WASHINGTON.– Everything would make more sense if I actually drank. By all indications, President Donald Trump doesn’t drink alcohol. When her own chief of staff said she did it “The personality of an alcoholic” referred to his excessive character rather than his drinking.
In some ways, though, it could be an apt description for a president who seems even less inhibited than usual, leaving many inside and outside Washington shaking their heads or even wondering whether the leader of the free world has lost his head. The word often whispered by Republicans and shouted by Democrats and members of the Never Trump movement is “confused.”
It was one thing when Trump called a journalist a “little pig.” Or when he casually threatened to punish half a dozen members of Congress with the death penalty for correctly disclosing the laws of war. Or when he called all Somali immigrants “trash.” Or when he declared that at the age of 79 it was “inflammatory, perhaps even treacherous” to dare question his physical energy levels. But when Trump cavalierly attacked Hollywood icon Rob Reiner just hours after his body was found at a grisly murder scene, he sparked disgust even among some of his own political allies.
Following that incredible statement, this week he added a series of plaques beneath the portraits of former presidents on the White House colonnade wall, apparently tarnishing some of his predecessors. In fact, he etched some of the cartoonish youth works he posted on social media into bronze and screwed them to the taxpayer-owned building where two Roosevelts lived, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
“He lost his mind” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., wrote on social media after the president attacked Reiner. After seeing photos of the new White House plaques, Murphy added, “He’s such a sad, hurting human being.”
The representative Don BaconR-Nebraska, was equally appalled by the attack on Reiner. “I would expect to hear something like that from a drunk in a bar, not the president of the United States.”he told CNN. “Can the president be president?”
It can be? Do you really want to be? He has long scoffed at the very idea of serving as president. His critics were not appeased by his prime-time televised address to the nation on Wednesday night, which distorted facts and was heavily partisan. In it, he appeared to be trying to make Americans believe by shouting that the country was doing better than the polls suggested.
The White House rejected the criticism. “President Trump tells the truth and says things the way he sees them.” Steven Cheung, communications director, said in an email. “The fact is that President Trump is the best president in the history of our country Sleepyhead Joe Biden will go down in history as the worst“.
Alex Brandon – AP
The talking, the anger and the name-calling have, of course, long been part of Trump’s larger-than-life personality and an element of his appeal to his supporters, who find him invigorating and authentic in a world of politicians who simply read the talking points. They love his leadership style straight from professional wrestling. He tells things as they are. He’s not afraid to argue. Destroy the elites and the “woke” liberals.
It’s a presidency that celebrates evil and resentment, not empathy or elegancewhich is perhaps a reflection of a harsher time in American life. It is not enough to deport migrants who are in the country illegally; Trump and his administration insist on releasing degrading videos and photos of themselves being arrested or imprisoned. He has published images created using artificial intelligence that show former President Barack Obama’s imprisonment and himself as a military pilot bombing protesters who oppose him with excrement. Attacks female reporters because of their looks.
“What makes Trump great is this tells truths that others are afraid to say” wrote Eric Metaxas, a conservative author and commentator, about the new White House plaques that ridicule Obama and former President Joe Biden. “Every word on these plaques is true.” What’s shocking and refreshing is that he made it visible to everyone.”
The comparison of Bacon to a “drunk in a bar” has been done before Vanity Fair published a series of extraordinary, unabashed interviews with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who, among other things, offered the analogy of… “Personality of an Alcoholic.”
He didn’t mean it as a criticism, but as a way to understand the president’s erratic, unbridled and attention-seeking behavior. He compared him to his father Pat Summerall, an American football player and sportscaster who was an absentee father and alcoholic.
“High-functioning alcoholics or alcoholics in general, Their personality becomes exaggerated when they drink“And that’s why I’m something of an expert on great personalities.” Trump’s “alcoholic personality,” she said, means he operates on “the idea that there’s nothing he can’t do.” Nothing, zero, nothing.”
Trump wasn’t offended by the description. In fact, he accepted it. “I’ve said it many times about myself,” he told the New York Post. “I’m lucky I’m not a drinker. If I were, I might as well, because I’ve said that – what’s that called? Non-possessive – possessive, addictive personality. Oh, I’ve said that many, many times.”
Trump’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr., was an alcoholic and died in 1981 at the age of 43. A tragedy that deeply affected the future president. He has often attributed his dislike of drinking to his brother’s decline. And he used it as one of the few self-criticisms he normally offers. “Can you imagine if I had been” a drinker, he once asked in 2018. “What a disaster that would be. It would be the worst thing in the world.”
But in recent weeks, Trump has steadfastly denied any cognitive problems and said he has undergone three tests to measure his mental performance, including a recent one. “I performed exceptionally well in all three cases in front of a large number of doctors and experts, most of whom I do not know,” he wrote online. “I was told that only a few people were able to excel in this exam.”
Alcoholism is of course a disease. The same goes for the narcissism Trump has admitted to in the past. “Narcissism can be a useful trait when trying to start a business,” he wrote in one of his books. “A narcissist doesn’t listen to critics.”
Critics would tell him that presidents don’t typically name things after themselves, like a real estate developer does, but he wouldn’t hear it. Lately, Trump has started naming names. On Thursday, the White House announced that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would be renamed the Trump-Kennedy Center.
The Trump administration just changed the name of the Peace Institute to the Donald Trump Peace Institute. He announced that Trump’s birthday, which coincides with Flag Day, would be a holiday next year with free entry to national parkswhile free admission ends on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Annual park passes in 2026 will bear Trump’s image alongside George Washington. The same goes for Trump commemorative coins that the Treasury Department is investigating for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year.
The new federal child investment accounts created this year have been named “Trump accounts”. In his speech on Wednesday evening, Trump announced a new government website called TrumpRx to help Americans get prescription drugs at lower prices. Hardly anyone doubts that Trump will name the huge White House ballroom he is having built after him. He even suggested it Let the Washington Commanders name their new stadium after him.
No other president has done this while in office. Kennedy had already died when the arts center was named after him. This was also true for Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, when monuments were erected to them in the nation’s capital. Ronald Reagan had been out of power for nearly a decade when Congress and President Bill Clinton named Washington National Airport after him.
Trump’s self-image as Center of the universe This was more than clear in his attack on Reiner. According to authorities, the murders of the famous director and his wife Michele Singer Reiner had nothing to do with politics. But Trump decided to cause a stir with a bizarre social media post in which he suggested her death was “apparently due to anger” at Reiner, an avowed liberal, for “his massive, unrelenting, incurable condition due to a mind-paralyzing disease known as Trump Alienation Syndrome.”
Even after the Reiners’ son, Nick Reiner, was arrested in connection with the attack, Trump doubled down on his statement, telling reporters: “Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was crazy.” “I thought it would be very bad for our country.”
It wasn’t long ago that Trump and his allies attacked liberals who made insensitive or sympathetic comments about right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk after his assassination, accusing them of cheering his death.
“Celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk should not protect you from being fired for being a disgusting person.”Vice President JD Vance said at the time. According to a Reuters investigation, more than 600 Americans were ultimately fired, suspended or otherwise punished for making comments that were seen as celebrating or trivializing Kirk’s assassination or simply criticizing his policies.
One of those who neither applauded nor made light of Kirk’s death was Reiner, who appeared on Piers Morgan’s show at the time and referred to him as one “absolute horror” and said, “I don’t care about your political beliefs; this is unacceptable.”
Perhaps he wasn’t surprised that Trump didn’t follow suit.
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