they electrocute themselves by flying into the grid.

If only it was as easy as using a gadget like this to zap Trump and his MAGA minions out of our lives. I don’t want them to die. I just don’t want them destroying American democracy. 

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Eventually Trump will say "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," only for him the torpedoes will be nothing more than Nerf balls.

 

Trump may or may not know that it was David Farragut (pictured in the old drawing used in a WWI recruitment post, shown above) who is alleged to have said “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” or something like this. (You can read the history of this here and also here. 

During the Civil War water mines were called torpedoes. 

Farragut was fearless and when leading the Union fleet in the Battle of Mobile Bay, which the Union won, he demonstrated bravery.

Suffice to say that Donald Trump is no David Farragut although he likes to identify himself with real and fictional heroes.

There are many true stories, and certainly fictional ones, of soldiers and sailors prevailing even though they were against overwhelming odds.

Rambo and other make believe characters dodge machine gun bullets and Trump actually had a real bullet miss him. While he didn’t dodge a bullet, he had the presence of mind to turn the near miss to use this advantage by striking a defiant pose.

Currently Trump is testing the limits of his power. He says that he’s not sure whether he has to obey court orders. He can’t wait until he knows orders that go against him aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

With a GOP controlled Congress he doesn’t have to worry about defying this branch of government. He intends to make sure his power is so absolute that even if the Democrats control Congress in two years they will be a paper tiger.

Today he wanted to come across as a man of the people by putting on a show as someone who cared about people struggling with high drug prices. There will be a time when he doesn’t even care about bothering with such performances. I can see an advisor suggesting that he do something to remind the people what a great president he is and him saying he’d rather play golf or fly in his palatial Air Force One to some country where he’ll be treated like royalty. I can see a time when Trump tires of governing and even faking that he’s doing this.

As far as public opinion, for him this is already like water off a duck’s back. If millions of people take to the streets and protest as long as they stay away from his properties he may not even order his armed thugs to deal with them.

There will be a point in the next year or two when Trump realizes that the torpedoes fired to thwart his dictatorial ambition are nothing more than Nerf balls fired from a plastic gun.

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Habeous Corpus, immigrants, and the dandelion invasion

 

Stephen Miller said that the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that's an action we're actively looking at.” (Reference)

Dandelions are not indiginous to the United States. It has been speculated that they were introduced to the country by the Pilgrims who brought them here on the Mayflower (reference) because of the belief in their medicinal benefits. 

Here’s an article which notes the benefits of dandelions. It is from Washington state’s  The Peninsula Daily News. It features a photo showing a lovely field of dandelions. Once upon a time were were no dandeloins in the state of Washington.

Everyone can understand why dandelions propagated so easily and spread so rapidly across the country. As kids we liked to blow on them when they were about to seed.

Watch the video.

This is from this website:

Before the invention of lawns, people praised the golden blossoms and lion-toothed leaves as a bounty of food, medicine and magic. Gardeners often weeded out the grass to make room for the dandelions. But somewhere in the twentieth century, humans decided that the dandelion was a weed. Nowadays, they’re also the most unpopular plant in the neighborhood – but it wasn’t always that way.

By now you probably see where I am going with my comparing the so called invasion of immigrants to the invasion of dandelions.

Dandelions once were considered useful and even cultivated. Not only are there documentated medicinal properties, but every part of them is edible. When people decided to keep their lawns pure green they were defined as invaders, as persona non grata.

They are bright yellow when in bloom and fields of them are lovely to look at. As far as someone who wants a pristine green lawn they think they ruins its appearance.

Nobody I can find suggests using them for your entire lawn. I tried a web search:

There are countless websites about how to get rid of dandelions, but I couldn’t find any about how to cultivate a lawn entirely of dandelions. This would be a very low maintenance lawn. It would change its appearance through the seasons.

There are millions of people who consider brown skinned immigrants to be an invasive species. They think that are not unlike the huge number of truly destructive creatures in the country (see list) from the African Clawed Frog to the Zebra Mussel.

For those who want America to be as white, or as White, as possible, the presence of some people with dark complexions has to be tolerated and sometimes applauded. For example they can suspended their underlying racism for Clarence Thomas and for various entertainers and sports figures. However, they have an excuse to rid the nation of others who they can claim are dangerous invaders.

As you can see from the following graph from this website most MAGAs are White and a large percentage are Christian. By chance, no doubt because white on white wouldn't show, the White bar is colored yellow like dandelions.

Many people like dandelions. Consider this from Amazon:

Likewise, many people like or love either individual immigrants who they have as family members, friends, and/or aquaintances. Others just like the idea of welcoming immigrants to our country and to any country. Most recently, prominent among these people, is Pope Leo XIV.

Addendum:

Thanks to Sabrina Haake in her comment I was reminded of dandelion wine, and of the Ray Bradbury novel by that name

Excerpt from Wiki:

The title refers to a wine made with dandelion petals and other ingredients, commonly citrus fruit. In the story, dandelion wine, as made daily by the protagonist's grandfather, serves as a metaphor for distilling all of the joys of summer.

Bonus:

The Rolling Stones had a song about a woman named Dandelion (here):

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Trump lit the fire and is burning down the house. Now he's sitting there happily roasting marshmallows. By Hal M. Brown

I read one line in the RawStory article '“Why are we not talking about his mental acuity?' MSNBC host nails growing Trump problem” and I heard the Talking Heads song “Burning Down the House” (see Wiki for info.) in my mind. 

 

If the video doesn't play click here.

This is he line from MSNBC's The Weekend" co-host Jonathan Capehart talking about Trump's tarriffs and his saying container ships coming in to our harbors being half empty: 

You know, and what he [Trump] does is he burns down the house and then he comes in and says, 'Oh, the market went up.' Well, no."

I find it impossible to visualize Trump happily sitting by a campfire with his family or friends toasting marshmallows. The best image my Perchance AI could come up with is below on the upper left (click to enlarge):

If the video doesn't play click here.

This is the line from MSNBC's The Weekend" co-host Jonathan Capehart talking about Trump's tarriffs and his saying container ships coming in to our harbors being half empty: 

You know, and what he [Trump] does is he burns down the house and then he comes in and says, 'Oh, the market went up.' Well, no."

I find it impossible to visualize Trump happily sitting by a campfire with his family or friends toasting marshmallows. The best image my Perchance AI could come up with is below on the upper left (click to enlarge):

The meaning of the song “Burning Down the House” has been analyzed. Here's an example: UNCOVERING THE FIERY METAPHORS & CULTURAL IMPACT.

Here’s an excerpt:

While the song’s chorus seems to emphatically endorse literal destruction, ‘Burning Down the House’ harbors a more nuanced subtext. It’s about both self-renewal and critique of stasis. Byrne, as the ‘ordinary guy’ caught in the throes of change, is not advocating for chaos but rather an inward ignition of transformation.

This metaphorical ‘burning’ reflects a universal sentiment of disruption. Be it personal growth or societal upheaval, ‘Burning Down the House’ serves as the anthem for those moments when the old ways are razed to make room for the new—a familiar cycle in the ever-changing landscape of American culture.

The lyrics ‘Hold tight we’re in for nasty weather / There has got to be a way’ echo a sentiment of foreboding, a recognition of the challenges that accompany any form of change. As if to say, the journey will be tumultuous, and the status quo will not go quietly into the night.

I wish I could say that Trump is burning down the house because he wants to achieve a positive result. Fire fighters set old houses ablaze to practice their skill. Trump is either doing this because he’s a pyromanic who enjoys watching the conflagration he ingited, or because, for the conspiracy minded, because Putin told him to do it.

To quote my partner, Ann, who just proof read this for me, “why, why, why, would he want to do this? He lives here too. Why would he want to do this? That’s the million dollar question. Why would you want to burn down your own house.”

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