Earlier today, I wrote something about an American president, Jimmy Carter, whom I truly admire, and feel represents the very best that Americans can offer. This was a World War II veteran, a former governor of Georgia, and a man who brought intelligence and honesty to his years in the White House. I went on to say:
Since leaving the White House, he has authored dozens of books, which have provided considerable wisdom and insight that Americans, and the rest of the world, can benefit from. And even more impressive, he has involved himself tirelessly in helping people out the world over. He famously spends vacations helping to build houses for poorer families, and has gone to remote regions of the world to help better living conditions, provide education, oversee fairer elections, and to negotiate for peace, sometimes placing himself in dangerous areas and situations along the way.
Indeed, I do not say it lightly when suggesting that Carter exemplifies the very best that this country has to offer.
And so it saddens me to turn my attention, once again, to the man who now occupies the White House, and who literally represents the very worst that the country has to offer. Unlike Carter, Trump dodged the draft when called upon to serve in Vietnam after receiving an elite military education and preparation to put all of that into practical use. This is a man who admitted to being, in his words, "greedy, greedy, greedy. I'm so greedy" when he announced his candidacy for the White House in 2015. A man who boasted about being a star, and thus being allowed to grab women by the pussy. This is a man who lies through his teeth, and who just looks fake every time that you look at him, with his orange skin and strange comb-over, and who proclaims to have the health and physique of a professional athlete, even as his fat gut hangs out of his golf shirts. This is a man who cannot ever admit to making any mistakes, and who tries to take credit for literally anything good, although he very quickly points the finger of blame anywhere else but him if things are bad. He proclaims himself a genius, even though he rarely shows why he thinks that in any substantive way. This is a man who is legendary for his immature, mean-spirited tweets, and who just conducts himself as an arrogant, immature, spoiled brat with a false sense of entitlement.
So much is Trump hated and ridiculed the world over, that the British flew a huge balloon portraying Trump (accurately, I might add) as a crying baby. This is a man who received worldwide condemnation for his handling (or rather, mishandling) of numerous situations since taking over, from pulling the United States out of the Paris Accords and other international agreements (the TPP and the Iran Nuclear Deal), to his seeming reluctance to call out violent white supremacists. Within hours of meeting him, numerous European leaders warned that they could no longer trust Americans as a trustworthy ally. The Pope literally looked sick after meeting Trump. And Trump was literally laughed at, to his face, in front of the entire world while talking before the United Nations about his own imaginary great accomplishments since becoming president. This is a man who tried to orchestrate his own nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (something that Carter won legitimately, by the way), and yet, who also talks about wiping countries off the map and refers to other world leaders through ridiculous, made up names (like referring to North Korea's Kim Jong-un as "Little Rocket Man"). This is a man who boasts to anyone who will listen about how brilliant he is, including going on and on to the Australian Prime Minister about how convincingly he won the 2016 election, even though he lost the popular vote by almost three million. Here is a man who claimed that he would do all sorts of things once in the White House, yet failed to deliver, from making Mexico pay for the wall, to defeating ISIS within 30 days, to developing an affordable national healthcare system that would cover everyone, to being too busy to play golf.
So, with all of those ridiculous contradictions already under his belt, is it really any surprise that Trump is flaunting doing something illegal? Namely, profiting from the presidency, and using his status as president in a commercial way for his business empire.
To put it into perspective, Jimmy Carter sold his peanut farm in order to eliminate any illusion of a conflict of interest while serving as president. Trump promised to divorce himself from his businesses and, like so many of his promises, broke it without apology or explanation. Now, he is using his undeserved status as president for personal and professional profit.
This man is such a ridiculous sham! A phony, a fake! It's so obvious, and yet, tens of millions of people either are too dumb or blind to see it or admit to it or, worse, pretend to be.
I will say it again: we could use a man like Jimmy Carter again!
Here is the article that got me in the topic of writing about how Trump is trying to profit from the presidency:
Trump Has Slapped His Brand On Images Of The White House To Sell At His Trump Store The president blurs the line again between his business and government. headshot By Mary Papenfuss
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