Everyone knows the story of the frog and boiling water. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, the frog immediately will jump out. The frog will live to hop another day no worse for the wear. Instead, suppose the frog is placed in a pot of water at room or pond temperature and then water is then heated. What happens to the frog then? The frog dies. It keeps adjusting to the new normal until it is too late and it dies. The story is a good one whether it is true or not for frogs. That’s because it is true for people.
Imagine this scenario for being placed in a pot of boiling water. The year is 2000. Suddenly you visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future or a Terminator or Marty McFly or Clarence the Angel. You are told about the year 2020. You instantly become fully immersed in the year 2020. [This works better in science fiction than in the real world.] What do you see in the world of 2020 compared to the world you know in 2000?
A president who can’t tell the truth except by accident.
A president with no morals, no ethics, and no conscience.
A president with no sense of sympathy or empathy.
A president who is full-scale narcissist.
A president who is a bigot.
A president who is incapable of reading a book.
A president who has trouble speaking in complete sentences.
A president who has elementary-school level writing skills.
A president who has alienated America’s allies.
A president who prefers dictators and authoritarian leaders to democratic ones.
A president who fires anyone who is professional and loyal to the Constitution over him.
A president who will only accept happy talk from subordinates.
A president who thrives on insulting and demeaning people.
A president who operates on the level of a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck.
A president who had the brains of an immature child.
A president at the time when a new disease killed tens of thousands of Americans because he lives in an imaginary world and has no management skills.
A president at the time when a new disease caused the largest unemployment numbers since the depression in little over one month.
A president who forfeited America’s leadership role in the world that it had held since World War II.
A president who is the laughingstock of the world.
A president who thought disinfectant could cure people of a virus.
A president who 40% of the American population accept as their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, who can do no wrong.
So there you are in 2000 suddenly confronted in one overwhelming moment with the totality of President Donald Trump in the year 2020. In an instant, all at once, you are hit with the staggering onslaught of having to absorb all the conditions itemized above.
What would your reaction be if you are not a Trumpican?
You would scream. You would scream as loud as you could possibly scream. You would scream for as long as you possibly could scream. And then you would scream again. After physically exhausting yourself and while laying helpless in bed or on the floor, you would ask the Ghost of Christmas Future or the Terminator, Marty McFly, or Clarence the Angel how could such a dystopian world could exist? Could anything be done to prevent such a dystopia from occurring? Was such a dystopia inevitable or merely a possibility?
Of course, such an event in 2000 did not and could not occur. There was no way anyone could realistically predict the election to the American presidency of the immature child simultaneous with the coronavirus. Maybe someone could and did predict one and not the other, but both seems farfetched. No such script would have been accepted by Hollywood. No such book proposal would have been accepted by a publisher. Even Donald Trump would not have believed anything so outlandish.
But in the real world, we were not dropped into a pot of boiling water. In the real world we did not awaken after being a coma for 20 years. In the real world, we experienced the future one day at a time, like heating a pot of water. And we adjusted to the new normal little by little until at last we died…or will be able to avoid the horrendous future shown by the Ghost of Christmas Future, the Terminator, Marty McFly, or Clarence the Angel? Will we be able to make things right and live the world of George Bailey and Donna Reed? Isn’t that what everyone wants?
Meanwhile in the real world as we ponder our future, the pot keeps boiling. Look at what the unhinged President has been able to accomplish recently.
Fauci has been muzzled.
Flynn has been exonerated.
Obamacare has been targeted even during a health epidemic.
Food stamps have been curtailed even as hunger mounts.
Inspector Generals have been neutered and replaced with West Wing World replicas.
We know that Mike Pence has sold his soul.
We see that Kayleigh McEnany has too.
We watch as Deborah Birx struggles to keep hers.
We watch as Mike Pompeo campaigns for the 2024 Trumpican Party presidential nomination…assuming that the current incumbent won’t run then even from prison.
We learn about the value of human life to the President with no conscience. No more talk about zero deaths soon. No more talk about 50,000 deaths, or 60,000 deaths, or 75,000 deaths. We wonder when in June we will hit 100,000. Hannity will still crow that it is far less than 2 million so why believe the so-called experts and scientists. It is past the time to liberate Americans so We the People are able to live free and let die. By the way, 3,000 deaths/day for a year is over 1 million people. If there is still no vaccine and/or the prospective death rate increases as we are freed from oppressive governors, will Hannity and co. still be exulting then?
So now the President has made a decision. That’s what he is supposed to do. The buck stops with him. He takes responsibility. He is the wartime President and We the People are his warriors. In a war, people die. Bonespur Boy accepts that. He knows that in a war, he will have to order people to their death. He accepts the projection that 3,000 people/day will die between now and the election. He can live with that number. After all real men can’t get infected and real Americans can’t be either. If old people who are going to die soon anyway die and…you know…those people die, too, that is a price he is willing to pay to re-open the economy so he can be re-elected and maintain his immunity. The gut instincts that enabled him to exploit the pain of Americans in 2016 now tell him that Americans, especially Trumpicans will accept 3,000 deaths/day as the new normal. The frog will be stay in the gradually heating pot.
Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates
April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
May 25 2020: celebrate the victory over the coronavirus: in 17 days!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted
Fall 2020: Deep State proves China responsible for coronavirus
NOVEMBER 3, 2020: CLAIM VICTORY NO MATTER THE RESULTS
January 20, 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers.
It is sad that we have to define who we are in today’s ideology divide, but recognizing what political discourse has come to in these times, I will start by saying I’m not a “Trumpican.” I’m an independent voter who uses critical thinking, distrust all parties, and distrusts the news media. When reduced to that level, it takes a lot of work sifting through different sources when trying to discover the truth. It’s not easy, and nothing can be taken for granted. Oftentimes, articles and news reports consist of some truths, some half-truths, some misrepresentations, and some outright lies. An objective person, as best as is possible, must sort it out and then formulate what is factual.
I don’t care all that much for Trump mainly because people with superegos turn me off. Obama, “W”, and both Clintons fall into the same category. But most likely, it is the superego that elevates these people to levels they’ve achieved.
With that out of the way, I’d give your article more credibility if you had substituted Donald Trump’s name with “Mainstream Media.” And as for the frog story, it appears that you have done that same thing in warmed up water of the mainstream media. I don’t know how much space this comment section allows, plus I don’t have the time to address every bullet point you made, but let’s take a peek as a few of them.
A president who is full-scale narcissist.
On this point, I’ll agree as I stated earlier.
who thrives on insulting and demeaning people.
who operates on the level of a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck.
who had the brains of an immature child.
To me, all three of these bring Don Lemon, Rachael Maddow, and several other newscasters (who are not really newscasters but host opinion shows) along with some night show hosts to mind.
who can’t tell the truth except by accident.
As investigations unfold, we are finding out this statement applies to many, many people in our government, as well as the mainstream news media. Also, when applied to Pres. Trump, many of the lie claims are matters of a difference of opinion, and who is this person who is keeping track of all his lies? Where is the list with a detailed explanation of what are lies? And finally, where is the list of lies that actually hurt the USA? That is an important distinction.
A president who has alienated America’s allies.
A president who is the laughingstock of the world.
A president who forfeited America’s leadership role in the world that it had held since World War II.
As an American who has spent the vast majority of his life for the past 18 years overseas, I can say with full confidence, this is a falsehood created by mainstream media and not correct. Perhaps the author of this article should spend some time traveling (when, and if, it is allowed again) and not parrot the talking points of the left.
A president who prefers dictators and authoritarian leaders to democratic ones.
Another talking point of the left that has no basis. Any good negotiator knows that you can’t make gains with an opponent by taking an adversarial position. And expecting our allies to be responsible and due their part is not an unreasonable request. Again, the “prefers” word was propaganda spewed out by mainstream media who hate Pres. Trump.
A president who fires anyone who is professional and loyal to the Constitution over him.
A president who will only accept happy talk from subordinates.
Another untruth. Firing people is a norm with all Presidents. Obama fired everyone and put in place his Cabinet and those who he felt he could work with, his “answer men,” so to speak. Pres. Trump, being an outsider, handled his new job as any new CEO would do – retain everyone in place until he had the time to find out who were good producers and which ones were not. A person who doesn’t understand management would not recognize this. And another thing, mainstream media picks and chooses its winners with their one-sided reporting. They will never compare Pres. Trump’s actions with that of any other President as a comparison unless it happens to fit their agenda. And believe me, they DO have an agenda.
A president who thought disinfectant could cure people of a virus.
This is a total twisting of the truth, and any reader of this article who is aware of the facts should know this.
A president at the time when a new disease caused the largest unemployment numbers since the depression in little over one month.
This is incorrect. The disease didn’t cause the largest unemployment, the government did. The “one size fits all” decision to shut down everything was wrong. I fault Pres. Trump on this, but it was heavily brought on by pressure from Congress and the mainstream news media. It was “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” Had he not ordered the shutdown, he’d have been hammered, and because of the resulting unemployment, he is now hammered. The author of this article conveniently ignored the fact that under Pres. Trump, the USA had the highest employment across all demographics in US history. That is being dishonest. But from my knowledge of this virus, shutting down the economy was wrong, and more people will be hurt financially than people would have suffered directly from the virus if the lockdown hadn’t taken place. Dr. Fucci is the main person who has been wrong regarding this virus. His long tenure in the government is a good illustration of why there is a huge problem in the bureaucracy.
Well, I’ve spent way more time than I intended to and still feel I was unable to address the article adequately. I’ve always found it distressing when I read opinion articles by pundits who are heavy on criticism but lack one ounce of alternative solutions. It is easy to criticize in hindsight when you were never in the position of having to make decisions in real-time. It also distresses me when I read articles like this, which have no point other than to sway minds to a particular agenda. It is certainly not objective, and merely parrots the talking points of a corrupt mainstream media. It is disappointing that ihare.org felt it was worthy of publication. And no, I don’t think Pres. Trump is the best thing since sliced bread. I do wonder, however, how the left and the mainstream media would have handled all this had Hillary Clinton become President. I’m sure the articles and newscasts would have been used in creative writing courses at high schools and universities for years to come.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. You are not on the IHARE distribution list so I am not sure how you became aware of this blog. If you want to be added to the list, please let me know.
I agree with your opening paragraph.
I don’t recall seeing the word “superego” for Trump. More often than not it is “id” given his childish impulses.
I disagree on using the term “Mainstream Media” to improve credibility. The blog is about the actions of an individual human being and not a faceless collection of organizations.
The frog story works because no one in 2000 would believe where were are in 2020 if thrust into it. It had to happen little by little.
I disagree with your characterization of the talk show hosts. Only Hannity matches Trump in invective and none of them of are immature children functioning at the level of a seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck. Truly he is in a class by himself.
I agree it would be beneficial to examine the list of the 17,000 trumps maintained by the Washington Post. Some of those items are likely to be examples of ignorance and not duplicity. Exactly how one calculates the impact how America’s leadership role has suffered due these items is harder to calculate. Even his followers now that they can trust him and have to rely on Fauci for honest information about the coronavirus.
The world laughed to his face at the General Assembly. The world laughed behind his back in the surreptitious recording taken at an international conference and I doubt that it was the only time. Unfortunately the decline in American status is not a talking point of the left, it is a reality regardless of your experience abroad.
I have never heard him praise democratic leaders the way he has leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea. That is not a talking point of the left, it is reality. He obviously is not a good negotiator, has accomplished little by his cozying up, and bullying allies is not the way to maintain an alliance.
Targeting people who tell the truth and who place loyalty to the oath they took over loyalty to the individual is not the norm with all Presidents. Normally the situation doesn’t arise because normally Presidents don’t brazenly break the law because under Article 2 a President can do whatever he wants. Yes, Presidents do have the right to work with people they are comfortable with. The idea that a serial business failure who ran small-staffed organization is a good CEO who just was seeking “good producers” truly is laughable unless by “good producers” you mean people who are loyal to him first.
I predict that one day there will be statues of him holding a bottle of disinfectant.
Technically you are correct: the virus did not cause unemployment in that a virus is not a decisionmaker. In general, Presidents have as much to do with the employment rate as they do with the rising and setting of the sun or the occurrence of hurricanes. It is always better to President in good times even when they would have happened had your opponent won.
I did suggest an alternate solution. I said thousands fewer Americans would have died had Mike Pence become President in February. I guess you missed that blog. It probably be true if the results in 2016 had been reserved as well.
Thanks again for writing.
Wow, somebody really went all in on drinking the Kool-Aid.
So, what are you thoughts on the current administration?
Inflation?
Border Control?
Over 1 million people dead from a virus that had a vaccine ready to go when he took office?
Shall we even talk about the failing mental acuity?
Seriously, give us your true and honest thoughts and not just the talking points that you are given and told to stick to.
You are exactly right. I have had so much Kool-Aid I am practically bursting. However, I am a little puzzled about the rest of message.
Surely you know that the bulk of the illegal immigrants arrive here legally on student, work, or tourist visas and then just say. The border is a distraction so you don’t catch on to where the real problem. It is like a magician telling to watch something like a highly visual border crossing while the real action occurs elsewhere. You fell for the con.
I would have though you knew that COVID is a hoax. The 15 went to 1. It can be cured by disinfectant. If we stop testing the numbers will go down. The 1 million dead is FAKE NEWS intended to attribute the deaths to the ineptitude and incompetence of our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. You have been conned again.
As you know, I can’t give you my true and honest thoughts but only the talking points I have been given and told to stick to. Seriously.
Thanks for writing.