Trump posed for photo op with Alberta premier with insulting billboard on his head, By Hal M. Brown

 

I don't see anything surprising or particularly wrong with the story above. It makes sense that conservative a Canadian poltician like Alberta's premier Danielle Smith wants to curry favor with Trump. What struck me was the hat Trump was wearing. 

With Trump, vanity is a prominent part of his narcissism. In this way he's more like Narcissus than a garden variety, though toxic, narcissist. Some care about how they look, others don't.  He is what columnist Jennifer Senior called a preening narcissist (read about this here). I have a feeling that Trump likes to wear the cap, especially outdoors where it might be windy, not only because of politics, but because it covers his hair. I shouldn't have to explain why he'd want to do this.

Hat History: Of course baseball caps have evolved from the early days when they were worn pretty much exclusively by baseball players and fans. Now any hat like this is called a baseball cap.

Trump's cap has gotten bigger with larger lettering overt time.

 Now it covers about half his face:

The "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" on the cap is like a billboard. He's not sending the message "make North America great again." He's saying make my America great and make me even greater.

Here's my point. What Trump is doing with the leader of a Canadian province in this photo op is sending his MAGA message of nationalism to her and to all of her country. He is saying, really shouting, "I'm the boss." He wants to be seen as the macho bully everyone fears, not the chubby insecure doofus he'd be if his true self was revealed and he hadn't been gifted a fortune by his father. His narcissism is so deeply ingrained that there's no way he'd admit to himself that without that money it would be highly unlikely he'd be where he is today. He'd probably just be another New York City smalltime slumlord. Just consider what his niece, Mary Trump, had to say about him.

 Donald is an extremely insecure person. One of the things he's most insecure about is his level of intelligence. And whenever he feels threatened, whenever he feels outclassed by somebody's superior intelligence or knowledge base or whenever he feels contradicted, he needs to go on the attack. And as he often does, he projects. He attacks the person with the thing he's most secure about in himself.

For Trump, making America great means riding roughshod over its neighbors and other countries.This is especially relevant for Canada since he has been bloviating about making it a 51st state with the threat of using tariffs as a bludgeon

At least he took his hat off when he met with Danielle Smith indoors:

Inquiring minds may want to know why there's a patio heater inside of Mar-a-Lago. 

Calgary News article Alberta premier talks about 'tariff-free relationship' with the U.S.

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The emperor has no clothes and truth in packaging presidential promises, by Hal M. Brown

 

Bear with me on this, and if you haven't figured out why I used the illustrations above you will.

My partner and I are on the keto diet to lose the weight we gained during the pandemic. That's irrelevant to the point of this blog. To explain though, I was getting bored with the regimen of no carb protein and very low carb vegetable meals, so I ordered the keto crackers shown above from Amazon.

The picture on the package is four times as big as the real crackers and looks entirely different than the flat little squares inside. (I didn't expect a taste sensation so, in all fairness, I'd say they taste a little better than mildly flavored cardboard.)

Now to the political point of presidential packaging of promises (I am addicted to these alliterations):

Trump's promise to make life better for everyone, or at least for his supporters, is like the image on the package of crackers. The picture looks like a crunchy taste treat. It is nothing like what is really inside.

Racist, Democrat hating, LGBTQ demonizing, anti-woke warriors, and America first MAGA members of the Trump cult will get satisfaction in watching Trump's revenge tour unfold on TV. They probably are turned on by his bloviating attempts to intimidate the leaders of other countries. However, I can't see any way that these things will make the practicalities of their day to day lives better. 

I don't see the cost of living coming down. If it doesn't, people won't have more money in their pockets. They may have less. For some, imported goods prices may increase if he follows through on his tariffs. Deporting immigrants, for example, those who work in argiculture, may lead to food price increases or even shortages. 

In a less tangible way, there's what the rest of the world thinks of Trump. His supporters obviously want him to be seen as leader of the world. They want other leaders to kowtow to him the way American oligarchs have. Being mocked by leaders of Mexico, Canada, and Denmark won't have much impact. However, when other countries join in condemning him for his foreign policy decisions, and then some of them are photographed shunning him at international meetings, this may have an impact. 

This hopefully would lead to the gold plating showing cracks on the gilded Trump monument they are used to looking up to.

Trump may be ridiculed and rejected in more quarters. While I don't think he is capable of being embarrassed, his malignant narcissism may be triggered and he could do something rash like using the military to invade Greenland or Panama, or take actions against drug cartels in Mexico. He could see it as a diversionary tactic or, put another way, as wagging the dog. 

This could lead to his being sanctioned by the World Court. It could end up at the United Nations where the US would VETO any actual action, but it would still make the news. 

His hard core supporters would blow this off, but there would still be the drip-drip-drip of the realization of the truth among others who denied that the picture on the package belied the product inside.

Comparing Trump to the emperor in "The Emperor's New Clothes" became a meme. For example see Donald Trump’s emperor-has-no-clothes moment from 2022.  

Here's the well known plot of the Hans Christain Andersen story from Wikipedia just for a reminder:

The tale concerns an emperor who has an obsession with fancy new clothes, and spends lavishly on them, at the expense of state matters. One day, two con-men visit the emperor's capital. Posing as weavers, they offer to supply him with magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are either incompetent or stupid. The gullible emperor hires them, and they set up looms and pretend to go to work. A succession of officials, starting with the emperor's wise and competent minister, and then ending with the emperor himself, visit them to check their progress. Each sees that the looms are empty but pretends otherwise to avoid being thought a fool.

Finally, the weavers report that the emperor's suit is finished. They mime dressing him and he sets off in a procession before the whole city. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that they have all been fooled. The emperor uncomfortably realizes it too, but opts to continue the procession, walking more proudly than ever. The fate of the con-men is not revealed.

More and more people will see what the grandiose preening narcissist really looks. Here's the illustration in the drawing from the Andersen book.

I used AI to make an image to add to this. I will spare you looking at one of the totally unclothed Trump images that came up when I turned off the adult content filter on the AI program I use for my blogs. 

In the story it took a young boy to shout out that the emperor was naked and confirm what everyone else was seeing. It will take more than one person to say this for it to have any major impact. This is akin to the one person in an audience begining to applaud or laugh and thus triggering an uproarious response. It is also like how in fiction a jury is depicted where an innocent person is being tried for murder and one juror is the only one who thinks they aren't guilty. This is the plot of Twelve Angry Men. It is also a subplot of several episodes of the TV series "The Equalizer" starring Queen Latifah. This features Aunt Vi who was the holdout who gradually persuaded the rest of the jury that the defendant was innocent.

In Trump's trial, the opposite would hold true. One person would be convincing the rest of the skeptical jury that he was guilty. Trump was already convicted of falsification of business records which is a kind of fraud. In this case for truth, justice, and the American way to be served, he must be convicted of a fraud perpetrated against the American people.

Addendum:

Would you have used another one of these AI images instead of the one I did?

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The politics of booze, by Hal M. Brown

 

If wine consumption is reduced significantly it will hurt wine grape growers in my home state of Oregon, across the country, and in the rest of the world. I don't know what crops, if any, would replace the grapes growing in our beautiful wine country. The picture is from one of our many road trips to this part of the state.

Rawstory has an article (above) about lawmakers calling the new surgeon general report about even light alcohol consumption being a cancer risk being an example of the "nanny state." 

The report  is on the NIH National Cancer Institute website so RFK Jr's opinion on this is important. The report could be taken offline when Trump takes over. It is important to consider that Trump not only doesn't drink, but he has negative feelings about drinking. This is because of his alcoholic older brother, Freddy, who died at 43. It has been reported (see article in VICE) that he never had a sip of alcohol. 

Whether this would influence the infamously transactional Trump to try to suppress the report or not remains to be seen. The alcohol lobby in Washington is huge and many MAGAs rage against government interference in their lives. It is not only "the deep state" that is evil in their eyes, but "the nanny state." This has not been part of the current poltical zeitgeist but with alcohol it could be.

On the health side, the crucial parts of the report for light to moderate drinkers are those explaining the cancers that this may cause. Even light drinking increases the risk for esophageal cancer. The more a person drinks the greater the risk for head, neck, liver, breast, and colorectal cancer. Just as people could understand how inhaling smoke into their lungs could lead to the deadly lung cancer, it is common sense to understand how drinking can cause cancer in the organs that involve digestion.

The major medical news here is that for years moderate drinking was considered acceptable healthwise, and for red wine, even beneficial. 

People must have accurate up to date medical information of risks. A signficant number of people stopping or cutting down on alcohol consumption would be a hardship for grape growers, manufacturers, and retailers. The economy wouldn't crash but it would certainly be affected.

It is instructive to look at what happened when the surgeon general announced the danger of smoking and thereafter.

This was published today in the On This Day In History page in The Smithsonian Magazine.

Excerpt:

Sixty years ago, about 70 million Americans smoked tobacco. An estimated 42 percent of adults identified themselves as smokers in 1965, and advertisements for cigarettes were impossible to avoid. Tobacco products were stylish and healthy, manufacturers insisted, with Camel claiming its cigarettes “don’t get your wind” and Old Gold saying its were “fresh as mountain air.”

So it came as a shock to the American public when, on January 11, 1964, their surgeon general appeared on television saying that smoking tobacco leads to disease and death.

Here's a photo from that article:

I have no idea if the surgeon general realized the coincidence of his releasing the report on this day.

For the alcohol habits of Americans to change and thus effect the economy it would take a huge cultural shift. This was written in 2014:

50 Years Later: A Closer Look at the Impacts of First Surgeon General's Report on Smoking

Excerpt:

"The surgeon general's report in 1964 was groundbreaking and led to an important cultural shift against smoking," said ACC President John Gordon Harold, MD, MACC. "Those important findings have been followed up by countless studies on the effects of smoking, which we now know are even worse than we thought. Physicians often discuss 'moderation' when helping patients change and maintain their health habits, but that is not the case with smoking. No amount of smoking is good and several studies have shown that even a small amount tobacco is very harmful. As a society we need to eliminate smoking from our culture. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women, and if almost half of those cases are from tobacco, then that is a serious problem."

(Personal Note: I feel lucky that my partner and I never developed even a taste for, let alone a need for, alcoholic beverages and we don''t drink. I'll have a small glass of champagne at a party to make a toast, but that's it.)

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For MAGA oligarchs it's all about rubbing our noses in their billionaire power privilege, by Hal M. Brown

 

I'm not going to write about how Trump again proved he's above the law by getting barely a slap on the wrist in his sentencing this morning. Instead, I will focus on another wrist. This is the wrist of Mark Zuckerberg who, of course, is in the news having announced that he is ceasing to have fact checking on Facebook and Instagram.

Rather than that, I am going to write about this:

Zuckerberg wears $900,000 watch to announce end of Meta fact checks 

Here's more.

If Zuckerberg thought nobody would notice that he was wearing one of the most expensives watches anyone can buy, he's unbelievably naive about the way people scrutinize the internet. I think he absolutely knew what he was doing.

What we see with Trump and his billionare cronies is worse than an unabashed display of their wealth. There's a malevolence in what they do.

Ho-hum, we expect this of some of the super-wealthy. A goodly number of them were happy to show the public how rich they were in shows like Life Styles of the Rich And Famous. It ran for 11 years. They have pictorial articles about them in glossy magazines. The proletariat eats this crap up.

What the billionaire MAGA oligarchs are doing is rubbing the noses of their adversaries in their privilege. They enjoy knowing they can get away with just about anything. 

There's no "just about" with Trump. He thinks he can get away with absolutely anything. I doubt that the likes of Zuckerberg and Musk think that they could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and suffer no consequenses. They probably think the can do everything else, but probably not commit a cold blooded murder in plain sight. 

The only one of these billionaires who seemed to have gone a bit too far was Jeff Bezos. He got a lot of negative press when he nixed letting The Washington Post make an endorsement prior to the election. It is a telling observation about the times we live in that he got as much blowback later when he spiked the Ann Telnais editorial cartoon. Of course that cartoon expresses what I am writing about, i.e., that money can buy just about anything. Still, Bezos is not running for anything and he can easily afford to loose some Washington Post subscribers.

The Zuckerberg watch wearing story may seem like a small thing. However, since men, unless they're rappers, generally don't wear jewelry and thus can display their wealth by wearing an expensive necklace. Watches are the most visible way men can demonstrate their wealth by how they look.  

Women, oh say let's pick Melania Trump at random, have their own way of showing off privilege. See:

A look inside Melania Trump’s extravagant jewelry collection – From beloved husband Donald Trump’s $3 million wedding band to her Van Cleef & Arpels diamond earrings she wore for the 2017 White House inauguration

Perhaps Musk, who doesn't collect and wear expensive watches (as far as I know), is a tad bit more secure than Zuckerberg. Who the hell knows? Both seem to have been nerdy kids who may not have been popular. I'll put it simply saying that they may be playing their own script of "The Revenge of the Nerds." Since I am here today to bury these guys, not to psychoanalyze them, I'll refer you to the following which describes them as feeling like nerds when they were growing up:

History of Mark Zuckerberg: the nerd who created Facebook and changed the world

Elon Musk biography portrays a brutal character driven by lofty dreams

These two proved to the world that their brains were more valuable in the long run than being a prom king. What both of them have in common with Trump that they like to rub our noses in their privilege. 

Update:

'So rich and yet so weak': Vitriol unleashed as Mark Zuckerberg lauds Trump to Joe Rogan

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Forget the narcissism in malignant narcissism, Trump is just pure malignant, by Hal M. Brown

 

'Malignancy': Historian says 'everything just feels worse all the time' with Trump

 is the article in RawStory that prompted me to write, for the umpteenth time, about Trump being a malignant narcissist. I also posted a comment along with an AI picture of Trump looking at himself in a mirror.

Wikipedia gets everything right about malignant narcissism except the photo.

Narcissis wasn't the embodiment of evil even though narcissism was named for him. The entry is about malignant narcissism. A photo of Trump, who is a preening grandiose narcissist, should replace the painting of him. If you haven't googled Trump malignant narcissism you can click here.

There are two defintions of malignant. Many of us, myself included, are familiar with the feelings that come when you first hear a doctor utter that word about yourself or, in my case, a loved one. The other definition doesn't relate to death per se. The word is malevolent. The meaning is simple: having or showing a wish to do evil to others.

Trump fits the defintion of malignant narcissist. He could just as accurately be called a malevolent narcissist. I think it is a more fitting term since there's only one meaning of malevolent.

Trump would be evil even if he didn't have a grain of narcissism in his personality. His narcissism makes him more evil. This is because he exercises his evil impulses not merely because he gets a visceral satisfaction out of doing this, but because of his unrelenting need for attention and self-aggrandizement.

Erich Fromm, and a bit later Otto Kernberg, both greats in psychology, put psychopathy and narcissistic personality disorder together to describe a syndrome where someone experiences sadistic satisfaction in inflicting or having pain inflicted on others and is an extreme narcissist. 

This defines Trump and many of the people he has selected to work in his adminstration to turn the country into what shows all signs of becoming a ruthless dictatorship. 

Case in point:

'Shock and awe': What Trump 'border czar' Tom Homan has said he plans to do starting on Day 1

Last week, while appearing on Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast, the president-elect's son asked incoming "border czar" Tom Homan what border and immigration-related action the public can expect to see on Day 1 of the new Trump administration.

"Shock and awe," Homan responded. "Shock and awe," he repeated with a smile.

I think is is important to understand the meaning of the term "shock and awe."

Shock and awe (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military strategy based on the use of overwhelming power and spectacular displays of force to paralyze the enemy's perception of the battlefield and destroy their will to fight. Though the concept has a variety of historical precedents, the doctrine was explained by Harlan K. Ullmanand James P. Wade in 1996 and was developed specifically for application by the US military by the National Defense University of the United States. Wikipedia.

Note what I highlighted in the illustration in the Wikipedia article (click to enlarge). 

All it will take will be for one overzealous Trump stormtrooper to decide to open fire on someone, or a group of people, for us to have a Kent State type massacre. It's also possible that someone about to be deported will use violence to resist and give the Trump stormtroops an excuse to respond with deadly force.

Is the country ready for pictures like this?

Unlike the photos from Kent State (above) they won't be still pictures. They will be live videos in full color because Trump, Homan, Stephen Miller, and others want as many people as possible to see their glorious shock and awe.

Is the country ready to see this? My fear is that half the country not only is ready, but they want it to happen because, for them, (as Adam Sewer titled his book) the cruelty is the point.

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