Trump’s first year was a real doozy

This is published as my Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service 🤓

On Day One, it began with a flurry of wild orders, but the mind(?)set of President Donald J. Trump revealed itself most fully with the executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

I can do that? he was thinking to himself.

Sure, his flunkies assured him, while biting their tongues to keep from bursting into laughter. “Hey, why not buy Greenland?”

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Let’s not forget making Canada our 51st state.

Canada won’t forget it. And has started getting chummier with China. The Canucks are operating on the premise that if the homecoming queen spurns you, then make a beeline to president of the Home Eco Club. 

His (second) first year in office contained many serious issues, some of which I have commented on elsewhere, but here I want to engage in the sheer silliness of Dear Leader.

Such as taking over Greenland, one way or another, actually suggesting he would use military force. 

Which, not so incidentally, is exactly what Vladimir Putin is attempting with Ukraine, an undeclared act of war that Trump hasn’t been able to bring himself to condemn. And Trump has actually invited Putin to join the Gazan Board of Peace, which I will get to later.

But Trump’s military would come against an innocent ally, and it makes me think of Sen. Mark Kelly’s admonishment that soldiers need not obey illegal orders (such as attacking an ally). 

The Trump regime regards Kelly’s comment, which is straight out of the U.S. Military Code of Conduct, as sedition.

Well, at least Kelly didn’t say Haitians were eating their neighbors’ pets, as has Trump, more than once.

Back to Greenland.

Two figures come to mind — the low percentage of Greenlanders who want to become Americans, (15%) and the even lower percentage of Americans (4%) who would approve of acquiring Greenland by force. 

Trump usually favors issues where he is in the overwhelming majority, such as prohibiting biological males from competing in women’s sports. Here, he is in the crushed minority.

Ah, but you don’t understand, I can hear the Trumpsters saying.

This is how he operates. He starts by making outrageous demands, then later moderates.

Well, I do remember he was going to slam China with a 150% tariff — or was it more? — but it changed from day to day, and then got slashed to an average 37.4%. (Did China spurning U.S. exports of soybeans figure in this? What do you think?)

And now he is threatening a 10% tariff bump to European allies that don’t join his messianic urge to own Greenland. Will he go through with it? 

Saying one thing and then not following through was how he earned the sobriquet TACO — Trump Always Chickens Out. 

Not always, but usually.

Trump famously sank maybe a dozen business ventures — from name-branded steaks, to an airline, to a university — and used bankruptcy as a business tool. Before MAGAheads go ballistic, let me remind you that he said it.

As he sails into his second year, his approval ratings are under water, largely because of his failure to fix the economy.

His support has collapsed among Gen Z, once blinded by his bullshit, and independents, which helped him win re-election. Buyer’s remorse has set in.

And what can you say about him accepting the participation Nobel prize trophy from its awardee? How needy can one man be?

Or silly. As when he toys with ordering TV networks, with zero authority to do so, to not schedule football games to conflict with Army-Navy. And they called Jimmy Carter a micromanager!

Trump does get credit for closing the border, but his mass deportation plans have declined from a plus majority to a minus minority, largely because of ICE’s heavy-handed tactics, and execution of unlawful orders — such as sending Venezuelans to El Salvador’s dreaded CECOT torture center prison.

I give him credit for ceasing the war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas, although peace is not yet at hand.

But even this Trump plus is corrupted by his plan, according to Reuters, to grant entry to his Gaza “Board of Peace” to any nation putting up $1 billion. Not to mention peace-breaker Putin.

That seems unbelievable, but less so with his acknowledged plan to award a green card to anyone paying $1 million to get to the head of the line. He called it his Trump Gold Card. Others call it pay to play.

And we were worried about a lousy $400 million gift jet plane from Qatar. Silly us.

Now we are into Year 2.

Will he want to annex England next?