Scary and dangerous.
Scary. Dangerous.
The ultimate pendejo is at it again, with probably his greatest pendejada so far. “He’s a Mexican, OK,” said Trump recently of the federal judge who is presiding over one of the lawsuits filed against him, asserting that his so-called Trump University program was nothing but fraud and money grubbing bullshit. As if saying “He’s a Mexican” is enough to make his point that the judge is someone nefarious. Trump goes on to say that “it’s an inherent conflict of interest” for the judge to handle the case simply because he’s a Mexican American. (Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel was born in Indiana.) “I’m building a wall between here and Mexico,” ejaculated Trump for the zillionth time.
What absurdity! It makes me wonder if Trump has even the vaguest notion of what the United States Constitution is all about.
And with every succeeding comment about the judge in the days following that initial outrageous remark, Trump has continued to dig himself deeper and deeper into a pit of bigotry and stupidity. I’ve held my nose and written about Trump’s racist and outrageous mutterings before. But months ago I decided I wouldn’t waste my time nor the time of readers by dignifying anything he says by writing about it. But this last pendejada by Trump just forced me back to the keyboard.
During the first couple days of this latest ridiculous chapter of tonteria, he kept repeating: “I’m building a wall, OK – between here and Mexico. He’s a Mexican.” And because he’s of Mexican heritage, he shouldn’t have the audacity to preside in a lawsuit that charges Trump with running a scam operation intended to separate “students” from their money with phony promises of being tutored to make millions of dollars by following Trump’s advice – for a price. “How could a Mexican American dare to sit in judgment of me,” he seemed to be saying. Trump’s minions at “Trump University” (which obviously not a university by any stretch) were more like aluminum siding salesmen than “professors.” Vulnerable, gullible folks were fleeced out of fees up to 35 thousand dollars for real estate investing advice that was like something out of a travel brochure. That case in San Diego presided over by Judge Curiel and others in New York and elsewhere are still be to litigated.
When even right wing politicians condemned Trump’s racist rants about Judge Curiel. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, hardly a liberal friend of the Latino community, said of Trump’s attacks on the judge: “It’s the very definition of racism.” (Still, Ryan stopped short of retracting his endorsement of the maniac who is going to be the Republican Party’s candidate for president in the general election.) Even Newt Gingrich, the borderline fascist former Speaker of the House condemned Trump’s remarks about Curiel as “A big mistake, inexcusable.” (Yet, he also refused to retract his endorsement.) All of which tells us, this whole thing is beyond outrageous – even given Trump’s history of racist stupidity.
Even Ryan says Trumps comments are, “…the very definition of racism.”
The only thing worse than Trump are the pathetic apologists for him who appear as talking heads on the news programs, particularly on CNN. (CNN, in my view is responsible for Trump’s political ascendency by putting his mug on the screen seemingly 24 hours a day.) The apologists say the most ridiculous things. “When Donald called him a silly crippled reporter who looks funny, he didn’t really mean that, he meant he was cute and when he called a Mexican a rapist and a murderer, he really meant to say that he loves Cinco de Mayo.” That’s more or less the kind of bullshit you hear from the Trump surrogates.
What’s particularly scary is that it’s a sure bet that most of his jingoistic supporters don’t find fault with what Trump is saying. I can almost hear them saying, as they put down their 16 ounce can of Budweiser: “Yeah, so what? Trump’s right about that Mexican. Trump is my man and he tells it like it is.” Well, Trump has gotten millions of votes from that ilk. And that says a lot about the state this country is in. And it says a lot about how bigotry, intolerance and racism are thriving here. And that is very scary.
At one of his Trump rallies (which remind of scenes from a Leni Riefenstahl propaganda documentary film) Trump yelled to his crowd of supporters that Judge Curiel has something personal against him, without any evidence to back up that claim. “He’s a hater, he’s a hater,” Trump trumpeted to the sieg heil-like shouts of approval from the crowd.
A few days after the initial firestorm caused by Trump’s remarks about the judge, Trump offered a statement to “clarify” things. Some thought he would apologize in the statement. Some thought he would take back what he said. No. His statement claimed that the whole world “misconstrued” what he said about Judge Curiel. It reminds me of a line from a Groucho Marx movie: “Who are you gonna believe, me or your own two eyes?” What all heard exactly what Trump said and we understand exactly what he meant.
Is he duplicitously stupid or duplicitously evil?
So, Trump is either very duplicitously stupid or duplicitously very evil. Not exactly a Hopson’s choice for voters in the general election – but close.
And he has the temerity – or the cognitive blindness – to declare, “I love the Hispanics, the Hispanics love me, I’m going to do very well with the Hispanics.” How delusional can a person get?
To top off his racist rants about Mexicans, El Trompudo added a bit of fuel to his own fire by telling a reporter from CBS News that he would have problems if a Muslim judge were handling a court case that involved him. The Trompudo is an equal opportunity bigot.
As I read all of these ludicrous comments by Trump (and saw and heard some of them on television broadcasts) I had to restrain myself from throwing the pinche remote at the TV. I assume – and hope – many other reasonable people in this country felt the same way. But I had to sit back and remind myself just who this guy is. The king of narcissism. The poster boy for psychological egocentrism. And the boy wonder of bigotry. A tapado evidently driven by anger, prejudice and hatred. He was born with a silver shovel in his mouth.
A recent article in The Atlantic magazine took a cold hard look at the psychological makeup of Donald Trump. Scary. Donald P. McAdams did lots of research for the piece, interviewing psychiatrists and digging into the literature about what are called purveyors of “extroversion.” McAdams writes: “A cardinal feature of high extroversion is relentless reward-seeking. Prompted by the activity of dopamine circuits in the brain, highly extroverted actors are driven to pursue positive emotional experiences, whether they come in the form of social approval, fame or wealth.” That’s a lot of highfalutin academic language that confirms that Trump is a selfish horse’s ass. McAdams goes on to explain that – based on his psychological profile – Donald Trump is the kind of guy who basically thinks he’s superior to everyone else, has no empathy for others and is largely driven by anger. Everybody and everything pisses him off. And he wants to punish them to get his way. Wow! As described in that Atlantic article, an interviewer once tried to “get inside” Trump and asked him: “Well, do you consider yourself ideal company? He replied, ‘You really want to know what I consider ideal company – a total piece of ass.’” What a class act.
So, should we be surprised by all of his horseshit, the latest contribution being his attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel? We shouldn’t be. Let me be real clinical and scientific about it: he’s fucking nuts. El bato está loco. As my family would have said: le patina el coco. All of this would be darkly amusing if the stakes weren’t so high, in the big picture of things. This guy actually has a shot at being the president of the United States. Scary. And dangerous.
And, of course, what’s scarier is that there are millions of people in the United States who would put him in that office. For me, that’s the scariest thing of all.
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Copyright 2016 by Luís Torres. Torres is a Los Angeles-based journalist and author. He can be reached at: Luis.r.torres@charter.net Atlantic Magazine cover used under the “fair use” proviso of the copyright law. All other photos in the public domain.