Trump in a Crisis

From the start, my biggest worry about Trump was how he would perform in a crisis, of the kind that invariably strikes, regardless of who is in the White House.  Well now we know – sort of.  My assessment over this unfolding crisis has been, well, mixed.

I never for one minute believed that Trump would be any good in a crisis.  I suspected that the best way to deal with him in a crisis would be to handcuff him, stuff something in his mouth, and lock him in the closet till it blew over.  Then I started to wonder about the rally-round-the-chief effect and to fear that the worse he blew it, the more this effect would work in his favor.  (Shudder!).  But watching him a little more, it because clear that there was one thing he could be counted on to do in a crisis that would not rally public opinion in his favor – act like a petulant, whiny narcissist whose only response was to whimper that it wasn't his fault.  Because that certainly appeared to be Trump's response to any reversal of fortune, so it seemed reasonable to assume that that was how he would behave in a crisis.  Sure enough.

So now he has had to deal with a cascading series of crises – a severe hurricane and flooding in Houston, a bad hurricane and flooding in Florida, a catastrophic hurricane in Puerto Rico, failure of his Obamacare repeal, expiration of S-CHIP, and an escalating war of words with the leaders of North Korea.  Oh, yes, and his Cabinet being exposed as the swampiest in memory and the candidate he endorsed for Jeff Sessions’ seat losing the primary.  And he has responded to all that by – waging a feud with the NLF.  Sigh.

Look, it has been said that Trump sends out his deranged tweets to distract people for the real issues going on.  But I am beginning to think the exact opposite – that tweeting distracts Trump from addressing real issues.  To the extent that it keeps him from starting a war with North Korea or pushing for disastrous legislation, so much the better.  It didn’t seem to interfere with a perfectly good disaster response in Houston and Florida, so I was starting to think that giving Trump a Twitter account to distract him from creating any serious trouble was looking like a good idea.  He could feud with the NFL while everyone else rolled their eyes and got on with business. 

And then the full horror of the hurricane in Puerto Rico started coming out.  And the extent to which Trump’s Twitter feud with the NFL was taking his eyes of his real duties.  And reliable as clockwork,  he started whining that none of this was his fault, lashing out at anyone criticizing his actions, blaming the Puerto Ricans for their problems and even urging them not to believe their lying eyes the FAKE NEWS media.  He tweeted out to undermine his own Secretary of State in his negotiations with North Korea and even to threaten, "we'll do what has to be done!"  And just for good measure, when his candidate for Senate in Alabama lost the primary, he whined, "In analyzing the Alabama Primary race,FAKE NEWS always fails to mention that the candidate I endorsed went up MANY points after endorsement!"

The man has no concept that not everything is about him!

Look, I was hoping that it might turn out not to be necessary to handcuff Trump, stuff something in his mouth, and lock him in a closet during a crisis.  If we were lucky, it might be good enough to confiscate his phone, cancel his Twitter account, and spike his food with heavy doses of Thorazine.  But now I am starting to think that even handcuffing him, stuffing something in his mouth, and locking him in the closet is not enough. 

Can someone please just chop off this man’s fingers off?  I can’t think of any less drastic means of shutting him up!