After Years of Taking Up Too Much Space, Trump Is Finally Small

[babylonsister]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/donald-trump-lies-clinton-comey-investigation.html

After Years of Taking Up Too Much Space, Trump Is Finally Small
As the president’s lies and bullying get bolder and bolder, we can finally see him for what he is: boring.

By Dahlia Lithwick
Nov 23, 2018
3:27 PM


The holidays can be tricky when one has begun to reflexively assume the posture of being pinned under the breakfront as the crazy racist grandpa shrieks year round. For many of us, the echo of Donald Trump’s voice, his tweets, his boasts and threats, are what wake us up at 4 a.m. and what makes us afraid to contemplate summer plans or even buy green bananas. But after two deeply destabilizing and in fact traumatic years of soaking in the president’s ugliness and invective, of absorbing the sound and sight of the sneering and the scowling and the fury, there is much to be thankful for this year. Because this year, by dint of miracle or magic or human endeavor, Donald Trump has been reduced to his actual size. He isn’t everything anymore. He is barely anything at all. He becomes smaller every single day, and for that, we have America to thank.

It is no secret that Trump himself is sliding further and further off the rails. The tweets are cruder and materially less coherent, and the public performances are more frightening still. The White House staff is in turmoil, and the president seems to have aligned himself with the Saudi murderers of a Washington Post reporter. None of this offers holiday solace, save for the fact that, as support for the president peels off among members of the military, conservative lawyers, and women, he finds himself ever more shrilly attacking them all. And as the president finds himself shunned and largely ignored internationally, he is left more and more alone to watch television, tweet hectically, and attempt to rewrite his own story to his satisfaction. At least we can, as Matt Yglesias smartly observes, be grateful that he can’t manage to be effective and pissed off at the same time.

We can be thankful for other things this past autumn: a press corps that has remained vigilant and unbowed by presidential threats and abuse, and that has increasingly adjusted to the lies and the distortions that embody this presidency. We can be thankful for a judicial branch that quietly delivers setback after setback to the president’s cruelest imperatives. And we can be thankful for the tireless work of Robert Mueller (bows head), a man who is nothing less than a bionic truth-seeking robot in an age of alternative facts.

Mostly, though, it is worth recognizing that Trump has managed to shrink slowly down to a small manageable size simply by being ever more himself. Be it his military action against the caravan that wasn’t, his wall that wasn’t, his raking that wasn’t, or his inflated election claims that weren’t, the deflections and distractions seem to come faster and faster. But the fall of 2018 saw truth able to get its boots on before a falsehood could travel very far—maybe because the lies are more transparent now, or maybe because we are finally getting better at this. The final factor in Trump’s diminution had to be the appalling (!) White House (!) statement defending the Saudi Arabian royal family from his own CIA’s finding that they had been complicit in the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

snip//

It’s all so childish as to sound almost funny, but it’s worth remembering back to August 2017, after Nazis and white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, when the feeling on the streets was of pure uncertainty. On the sidewalks for a time, it was impossible to make eye contact. What was top of mind for most of us there was “who in this crowd wants to hurt me; who wants to run my family out of town?” It was the mindless fear of unknown others that caused more pain even than Nazi chants. But this Thanksgiving weekend, the sense beginning to emerge is of the systems of democratic governance repairing themselves—of good people standing up, of women surging forward, of teenagers answering the call, of law and truth reinstating themselves. The feeling is that some kind of fever has maybe broken. That which seemed monstrous and larger than life is mostly shadows and vapors now.

It’s going to be a long-ass haul to restore what’s been dismantled over the past two years. Fear and contempt are contagious and so, apparently, are ugliness and violence. But in so many ways resilience and dignity and pride are pushing through the noise. It’s hard to see it sometimes, but it’s surely rattling under the surface of things. Things will turn around the way you eat an elephant—bite by bite. But recognizing that the elephant was never all that enormous in the first instance makes it easier to do the work.

[Solly Mack]

1. He is boring. Tedious.

Like going in every morning to a job where you know your boss will - once again - for the 100th time - tell the same story over and over and over and over and over again. And the person will always - always - be the hero of their own story. With no action too small as to forgo constant praise - and they expect everyone else to tell them how great they are for returning their buggy to the buggy stall.

One of the reasons he is so exhausting to witness. So very tiresome.

[smirkymonkey]

12. You know something? He really is.

He is just such a crashing bore. I think even his own base is becoming bored with the same old song and dance. He has one little schtick and it is wearing old.

God knows the rest of us have had it with him a long time ago. He's like a broken record. It doesn't take a genius to know that he's got nothing. His tired old spiel has worn thin and there is nothing positive to replace it with. Hopefully, everyone will just grow tired of him and he will fade into oblivion.

[Solly Mack]

16. Yep. A windbag of repetition.

[blugbox]

23. He has one little schtick

According to Stormy 😂

[Wellstone ruled]

2. I look at this whole

Trump Crime Syndicate nightmare will come to a end in January of 2021 at the latest. In the mean while,as long as we keep this POS out in the open,we will survive and prevent this type of Criminal action to every happen again.

[Kajun Gal]

3. He has ALWAYS been a "tiny wannabe A-list man" and never has been.

His loud, obnoxious voice is the sound of fingernails scraping on a school chalkboard. He sickens me. He is an embarrassment to our country. But, I do have faith that once he's gone, our country will be back to normal sooner than we think. He is only one, pitiful, angry, old man. WE are many!

[empedocles]

4. Saw on CNN some of the 'Kennedy's'

What a contrast between JFK and trump, the 2 Flotus, and the families.

[hostalover]

6. The Kennedys...sigh......

[babylonsister]

5. Hear, hear!

[enough]

7. All of this is true, but the dismantling of our government goes on apace,

every day in every Department, no matter how big or small he seems to be at any given moment. None of that will turn around without pitched battles at every step.

[Kajun Gal]

9. About 4 more weeks and he's done...when the dem controlled House goes after the truth.

And the truth will win over his lies. Have patience.

[erronis]

13. Not sure how the House can prevent his executive actions and judicial appointments

Dump did not dream up this scheme by himself. In fact he doesn't even know what he's doing.

But his puppeteers will keep pulling strings to cause the most damage to the US government. Whether the rationale is to gain more lucre or to create mayhem in the US gov't/military functioning.

The House has certain powers such as subpoenas but dump and others are used to ignoring them.

[at140]

8. Yes, he delivers the same boring speech at his rallies

yet there are in excess of 10,000 Trumpanzee's at every rally on average. Go figure.

[Kajun Gal]

10. Nah, that's the amount HE says. Chk out the audience. Tiny. Like him.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

17. And remember that a sizeable proportion of his audience

is P A I D to be there.

[babylonsister]

20. No. There are still people out there

who like him. Morons, for sure. Take FL. I live here.

[at140]

24. Back in 2016 before the election, one of his rallies was in

Everett, Washington. We lived in another town just north of Everett,
so my curiosity got the better of me, and I obtained a pass to attend.
My wife and I arrive 2 hours early after hearing the news reports of
long lines. Cops had closed off all the roads around the Xfinity Arena
4 blocks each side. We had to park several blocks away.
The line was indeed many blocks long, and it took us 2 hours to
reach the Arena which has a capacity of 10,000 people.

We are inside, and the place was jammed. the lines behind us were
still waiting to get in but could not because fire marshal would not allow
crowd over the limit. Trump was late as usual. The people inside were
like zombies, clapping and yelling and standing up. We were told the
crowd size broke the record of the 10 year old Xfinity Arena. This is
in Washington state, which is not exactly Mississippi. This is a reliable
blue state.

We got out before he finished his speech to beat the traffic. We had
enough of his ranting and raving and could hardly hear anything any
ways because of the noise. As we are walking back to or parked car
several blocks away, there were people still in the line waiting to get
in. We chatted with some of the dozens and dozens of cops, and were
told there are 8000 people outside still waiting to get in.

The whole episode brought back memories of Hitler's rallies. It was the
same thing, fanatical crowds going crazy and eating every word that
came out of the mouth of the "leader". It was frightening.

[superpatriotman]

11. He is and has always been a BOOR

Nt

[dae]

14. Thanks for the OP.

[littlemissmartypants]

15. Finally

A characterization I can get behind.

[Miles Archer]

18. Here's what I posted on Nov. 17th:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100211442246

Ever read the Tao?

I have the Stephen Mitchell translation, considered one of the best, and one of the life-changing excerpts I read back in college was:

"If you want to shrink something, you must first let it expand."

Since the midterms, Trump's been expanding. And every time he does, it shrinks him a little more.

[tosh]

19. K&R! Great read!

Thanks for posting this.

[Cracklin Charlie]

21. His Thanksgiving party looked boring as all get out.

I saw a photo.

He looked like scary grampa with a 1000 yard stare.

Creepy dude.

[struggle4progress]

22. For Thanksgiving, Trump Tweeting About Death, Obama Volunteering In Chicago

Written By NewsOne Staff
Posted November 22, 2018

... Bedlam, chaos, injury and death? That’s the holiday spirit.

Trump is angry that John Roberts and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Monday to block Trump’s attempt to ban entry for asylum seekers. Clearly, our unconstitutional president is threatened by independent courts. Therefore, because he didn’t get his way, he babbled on Twitter.

On the other hand, Obama decided to spread charity and gratefulness on the holiday. volunteered at the Greater Chicago Food Depository ...

https://newsone.com/3837781/thanksgiving-trump-obama-chicago/