Trump: Art of the Con

The First Hundred Days’ Reality

By Richard Margittay

American citizens expect their president to be a man of integrity, a leader, and a role model.

Does Donald Trump possess any of these essential qualities? Or, is he akin to a carnival barker running a shell game on America?

During his campaign, he made many wild vows, but as president he is doing the “moonwalk” on his keynote pledges, such as his infamous “Muslim ban” while whistling a different tune about NATO and NAFTA. The sad reality is that he has flip-flopped on and reversed most major emphatic promises including billing Mexico for a $20-billion wall and “repealing and replacing Obamacare.”

Trump’s has also reneged on his promise to reveal his tax returns which could be just one more razzle-dazzle deception to conceal his shady international business ventures.

Will he ever be able to seal the deal on any of his highly-ballyhooed campaign promises?

President Trump’s statements are too often found to be fabricated, while paranoia appears to be an authentic Trump peculiarity, for example: “The election is rigged (against him),” “President Obama wire-tapped Trump Tower phones,” “There were three to five million illegal votes…none of them for me!” “To be honest, I inherited a mess! It’s a mess - at home and abroad, a mess!” “This country is a disaster!”

Trump was being interviewed about his unfounded Obama wire-tap accusations by CBS anchor John Dickerson at the White House. Trump unsuccessfully attempted to bob and weave his familiar web of deceit, then walked off camera in defeated arrogance.

When the press does fact-checking and pounces on Trump’s false statements, Trump usually responds with: “The media are very-very horrible human beings!” “The media is the enemy of the people.” “The media is fake news!”

His demonstrative trumped-up attacks on the news media resemble his unwarranted brutal attacks on sixteen Republican candidates for president during the televised debates.

Easily irritated, Trump’s bait-and-switch strategies do not inspire trust or confidence; however, The Donald’s duped supporters overlook his mania and see him as their hero who will, in their view, save this “disastrous” country, trashed by Obama Democrats.

“Believe me!”

In his desire to come across as believable when making implausible statements, this reality-show performer uses the words, “believe me:” “I know more about ISIS than the generals…believe me!” “Mexico will pay for the wall…believe me!” This never-happening “wall” is turning out to be Trump’s wildest folly, ripe for “kicking down the road” forever.

Peculiar statements such as: “How handsome am I?” “Hispanics love me.” “African Americans love me.” “Muslim’s love me.” “My inauguration was bigger than Obama’s”, indicate an abnormal longing to be surrounded by adoration.

After witnessing Trump’s many egotistical accounts, President George W. Bush pointedly commented: “The office of the president is more important than the occupant.”

Likely believing his own countless smears and lies, Trump’s daily brain-washing mantra, “fake news,” is turning out to be the catchy battle cry of his hoodwinked disciples.

Unable to accept any form of criticism, the MO of this president is to tag each of his verified fabrications, exposed by the press, as just more “fake news;” dictating that the media is his “opposition party.”

When this anti-free press president is debunked by fact-checkers, he and his staff are forced to waste valuable time scrambling to defend the fabrications with more spin and diversion, hoping the media will soon stop interfering with Trump’s smoke and mirror illusions.

Just like Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao and Josef Stalin, President Trump officially declared war on one of the most precious constitutional amendment: freedom of the press.

On February 17th, President Trump tweeted: “Media outlets, including the New York Times, NBC, ABC and CNN are “the enemy of the American people.” A previous tweet identified the Times, CNN and NBC as “SICK.”

The truth is, professional journalists generally don’t fake news and are usually quick to correct mistakes because inaccuracy harms credibility and careers. Deliberately faking news will destroy a reporter’s career. The real “fake news” champion, Donald Trump, only has himself to blame for the “SICK” things he tweets and says - not the professional journalists who are just doing their jobs.

Russians Trumpet Trump

Prior to the November 8th election, it was known that Russia’s dictator, President Vladimir Putin, did not want Hillary Clinton as president because she would have continued trade sanctions against Russia. It was confirmed by the FBI that Putin’s agents hacked Hillary Clinton’s computer, and then exposed damaging Clinton emails which are believed by many to have tilted the election in Trump’s favor.

At that time, Trump shocked America by saying several kind things about Putin, the very man who marched his troops into part of the Ukraine for a military takeover.

Moscow was in full celebration mode when Trump won the presidential election.

After the election, information leaked out about Trump’s newly appointed National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, Senator Jeff Sessions (now Trump’s U.S Attorney General), and others, who had pre-election talks with Putin’s staff.

There was a serious congressional inquiry after it was discovered that Sessions likely lied under oath at his Senate confirmation hearing about his meeting with a Kremlin senior diplomat Sergei Kislyak prior to the November election.

There is currently an FBI and congressional investigation into possible election tampering with Trump’s pre-election advisers who may have been in quid pro quo collusion with Russian agents. Investigation details have surfaced which indicates that persons connected with Trump may have coordinated hacked Clinton email dumps.

When questioned about his, or his pre-election underlings’ involvement in talks with Russians, Trump has been consistently evasive, stating, “The leaks are real. The news is fake.”

It is reasonable to conclude that Putin may now be in possession of “ace-in-the-hole” information about Trump’s pre-election dealings and his civilian staff members’ stealthy talks with the Russians. Putin will possibly use this information at an appropriate time to blackmail President Trump.

In the eyes of a seasoned pro like Vladimir Putin, Trump is just a ruthless incompetent with colored hair and a sprayed-on tan. Russian citizens probably look at Trump as the man their all-powerful ruler placed in power.

Putin would love to hold a hammer over Trump and the U.S., especially if he feels he contributed to Trump’s election. Dividing America and seeing the U.S. cut ties with the U.N. and the European Union is, no doubt, one of Putin’s big hopes.

Four more years?

Trump, the man who publicly insulted a Muslim Gold Star mother and mocked a disabled reporter, displayed his lack of leadership as president by publicly criticizing federal judges and ranking members of the FBI in his tyrannical desire to bully, de-legitimize, and control all branches of federal government. Who would have thought that a self-absorbed bully, with no governing experience and caught boasting about committing criminal sexual contact, would get enough votes to be elected to anything?

With a dark cloud looming over Trump’s dubious involvement with Russia and his unsubstantiated deflection that President Obama bugged his offices, Trump continues to evade reporters and accountability to Americans by continuing to hide behind his twitter.

All the “messes” Trump keeps spouting about pale in comparison to the mess he has made of the dignity of the U.S. presidency, likely made achievable because of a Russian scheme to manufacture Trump votes.

At least half of the voting population in America and much of the world, dismissed by Donald Trump, are having serious questions about this president’s honesty, competence, and emotional stability.

With his failure to get a single bill passed through his friendly Republican congress in his first hundred days including “Trump-care,” as he decreed, this self-proclaimed deal-artist is, in reality, just a con-artist.

The real “disaster” for America is for this “doth protest too much” president to then pat himself on the back so much for accomplishing so little, evidenced by his inability to pass any of his wild campaign vows in the first hundred days, even with help from a friendly House and Senate.

Can a U.S. president, who has proven over and over that his words are not true or logical, expect to be believed or trusted by world leaders or anyone?

In light of the recent muscle flexing and bombings by Trump and other unstable presidents, hopefully, our top military strategists will make all military deployment decisions without indecisive interference from a draft -dodger who makes juvenile rants such as, “We need to bomb the s___ out of them!”

Tricked Trump groupies are, of course, free to live in denial and refuse to believe the evidence which corroborate that this 71-year-old modern-day Narcissus appears to be unfit to be president while exhibiting personality traits of a sociopath.