The Felon's Prime Time Rant: Derangement on Display

The Felon likes to accuse his opponents and liberals of suffering from "Trump derangement syndrome" as one of his many ways of denigrating others and spewing lies.  His prime time address this week showed so-called Trump derangement syndrome on display, but the one exhibiting derangement was the Felon himself as he lied and sought to shift blame for the Trump economy on Joe Biden and anyone and everyone rather than himself and his misguided policies. Contrary to the Felon's claims, respect for America is down, inflation is higher, the economy is shedding jobs, and some 22 million Americans are about to see their health insurance double or perhaps increase even more.  Yet in his usual malignant narcissist fashion, he simply could not bear to accept any responsibility for the results of his policies - including tariffs, which he called his favorite thing - and more or less insisted that Americans' own experience in grocery store checkout lines and higher utility bills were untrue. His denial of objective reality likely did little to appease anyone outside of the Kool-Aid drinking elements of MAGA world and should have disturbed Republicans in vulnerable districts.  Add to this his repeated falling asleep at White House meetings and the picture of a deranged individual becomes even more stark.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the disturbing spectacle:

The [Felon] president of the United States just barged into America’s living rooms like an angry, confused grandfather to tell us all that we are ungrateful whelps.

When a president asks for network time, it’s usually to announce something important. But tonight, Donald Trump did not give anything like a normal speech or address. He was clearly working from a prepared text, but it sounded like one he’d written—or dictated angrily—himself, because it was full of bizarre howlers that even Trump’s second-rate speech-writing shop would probably have avoided, such as his assertion that inflation when he took office was the worst it had been in 48 years. (Why did he pick 1977 as a benchmark? Who knows. But he’s wrong.) He read the speech quickly, his voice rising in frustration as he hurled one lie after another into the camera.

But perhaps more important than false statements—which for Trump are par for the course—was his demeanor. Americans saw a president drenched in panic as he tried to bully an entire nation into admitting he’s doing a great job. For 20 minutes, he vented his hurt feelings without a molecule of empathy or awareness. Economic concerns? Shut up, you fools, the economy is doing fine. (And if it isn’t, it’s not his fault—it’s Joe Biden’s.) Foreign-policy jitters? Zip it, you wimps, America is strong and respected.

In effect, Trump took to the airwaves, pointed his finger, and said: Quiet, piggy. . . . . But even by Trump’s standards, this was an unnerving display of fear. I can only imagine America’s enemies in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran smiling with pleasure as they watched a president losing his bearings, berating his own people, and demanding that they absolve him of any blame when things get worse.

His rant contained no news, other than an example of his contempt for the U.S. military, whose loyalty he thinks he can purchase with a onetime $1,776 bonus check. This is projection: Trump has shown his willingness to be bought off with gold bars and trinkets, and he may think that the men and women of the armed forces are people of equally low character.

This was not a holiday address from the president of a great democracy to its citizens. This was a desperate tin-pot leader yelling into a microphone while cornered in his palace redoubt. Trump has been unraveling for weeks, and his speech tonight, like Trump himself, was unworthy of America and its people.