Pandemic Newsflash: Consumer Confidence Is Our New Leader. Political Spin Has Novel Coronavirus

      [ADOLESCENT WARNING! THIS ARTICLE HAS A TON OF SHIT AND A FUCK OR TWO]

        It has been a while since I've written on politics; a year in reality, however, over two years if you exclude the piece I wrote last May on Pelosi and her reluctance to impeach Donald Trump. Since I've been away, a lot has happened in our world, but really, not a damn thing has happened at all except the 2018 elections and this current pandemic, the matter that brings me back to the arena of political lip flapping.

        I would love to think that something I enjoy researching and engaging in so much is more than just creative political opinionating, yet, I am now well aware of how truly foolish politics can become thanks to the last 3 years of pure foolishness we've been reduced to. Of course, this is not to suggest that politics are not important. This is to insist that the day to day exchange of thoughts and ideas in our current political arena has been proven to be nothing more than the last surviving circus in America with a ton of elephants and donkeys rolling around, doing silly tricks and shitting all over the place in the process. If anyone has watched the manner in which Congress has gone about dealing with what should be the most bipartisan issue in the history of bipartisan issues and can describe their behavior any better than I did in that last sentence, I highly encourage you to do it and share the results with me. I am totally curious on how many creative ways there are to describe a shit show.

        I enjoy Twitter and Facebook (sorry Google) as much as the next person, but my decision to get away from writing full blown articles (that I would want to read) about televised political pooping was not easy, but it was necessary. At some point it became obvious that the media was simply using Trump- and other people's anger towards him- for the sake of clicks and revenue, and there was just no easy way to not be a part of all that except to not be a part of all that, so I took a hiatus and decided to write a book instead.

        Now that we are all locked down in a pseudo-national quarantine, many of us have had the opportunity to reflect on ourselves and our lives, drink a lot, or drink a lot and reflect on ourselves and our lives all at the same time. Drinking and reflecting typically involves a replay of all the regrets, so I would encourage dancing when you drink and not much reflecting on life. Just a suggestion. Nonetheless, if you have embraced the opportunity to get to know the people in your home, including the one you see in the mirror every morning, you might finally be coming into the realization that nobody, and I repeat, nobody can be the blame for your happiness or sadness.  My apologies if I lost you or killed your morning buzz from that comment.

        For those who are still with me, I have to confess that I mostly lived by that mantra before the election of Donald fkn Trump. I include the FKN with no intention of disrespecting the President of the United States of America that I have very little respect for, but to emphasize the depth of the hatred I HAD developed for the guy we call president. I'm using all caps to bring strong attention to the word HAD, because I USED to hate the guy. Now, I just feel terribly sad for him and US.

 
        My deep sadness started over 2 yrs ago, when I no longer had the desire to write another word about this man. At the time, I also started that book project, so my assumption initially was that I could not easily co-mingle my brain when it came to writing. While the book is finally  winding through final edits, I now realize my inability to co-mingle had very little to do with anything other than the state of depression I was in for American politics. In a way, I have gone through the stages of grief over the death of American politics- my deceased mistress- via the election of Donald J. Trump, which essentially acknowledges that I experienced anger, stage two of grief, for way too long towards this man we call president. Most of our denial happened during the campaign, and we can all recall the bargaining we went through of blaming Hillary for being an awful candidate, or blaming non-voters for not voting. We are not over the Russia blame, but that's another topic for another day.
     
        Every divinely authored sermon in life is one you are learning yourself as you are sharing it with others. I used to love sharing the image to the right as a sermon to myself and to encourage other people to take ownership of themselves and dominion over their emotions. In the spirit of a true confession that might help someone else who is struggling with the same issue, I used to hate our fuckin' president and the mere sight of him made me angry. I ran away from talking about him because there wasn't anything new to be said, but mostly, I was mad as hell and couldn't find enough creative ways to say that or anything else.

        Today, I acknowledge that Trump used to own me the way he currently still owns a bunch of you. I am writing again today to purge this issue, to hopefully save some of you from the silent chains you bear, and to take back agency with myself and my native realm of artistic expression- political lip flapping. He who angers you might own you......but he who kills your creative spirit is killing you as well. So, I am back to writing about politics again because a newsworthy matter has arrived. But, mostly I am writing because I must.

        I am writing again today because pandemics happen about as often as ill-suited businessmen winning the presidency. While we have found ourselves to be mostly vaccinated against the damages of voting for the wrong person to lead our nation, we have also found out that vaccinations against viruses and bad presidents take a while to be created and only work if you take them.

       The best option that exists to deal with a novel virus is to self distance, mask up or stay home for the biological ones, and educate yourself on the nuances of the other virus any way you can until it is forced to go away via concerned citizens or term limits, whichever comes first. If you hadn't noticed, pandemics are great for film study or research of any kind. This moment film study/research for me came without intention as I was simply enjoying my morning coffee and scrolling through the movie channels to make sure I get maximum value for the premium channel services I am paying for during this pandemic. Because I insist on getting value out of my purchases, I now know why we are all going through this pandemic like a kite without a string.

       "Where's My Roy Cohn" was the documentary I came across and it left me wishing I had researched him back when his name first became mentioned in connection with Trump. I had seen a few pieces about Roger Stone which made me believe I understood a little bit about Trump, but Stone admits in this documentary, Cohn created him too, and you simply can not understand Trump or Stone without knowing Roy Cohn.

        For those who aren't old enough or didn't follow the Roy Cohn story close enough to know much about him, this documentary not only let's you know who he was, it tells you everything you need to know about the current ring leader of our Washington D.C. circus, and why he wants the spotlight kept on him and all of his pronouncements instead of any other animal in the act, including the media.   

        Yes. The media is just another animal stuck in this circus act, because most of the media has no way of knowing how to make it all end, and the rest have no desire to. The media of America is as dirty as Donald says we are even if we have tried our level best to minimize our overt dirtiness with him. Similarly, the Congress of America is as corrupt and guilt worthy as anyone when it comes to how we got into the mess we are in However, no one should read these indictments and consider themselves exempt.

        If you are not a part of the media or Congress, you still consume whatever media they give, giving them very little reason to feed you anything else, and you vote- or don't vote- with partisan predictability allowing for life-long incumbents and giving them no reason to listen to you. The real circus used to exist because it had a crowd that made it exist. In America's political circus, you are now either a performer or you are the constituents of the performance, because, the people who refused to go to the circus because it glorified caged animals played as active a role in making the circus go away as the people who got bored with the show.

        When I took a look in my own mirror over two years ago, I saw a disgruntled media person as well as an angry constituent who kept buying a damn ticket, and I no longer wanted to be either one. I was covering Donald's latest moment of disrespect towards someone new each day as if it deserved to be talked about like news. Mostly, it was and is just shocking and embarrassing. It absolutely is not newsworthy anymore. Pandemics aside, history will give us all plenty of time to be shocked by this MAGA moment in history that we've created or allowed. With all due respect, with everything at stake and no one steering us through this but YOU, it is not time to keep being shocked by another day of the same shit.

       We all know where to go to find his latest tweet if we need a jolt to our senses with a fresh bucket of embarrassment. If that doesn't work, go see the Globetrotters. Unlike the circus, they still have a crowd. Otherwise, nothing has really been newsworthy about this man we are forced to call president for well over two years, and that includes that slow moving, dodge-able bullet called the impeachment trial. By the time Pelosi finally decided she had enough, America was stuck in a "why now" moment of disbelief over her late pull of the trigger. When we all woke up from too many hours of impeachment coverage, we were left feeling as if the thing she finally impeached him for was much less important than the Mueller report, especially considering how Trump openly did towards China the same thing that he was impeached for doing with Ukraine.

        Trump is only right about the slime in Washington D.C. because he rubbed shoulders, donated to to both sides and slid smoothly without detection between the slime for years. In essence, he was and is the slime too, so nobody noticed or cared that he was there. In addition, nobody understands the slime or the slimey better than him, however, he told us that from the very beginning along with a bunch of other things that have many of us shaking our heads as though he wasn't up front about it all. Of course, he straight up lied about the taxes, but you get my point. He is who we thought he was, so the rest is up to YOU. You can remain stuck in denial, anger, depression, or bargaining away the blame on non-voters, but its time for acceptance so we can save our nation.  In the final analysis, if this pandemic and the presidency of Donald J. Trump does not help us to achieve anything personally, then it will not help us achieve anything collectively because all change begins with YOU.

        I am proud that I stared into the mirror over two years ago, saw a guy who was angry over a silly white man with an orange tan, and said enough already. Two years later, I am actually over the sadness and fully within acceptance, but Facebook doesn't really give you a wide range of options to click when responding to posts or comments in regards to Trump, so 😢 wins every time for me still.

        Now that I stand here healed and on the other side of my pain, I am also proud to say that I have gone through the stages of grief over the death of American politics too, and it has helped me immensely as we all sit back and watch the kind of disarray in D.C. that we've never seen at historically bipartisan moments when the world desperately needs leaders to lead.

        Take it or leave it. Congress is broken and Donald is all we have, which means we don't have much. After watching the Roy Cohn documentary, I now understand how we got him (and Ronald Reagan too btw😳....yes, watch it) and who he is better than I ever did before. At the risk of a spoiler for those of you who haven't seen it, it will explain why Trump pretends everything is a positive no matter how bad it looks. This is what Trump learned from Cohn as the number one lesson. This is what he does no matter the moment before him. This is what has worked for him immeasurably prior to a pandemic, and this is exactly what is going to kill him figuratively, along with countless Americans literally, because a virus with no vaccine and this level of contagiousness will become the kind of bad news that even Roy Cohn could not spin before it is all over.

        It all ready is, and you can't simply tell people who are afraid of a virus that is killing thousands, 'you are doing a good job' when you are not. The job will be good when WE the People are willing to go places again. PERIOD!! What our president is doing right now will not bring confidence to anyone, which means he is functionally useless, which means YOU are the only hope WE have left.

Watch any 4 television commercials in a row like I did, and
see if you notice any trends or similarities in the theme? If
you can't already tell, YOU are the only hope for this economy. 

     
        Scared people need honesty over bluster. Scared people realize viruses don't know your political affiliation so they want truth in times of fear and not Roy Cohn derived political spin. To watch Donald do his thing before I knew about Roy Cohn was infuriating and terribly confusing before I grew to accept it for what it is. To watch him now that I know what he is doing and why he keeps doing it despite watching it not work day after day is enlightening to the point of almost refreshing in a way. What this pandemic and that documentary has shown me is that, Donald can't lead any other way, and he might not be interested in learning after all of these years of using the media to simply spin the narrative, just like Roy taught him.

        In a way, this pandemic has proven to everyone still evaluating what we currently have in a president versus what we are being offered by way of Joe Biden, that Donald only knows spin....and golf. He might know real estate, but he has failed a lot in that arena and we have yet to see those taxes to determine if he's particularly good at real estate, so the jury is still out on the topic.

       Through his two hour daily televised circus events, Trump reveals his style of leadership for all to clearly see. In a moment when the playbook has already been written for him, in simple words with large text, Trump is floundering and can't seem to read this Dr. Seuss book or listen to Dr. Fauci's advice.  Recent polls suggest only 35% of Americans are still listening to him for guidance through this pandemic. While some of you might be focusing on the number I just shared and evaluating who in the hell that 35% could be, I am focusing on the fact that someone decided we needed a poll asking who are you listening to right now. As I publish this piece, I am two days removed from my 51st birthday, and I am hard pressed to recall when such a question has ever been asked. Ever!!

        If you watch Governor Cuomo (NY) each day, you quickly realize this should be so easy to do, yet, all Trump can do is the same thing he has done from day one. In this crazy circus of elephants and donkeys, the ring leader turns just so happens to be a one-trick pony.

        For every other situation prior to this pandemic, his song and dance has been enough to at least satisfy his base and satiate Mitch McConnel and Republicans from the urge to preserve the now mythical co-equal balance of power that WE were falsely made to believe would protect us from tyranny back in grade school.

             Most importantly, WE. Me. You. US, now know that WE are the straw that stirs the drink. Without us, all the ingredients could be available, but the sugar will settle to the bottom and the drink will taste so awful that it doesn't matter what price you put on it, WE won't buy it. The signs were always there if you listen a lot of news. Whenever they talk about the economy- under Obama or Donald- they define the strength of it as being one thing and one thing only. CONSUMER CONFIDENCE! If WE can't trust what you are selling us, WE surely won't trust dying over what you are selling us, will WE? I love the taste of well made Kool-Aid just like the next person, but not enough to die for it, especially when I can just make that shit at home.

        In the name of home-made kool-aid, I'm back into this arena of political lip flapping because my brain is no longer co-mingled, and there is finally something worth flapping about, which is this current conversation over CONSUMER CONFIDENCE; aka., YOU and me. I started my mirror moments over two years ago, so I am fully into this process of self realization we are all enduring during the era of Trump in general and the pandemic specifically.  At the risk of over inflating my own value, it seems clear to me that me, and people like me, will determine when it's time to get Taco Bell back to normal business levels, not elected officials. If you fools who aren't taking this seriously could save the economy by yourselves, the current businesses that are still open would not be down 40% in sales, but they are, and, even with a return to everything open, everybody won't be outside buying Taco Bell until everyone can be made to feel safe while doing it.

            I ask you, random consumer reading this post? Are you rushing back to any place that is crowded and has a potential health risk just because its one of the places who has an owner deciding to open so you can regain your sense of normalcy, or are you willing to let the other people buy shoes at an understaffed Ross until you feel confident that it is safe?

        Don't answer that. You don't need to. Without question, only consumer confidence will work to save our economy. Period. There is a window for business owners with limited liquidity to ride the storm to save themselves by offering stock options instead of money, so they can retain staff with the promise of future wealth sharing, but that is also much too close to Socialism and much to close to right to ever happen. Because fighting to become the powerful makes some people afraid to share what they've gained, many powerful people will practically risk and lose everything they have rather than willingly let go of their power. Donald J. Trump is exhibit A for this dynamic as he holds on to his powerful way of manipulating the world at the risk of losing the presidency and millions of lives during his watch.

        If circumstances play out as they are currently headed, we will get to witness a mass realignment of power- be that actually or just conceptually- as WE all are forced to fully reckon with the reality that capitalism is controlled by the consumer and no one else. In other words, how often you stare yourself in the mirror each morning and the message you deliver to the person standing there will determine the future of your individual financial situation, which will determine the future of our nation. In other words, this post and our future is all about YOU.

    In the face of a pandemic, getting to know yourself is kinda' not optional unless you intend to drink yourself broke to avoid all of that. For those of us embracing our mirrors and saving our money, it is clear. WE the People are the only hope for our personal survival and for the survival of our nation, and the rest of the world is anxiously waiting to see what we'll do next. Not just about opening our country, but whether or not we will return to who WE used to be for ourselves and the world at large. 

If Trump Falls, Twitter Will Become His Nixon Tapes

Waking up the first working day of the new year to another twit-parade of comments from our Twitter-In-Chief, Donald J. Trump, has me thinking about the value of his idiocracy of a presidency.

I would love to focus my attention on the scary international tweets Trump directed to start the year towards the instability in Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan where he felt the need to tweet threat the withholding of U.S. aid instead of just withholding it with back-channel admonition like Obama and others have done, but those feel like the very distractions that he intends them to be.

Trump seems focused on a lot of things to the potential exclusion of preparing for the November elections, elections that we can now describe as this year since 2018 is no longer some distant date of future political concern. 2018 is now, and NOW is the time for Republicans to focus on fighting off the Blue Wave of Democrats who are threatening to overtake Congress and pressure Trump in ways he can't fully understand based on his current Twitter focus. In between golfing and Tweeting, he probably hasn't seen recent reports about is plummeting poll numbers in Iowa

Reince Priebus, former RNC Chair, has seen the numbers and has sounded off recently on the immense risk Trump will face if he allows the Democrats to overtake the House and the Senate. But the Christmas push to pass an unpopular tax present for rich folks while blasting the credibility of FBI Special Investigator Robert Mueller and the entire FBI is starting to make curious observers wonder if Trump is feeling the heat of the investigation too much to focus on the other things that threaten his presidency even more than Mueller.

Despite the irony of Trump potentially committing the kind of crimes that could "Lock Him Up", America is not interested in locking up presidents anymore than it is in locking up the loser from a political campaign as some countries do.  For Trump to focus his energy on attacking losing political opponents and discrediting an investigation that will never result in jail time for the president- even if it might for his subordinates- proves he doesn't understand civics enough to see the clear off-ramps of immunity our laws have made to avoid jailing deposed presidents and embarrassing an entire nation in the process.

Trump also isn't civically aware enough to realize that losing a Republican majority in 2018 elections is even more dangerous than liquored up George Papadapolous who was reported to have kick-started the investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign, a report that debunks the recent Republican counter-claim of the Steel Dossier being the sole reason for the Russian investigation. 

Trump also seems not to understand how his own Twitter initiated words paint a picture any basic smart person can follow, much less a brilliant lawyer and lifelong FBI investigator like Robert Mueller.

What former President Ricard Nixon did to counter the efforts of an investigation against him came to our knowledge in the years following his resignation. How Trump thinks he can stop Mueller from doing a job he has given his entire life to do on behalf of this great nation is a matter you can decipher while you sit on the toilet or drink your morning coffee because that's when Trump is likely to lay his cards on the Twitter table, for all the world to read.

Occasionally, Trump's Twitter type tirades have come via two old-school mediums called audio and video recording, but they are no less public and just as revealing of a man who has lived his entire life spilling his guts all over the current medium of the moment, confident that no exposure is ever bad as long as you use it in your favor.

Twitter is an expose for and of Trump, and history will probably look to a connected chain of tweets that will unravel the mentality of a mentally disturbed man who displays both his mentality and his disturbances nearly every morning via Tweet, for all the world to read.

The damage to this nation is definite even if yet to be defined. The global trust we've lost in the process of selecting a president has rendered us as untrustworthy as our process.  Stated more clearly, WE the People will need the world community to believe we preferred Bozo the Clown over our Donald Trump mistake. We have to prove him an accident of populism and of political apathy, or possibly a clownish byproduct of Communist collusion. A fair combination of each would help even more, however, that proving can only be done in the same place of the initial accident. Voting Booths.

Has The Twitter-In-Chief tweeted his cards unto
the table revealing penis insecurity while
pointing investigators to a path of his own demise?

Clowns thrive on entertaining you to get your attention. As we finished the first working day of the new year, news reporter left and right have slapped their own hands for breaking a resolution to not allow the Clown to distract them with Tweets, only to have Trump issue multiple tirades of a madman on Twitter to kick off the new year. 

Are these Tweets distractions of an attention hound or head-fakes to hide collusion? Before I could edit this piece for syntax and synchronicity, Trump Twitter bombed the world with a slew of late night tweets, the kind of stuff that usually happens when most of us are well into our second glass of our adult beverage of preference. Tweets during certain times of day are always more revealing but often terribly regrettable, like the late night comparison of nuclear button size Trump decided to have with Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

I personally am viewing his regurgitations via Tweet as his version of the Nixon Tapes being dictated before our eyes. Much like Nixon, they are the ramblings of fear and of a foolish leader who doesn't know any better but thinks he does. Nixon recorded his happenings because he became overwhelmed with distrust of the crumbling walls around him. Eventually, the presence of the tapes and the evidence they showed of his cover-up of a petty crime became much worse than the crime itself.

Trump may or may not have recordings as he threatened to have when attempting to bully former FBI Director, James Comey, into obeisance, but he has resorted to making Twitter declarations for the jailing of James Comey and several other "Deep State" political opponents.

Yep. He did that too. Via Twitter!!

Donald J. Trump needs to direct a news narrative that he can't control, he can only share how he feels about it and what he wishes he could do if he had the power to do what he wants with the DOJ. He can also accidentally expose his mental makeup by speaking on important things in frivolous ways that promise to threaten his presidency and the world at large but not Make Anything Great Again. 

In an effort to own the news, Trump literally launched the new year with a Twitter threat against Rocket Man (North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un), Pakistan, Iran, Obama, Huma Abedin, the entire FBI and someone else that will inevitably happen just before, or soon after I publish this piece.

What happens if North Korea does not dismantle? Are WE
ready to back our words or prove them ineffective forever?
Neither of those options is good for the United States,

Donald J.Trump does all of those things, and more, via Twitter every day. As we resolve to avoid over-indulging in his clownery, we would be historical jesters to not listen to this era's Nixon tapes before they are formerly compiled, vetted and released to the public. Making New Year's resolutions to try not to give Trump's Tweets the historical significance they will have in 20-year hindsight will not change the psychological revelations they contain today.

Trump's Twitter trail will also show the destruction to the mantle of world leadership once maintained by the U.S. Granted, it is slightly presumptive to say what his overall impact will be as we stand here today, but the world could soon look back on Trump's Twitter ramblings as our most salient view into the psyche and the psychosis of president #45. 

Trump Knows That WE've Always Loved The Circus

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey!
Eat your heart out.

In the annals of American presidents and rich American billionaires, Donald J. Trump will probably go down in history as one of the best marketers that the nation has ever known.  While he masquerades as a business savant, we must remember that he's mostly a media mogul who gained power and prestige from simply being that man behind the desk that fired people every week. If his corporate empire was 'all that' and free from taint, he'd be flaunting it for sure.


Now that the Ringling Brothers have done away with the circus, Trump has promised an ongoing show that can currently be described as Smoke, mirrors, and other tricks of the trade.

During his years behind the "Apprentice" desk, we never really knew he was being sued for the failures of Trump University, nor did we quite understand that those Trump Towers are not at all owned by Trump, he simply negotiated the deal to keep his name on them. We never even suspected he ran a charitable organization in name only, with nearly none of its money coming from Trump himself. Now that we do know, we can't even decide if his Alternative facts impress us from their clever convention, or disgust us from the constant scamming they display.

Whether we like it or not, he is the man at the oval office desk now, and it is vital that we come to grips with exactly who this man is in order to recognize who and what he is not.

First and foremost, he is not really a democrat, but he damn sure isn't a republican either.  He chose to pursue the presidency following the most plausible path towards success, but he alienated most of the people who populate the path he chose, and only gained their commitment when it was clear that he could really win it all. He insists that he'll never allow for an America that continues to disregard it's poor and beleaguered, all while scaring every last one of them with his ability to say really stupid stuff directed at the most disadvantaged among US.

Stupid stuff! Like his answer to the question about those 11 million undocumented workers. He's still adamant about building a wall, however, will it trap the 11 million inside, or is Trump's round up Gestapo plan still in the works? When asked in his very first one-on-one interview as president, "should the 11 million be afraid", Trump says, "not very afraid", as if being a little afraid is still an absolute necessity. Is this just Trump the promoter realizing how he used immigration to get elected or is there really a significant reason to be afraid some? Shouldn't his billionaire buddies also be afraid about the massive loss of cheap labor?

As we listen to what he does say (The wall, No TPP, nobody loses insurance), it's just as vital to recognize what he no longer talks about as well (E-verify, term limits, or deportation forces).

Trump has waged an all-out war against all three legs of American politics- republicans, democrats and the media- and part of that war includes bogging them all down with deciphering silly stuff and trying to target what he'll do by virtue of what he says. The media is right and fully responsible for keeping the heat on Trump and both of his hired mouthpieces (Sean Spicer and Kelley Anne Conway) who get to handle Trump's silly stuff and twitter tirades on a daily basis. What he does and what he says are of vital concern to America. But let me remind you all of a few commonly known facts.

WE DON'T LIKE THE MEDIA EITHER.

Well, we might tolerate the media outlets that lean our political way, but we hate the rest of them and commonly criticize them all for displaying a nature that seems much more focused on the bottom line than the God's honest truth or fair and balanced reporting.

WE DON'T LIKE THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM EITHER.

After the shock of the 2016 election, we might understand it and relate better to the necessity of it's being, but we all complain about the Two-Party hustle and the Electoral College game they use to trade power back and forth between themselves to our demise. If in fact, we are to be a nation that finally confronts the folly of our political design, what exactly will that confrontation look like, and are we fully certain that Trump isn't it?

When the war against two-party domination does begin, wouldn't we expect to see the leaders from both sides coming together to confront the only foe whose ever been able to call them both out on the carpet together?  Shouldn't we expect to see some dissolving lines between the two parties as they come together to fight off that foe? Is John McCain (R) and Chuck Schumer (D) sounding like members of the same party because Trump is threatening America or because he's threatening them?

When it comes to scrapping the TPP, Trump has pleased the unionized left immensely even though he's only promising to win our trade deals, not to end them or even curtail them. As for this claim of 3-5 million fake votes? I can guarantee you that the voter suppression South (or (Alt-right if you will) is not at all disagreeable to his claim, even as mainstream republicans and democrats alike find his comments laughable. It's not very clear if he will truly launch an investigation into his concerns over losing the popular vote, but it is very clear that he wants each of US to think he will and to remain skeptical of the motives of those who never wanted him to win in the first place, which was essentially everybody currently considered a Washington insider.

We can go into a really deep analysis of Donald Trump and we might even agree on the psychological conclusions we make, but it will all come back to one basic analytical question of what's wrong with Trump? In the quest to discover what is wrong with him, there is simply no clear delineation of what might be right, or what about his approach could be helpful to America for a time like this.

No human or president is perfect, though we, and they, work mightily to hide the areas of our weakness from anyone except those who we are most intimate with. If you voted for Obama for the benefit of what he brought to the table, you might not be willing to admit to the areas in which he lacked as a person. 8 years of a democrat as president, followed by Trump, has somehow turned the much maligned George W. Bush into the kind of republican that some of us actually long for these days. None before Trump were without character flaws and no president after him will be either.

Trump is childish to a fault, and WE have to accept that WE just elected- or stayed home and allowed for the election of- a petulant child as our new president.

He's that big bully kid that finds the facial flaw in the new kid and needles him with name calling until the other kids join in for fear that they might be next up.  He is that same bully that never hesitates to retaliate when you give him a dose of his own medicine by pointing to a flaw or two of his.

With all of the childishness problems being noted by many, and generally agreed upon by all, how long does our current media think they should continue to shine a light on the childish tweets versus the signatures he continues to place on paper to enact new laws and regulations?

We have always known that our politics are disjointed in America, and we readily expect the media to be a necessary player in the political arena even as we also see them as a major reason for the dislocation of America's political joints. What we've never really known is what the hell to do about it.  We hold this truth to be self-evident, that freedom of speech is the cornerstone of every other freedom we have. Yet, we also have little to no way of reconciling the new wave of fake news or the old and enduring wave of partisan reporting that isn't much better.

Suddenly, I find myself in the midst of a major quandary.

Even an opinion editorialist like myself has the journalistic duty of understanding the facts and reporting my opinions based on firm and confirmable facts.

I'm not sure if that's what I will achieve today because the anti-Trump protest is being reinforced by the media that Trump remains adversarial towards- of which I must include myself. Even when I try to add a link to a statistic that I've researched, or do anything to try to remain the "good media", those who oppose my opinions will oppose my link sources as well.

I'm mostly in favor of all of the worldwide protesting against Trump just as I am in favor of holding our new president to the standard of expectation befitting the office.  What I am not really in favor of anymore is hour upon hour upon hour of news media reporting that essentially boils down to the same damn question.

Can Trump maintain the honor and dignity befitting the office of the president while behaving like a kid banished to the office of the principal?

Probably not!

For those of US already embarrassed, it's too late anyway, but WE really don't know what the future holds.  If WE're perfectly honest, most of US already lost respect for the office of president even if we don't have any memory of presidential behavior quite so silly. Although we really don't know what behavior is necessary to break the back of tainted media reporting or partisan politics, we do know that no one has done it yet. We may not like Trump's approach, and we should surely point out how embarrassing it continues to be at moments we are overwhelmed by embarrassment. But how many times in a row can you call a baby a baby and expect that your name calling will uncover the man inside of him?

Media polling failures were not the beginning of the mass media failure in this election cycle. Our media had no clue of how to handle our new lying leader when he was campaigning, so they are even more clueless of how to deal with him now that he's won.  If, by the end of this race, it felt like the ridiculous repetition of the campaign season rhetoric was becoming enough to shut off the television, what are we gaining from a media that has no new headlines other than "OMG, Trump Said It Again".

When we finally get to see those taxes- or the taxes of some of his unvetted cabinet selections- that will be news-worthy.  The daily whining over our brand new presidential baby is not really very effective anymore. In fact, our collective attention is probably just the thing he wants and needs to keep up with all the pettiness. When properly ignored, eventually that crying baby tries a new approach or falls asleep and grows quiet from fatigue.

It bodes well for Trump that WE aren't really pressing the issue of the taxes or the touchy relationship with Putin as we continue to marvel at what appears to be our brand new, 70-year-old presidential baby. As any good marketer knows, you have to shine a strong light on the features and benefits of what you are selling in order to take attention away from the damage or flaws.

There is something severely ballsy about using the three sides of American politics (the left, the right, and the media) against each other for the purpose of destroying them all internally. Is that what he's trying to do?  Who knows? But if I were on a mission to do whatever Trump is on a mission to do.....making people discuss election fraud theories in between a twitter beef with John Lewis might be a great way to work your plan.  

As our covertly neutered media continues to collectively whine about our petulant president, I can't help but wonder who the baby really is.