Trump's strategic vision of chaos: Inventing a nonexistent crisis so he can "solve" it

[DonViejo]

WEDNESDAY, FEB 22, 2017 08:00 AM EST

The president depicts a failing America that's more like 2009 than 2017 — so he can take credit for doing nothing

HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

As you know, our administration inherited many problems across government and across the economy. To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country; you see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places, low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas, no matter where you look. The Middle East is a disaster. North Korea — we’ll take care of it, folks; we’re going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess.
— Donald Trump, Feb. 17

That’s not quite as evocative as the president’s doomsday inaugural “American Carnage” address, but it may be more effective in the long run. Trump is ignorant in most ways a president should be smart, but he does have an unerring instinct for hype. One of his favorite tall tales is the miraculous “comeback” story. You’ve heard him endlessly recount the tedious details of his Great Campaign in which nobody said he could get the nomination and yet he defied the odds and vanquished 16 men, Carly Fiorina and one Crooked Hillary, ultimately winning a historic landslide of epic proportions. No, it wasn’t historic and it wasn’t epic and it wasn’t a landslide, but that’s part of the myth Trump has created for himself: He only wins big.

The point is that he’s making himself out to be a hero who can defy tremendous odds to fight back and win. That’s why he insists that he inherited a terrible mess that will take a heroic effort to turn around, and he’s the only guy who can do it.

The country he describes is actually very familiar. The economy is terrible, millions of people are going bankrupt and losing their jobs, their homes and their health care. People who have saved for decades have seen their retirement funds shrunk to nothing in the stock market crash, while Wall Street Masters of the Universe collect millions and tell everyone they are simply “too big to fail.” Major industries are on the verge of collapse. Banks are closing all over the country.

Tens of thousands of troops are still stationed overseas in a war that seems to never end. Terrorist bombings are happening all over the world and nobody knows when the next one is going to hit close to home. Even natural disasters are catastrophic, taking out whole American cities and seeming to portend more of the same as the climate changes and nobody knows what to do about it. The future seems bleak indeed.

We all know that country. It was America in 2009. It was the mess our last president inherited, not this one. (If you need a little refresher course on how bad the employment situation was during the Great Recession, you can read all about it in this recap from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.) It was the worst economic recession in the lifetime of anyone under the age of 70 and it came on the heels of a period of tremendous fear and anxiety after 9/11 and the debacle of the Iraq war. Now that was a real mess.

more
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/22/trumps-vision-of-chaos-is-strategic-inventing-a-nonexistent-crisis-so-he-can-solve-it/

[DetlefK]

1. He's negging the US.

"You are a mess! You need me in your life! Without me, you are nothing!"

[dalton99a]

2. Typical abuser mentality.