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Has the President become “out of touch”? |Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Jamelle Bouie of The New York Times says Richard Nixon had a “mental breakdown” in the final days of his presidency. He reportedly became irrational and paranoid, making wild suggestions and harping on his past victories. His son-in-law and adviser Ed Cox recalled that Nixon would wander the halls of the White House and “talk to pictures of the former president.”
Alas, Donald Trump appears to have reached similar depths of “self-destructive mania.” Trump recently wrote an unhinged letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gall Storr, in which he suggested he had the right to occupy Greenland because Norway failed to award him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Where to start? The Norwegian government does not select the winners of this award. Nor does it own Greenland. Trump didn’t “stop Eight Wars,” as he insists, or anything like that. “We have three years left with a mad king. It feels unsustainable.”
“manic performance art”
“Trump has the world’s worst case of untreated spillage,” said The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser. In the first year of his second term, he spoke 1,977,609 words in presidential appearances, 145 percent more than in the first year of his first term, according to a new study.
During his speech in Davos last week, he rambled on for a full hour and a half. In his speech, he explained that only “stupid people” would buy wind turbines and admitted that he decided to increase tariffs on Switzerland because “a woman” as the Swiss prime minister “annoyed me.” He also keeps confusing Iceland and Greenland. Americans have become somewhat accustomed to Trump’s “manic performance art,” but the shocked reaction of Europeans should be a wake-up call. Many openly questioned: Is this man crazy? Is he still capable of running the United States?
“Crazier than a payday candy bar”
National Review’s Jim Geraghty said Trump’s cabinet officials would discuss invoking the 25th Amendment in “a saner, better world.” But of course none of them dared to say that he was unfit to discharge his powers. When President Biden began to zone out in meetings and forget Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s name and simply refer to him as “the black man” in interviews, his colleagues didn’t do the same.
“After one president grew senile in office and another crazier than payday candy, we can only conclude that the 25th Amendment is for decoration.”
