Rick Wilson: Trump's land of delusion: Disregard the sycophants; the wheels are coming off...

[babylonsister]

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/trump-land-delusion-article-1.4010243

Trump’s land of delusion: Disregard the sycophants; the wheels are coming off, if they were ever on
By Rick Wilson
| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
May 27, 2018 | 5:00 AM

snip//

No, Trump fans, it's not 87-dimensional chess. There's no secret plan, no hidden strategy. Trump is a man who sees everything through the dumb lens of reality television, New York tabloid spritzing, professional wrestling kayfabe and an utterly misplaced belief that he is a master negotiator.

He's a man of notably grotesque ignorance who refuses to read even the crayon picture-book version of the President's Daily Brief, and who is contemptuous of both the intelligence community and American diplomats.

Of course the Multi-dimensional Chess Club is insisting that even Trump's most evident and egregious failures are part of some subtle, esoteric master plan that only he can perceive. While earlier this month they were cheering for the Trump Nobel Peace Prize, last week they were cheering his "my nuke is bigger than your nuke" threats and claiming this was his plan all along.

His North Korean reaction was pure emotion, all impulse and no judgment. Just like his responses to Cohen's new perils, the looming Mueller investigation, the failures of his superstar legal team to close down the Russia probe, his desire to corrupt and suborn the Justice Department and the intelligence community to protect him from the special counsel are all signs of his contempt for the rule of law.

Your rational mind knows why Trump is doing all of this, but the stress of seeing him lure 40% of the American people into a trap from which there is no escape is often painful to watch. As an anthropologist of Trump and Trumpism, sometimes I feel as if the best thing I do is to remind you that it's all a lie.

No matter how much he spins it, no matter how many cute brand names and catchphrases he tries to jam into the media flow, at his core, Donald Trump is a man in a rising sea of legal peril, political risk and catastrophic failures. This explains his increasingly erratic behavior and dangerous efforts to corrupt the special counsel process, the Justice Department, and American institutions more broadly.

We can be dragged down into Trump's wilderness of mirrors , or we can take a deep breath and appreciate just how truly terrible his week was. With Trump, it's always the worst week, since the last week.

At least next week is Infrastructure Week. We'll always have Infrastructure Week.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Rick Wilson is a really good writer, and one of the very few Republicans with a sense of humor.

Trump's diplomatic pratfall on North Korea forced a pullout from the summit he had sold as the best thing since Trump University, and came just weeks after his breathless followers demanded that the Nobel Institute give Trump the Peace Prize. They did everything but fuel up Air Force One for a trip to Oslo, believing the deal to strip North Korea of its nuclear arsenal and intercontinental ballistic missiles to be done (Trump had basically tweeted as much), with nothing left to do but raise a champagne toast in Singapore.

Almost no one in the diplomatic, military or intelligence community believed for a moment that Kim Jong Un would fulfill his promises; Kim is a con man, conning a con man. Trump never understood that he is the mark in this con game, played by Kim with a helpful assist from Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Of course, North Korea never, ever intended to give up its nuclear arsenal, to end its long history of murderous oppression of its suffering people, or in any other way give Trump a diplomatic win. Kim's bad faith was never a question to anyone but Trump. It was a certainty. Furthermore, China never intended to help Trump win a major diplomatic victory, or to unify Korea.

[babylonsister]

2. Agreed, and he also has dt figured out. I look forward

to his columns.

[katmondoo]

8. Trump's prize should be for the best Traitor ever to hold office in America

[uponit7771]

3. The wheels are already off, red Don isn't running anything

[First Speaker]

4. We'll always have Paris...and Infrastructure Week...

...I'm shocked--shocked!--to discover infrastructure going on in this establishment...

[babylonsister]

5. Well, you win a cookie because it's not.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-infrastructure-bill-dead-2018-5


Trump is punting on one of his biggest goals for the year

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders admitted Wednesday that Congress will likely not pass President Donald Trump's massive infrastructure plan this year.

"I don't know that there will be one by the end of this year," Sanders told reporters.

Political analysts believed Trump's infrastructure plan had almost no chance to pass before the midterm elections.

more...

[Danascot]

6. "Stupidgate"

[KelleyKramer]

7. That's pretty much spot on

Good article, thanks for posting

[dweller]

9. kayfabe

= covfefe