Dementia Don's Further Descent Into Madness, Cont.

 

Didn't see the corporate media report on this nuttery?  Surprised not surprised:

Wow, he's totally focused on things that matter to the American people, amirite?!

Here we have an unstable, puerile, cognitively-impaired, wildly narcissistic, lawless, dictator-approving moron who also happens to have the nuclear launch codes right there next to his Diet Coke red button.  What does corporate media and the rest of the establishment see?

LGM's Paul Campos notes:

I would like to believe that, if Trump had posted something this completely unhinged a few weeks into his first presidency, when when the elite media were still breathlessly waiting for and then announcing on various occasions that this was the day on which he had become president, aka stopped being the Donald Trump everyone had been observing for several decades, it would have produced some sort of shocked reaction from those very same people, instead of what it produces now ... exactly nothing.

What we are seeing here is the ongoing cumulative radicalization of the Trump regime, which in turn is being met by something close to total denial by almost all of the American establishment, because the alternative would be to acknowledge what is actually happening in this country now. And that is literally unbearable for the establishment, because doing so would itself radically undermine that establishment’s legitimacy, most particularly in its ow n eyes.

Which means that the pretending will continue for as long as possible, which could be quite a long time.

When this scabrous era ends, the list of media and other "establishment" enablers, cowards, and favor/ access-seekers who place profits over principles, will be deserving of (at the bare minimum) shunning by the majority who actually cared about American democracy and fought for it.

BONUS: More on the dementia screening test that the MF thinks measures his "intelligence" from a doctor.

Imperial Ballroom Costs Go Up By $100 Million

 

The mentally ill and unfit Malignant Fascist, with his dream of a gaudy, grand ballroom to mark his "golden age" of bribery and corruption, has just hiked the cost of the vulgar monstrosity (like his inflation-caused costs of goods in the economy).  Originally, the cost (to be borne by corporate entities and individuals seeking favors from the MF) was $250 million, then upped to $300 million.  Now, according to the MF himself, the new cost will be $400 million (for now, suckers):

“We’re donating a $400 million ballroom. Myself and donors are giving them, free of charge, for nothing, we’re donating a building that’s approximately 400 millions, I think I’ll do it for less, but it’s 400. I should do it for less. I will do it for less. But just in case, I say 400. Otherwise if I go $3 over, the press will say, ‘It cost more.’ I build under budget and ahead of schedule … always. I know how to build under budget. I build good.”

The MF has been trying to build a physical legacy to fortify his damaged ego in the past 11 months.  That includes the gaudy ballroom that required the destruction of the East Wing, a massive "arch de Trump" that will certainly have his name on it, renaming the U.S. Institute for Peace building after him, and his attempted extortion of the Washington Commanders owners to name the new stadium in Washington, D.C., after him. His pathetic yearning for trophies and awards, no matter how transparently silly, is another example of his priorities. You can be certain that more of this malignant narcissism is to come. All this as the nation faces higher prices for food and health insurance, not to mention a new war for regime change and oil in Venezuela. 

Here's the list of the "donors"  for the MF's imperial ballroom (as far as have been made public).  Remember them for their bribery, corruption and cowardice for when a reckoning comes, and it will.

(photo: The Mad King's priorities./ Jim Watson, AFP via Getty)

 

Architecture And Authoritarianism

 

There's an excellent article in The Conversation by archaeologist R. Grant Gilmore III about the relationship between architectural styles and authoritarian rule that points out several things that deranged narcissist the Malignant Fascist is doing with his makeover of Washington: the gaudy royal ballroom that the East Wing had to make way for, and the "Arc de Trump" at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.  Some excerpts from the article, with our emphasis added:

"In his first term as president, and even more so today, Donald Trump has pushed to an extreme legacy-building through architecture and heritage policy. He is remaking the White House physically and metaphorically in his image, consistent with his long record of putting his name on buildings as a developer.

In December 2020, Trump issued an executive order declaring classical and traditional architectural styles the “preferred” design for new federal buildings. The order derided Brutalist and modernist structures as inconsistent with national values.

Now, Trump is seeking to roll back inclusive historical narratives at U.S. parks and monuments. And he is reviving sanitized myths about America’s history of slavery, misogyny and Manifest Destiny, for use in museums, textbooks and public schools."

Dictators and authoritarians use architecture in building monuments to themselves, and the MF's massive neediness has meant the construction of temples to his own ego:

"Many leaders throughout history have built “temples to power” while erasing or overshadowing the memory of their predecessors – a practice known as damnatio memoriae, or condemnation to oblivion. [snip]

Albert Speer’s and Hermann Giesler’s monumental neoclassical designs in Nazi Germany, such as the party rally grounds in Nuremberg, were intended to overwhelm the individual and glorify the regime. And Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union suppressed avant-garde experimentation in favor of monumental “socialist realist” architecture, projecting permanence and centralized power.

Now, Trump has proposed building his own triumphal arch in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial, as a symbol to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence." 

Gilmore explains that the MF is using architecture to send a message of exclusion and dominance: 

"In remaking the White House and prescribing the style and content of many federal sites, Trump is targeting not just buildings but the stories they tell.

By challenging narratives that depart from white, Anglo-Saxon origin myths, Trump is using his power to roll back decades of work toward creating a more inclusive national history.

These actions ignore the fact that America’s strength lies in its identity as a nation of immigrants."

There's much more in Gilmore's article that's well worth the read.  It clarifies what the MF is intending to not only build, but to destroy in his wake.

(photo: The dictator and his ballroom / Aaron Schwartz, EPA,  Shutterstock)