Monday, August 03, 2026

Me? Or Your Lyin’ Eyes? 👀

If Trump thinks his claims are bullshit, what do they get him?  Where’s the benefit to appearing so but of touch with reality? Saying to yourself, “This is fine,” is a coping mechanism that may be self-delusion, but may be the last alternative to “run in circles, scream and shout!”

But to scream to the world “Everybody loves me and everything I do makes them love me more!” is not a rational strategy. It’s not even Nixon’s “madman theory,” that foreign countries wouldn’t fuck with him because he might be mad enough to launch the nukes. (A theory that overlooks:  a) the cost of total war, and b) that North Vietnam was never that impressed. (Yes, Nixon thought he was keeping Russia (mainly) at bay, but he was just keeping the elephants away. In the real world, his “theory” had no purchase at all. Nixon was a Red-baiter, and he died a Red-baiter. Leopards don’t change their spots.) Nixon knew he wasn’t mad (well, not that mad). The problem with his theory was, so did the rest of the world.
Does it really matter that he “believes” stuff like this? Or does it matter that he says it? Hearne wasn’t charged with pissing on the grass (I’m pretty sure that’s the “secret ingredient.”)

“Moving cameras”? Like, what, a kinetoscope?  Funny none of that evidence showed up in response to Hearne’s motion to dismiss. Or any time at all, really.

And does he think box cutters have twelve inch serrated blades?
His last redoubt is always “it’s very complicated,” as if you’re too dumb to understand the complexities of the subject, though Trump is a master of all things! Why argue with this stuff?  It’s too damned pathetic, whether he thinks he’s gaslighting you (“who you gonna believe? Me, or your lyin’ eyes?”) or he really is that delusional. In the end, it’s a distinction without a difference. Trump says objectively insane things. “Bonkers,” as one Twitter reply says. Is Trump bonkers because he believes this nonsense? Or is he bonkers because he thinks, like Nixon, that he’s fooling people to his advantage? Either way, more fool him.

I’ll just end by pointing out Nixon was the last President we had who was so far over his level of incompetence he had to look up to see bottom. And he envisioned his second term as securing his legacy, too, which, with his landslide victory in ‘72, he had some cause to think was his due. But he was wildly wrong, and it doesn’t matter if his fatal flaw was hubris, or delusion brought on by incompetence. The end was the same; and Trump will be no better off.

History doesn’t really care if Nixon was mad, or venal. The general consensus is: “Yup.” Trump won’t fare any better.
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