MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER

When I was a kid, we used to sing a song that began, “My country’s tired of me, I’m going to Germany.”  Most of America is tired of Donald Trump, but he wouldn’t dare go to Germany.  Barack Obama was in Berlin yesterday, where he was given a hero’s welcome by a crowd estimated at 70,000 (including the new leader of the free world, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was all smiles).  The only way Trump could draw a crowd that size would be if they were carrying torches and pitchforks.  Nah, just kidding.  Germans would certainly protest, but they’d do it politely.   

While Obama was being cheered at the Brandenburg Gate, Trump was in Brussels at the NATO summit, insulting Germany.  “The Germans are bad, very bad,” he said, citing the “millions of cars they are selling to the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this.”  Someone forgot to tell him that Mercedes Benz manufactures some of its cars in Alabama and South Carolina; that BMW also has a large plant in South Carolina; and Volkswagen makes cars in Tennessee.  Those three states all voted rather enthusiastically for Donald Trump last November.  Surely Trump wouldn’t do anything to harm his ardent supporters, right? 

Wrong.  Both Trump’s proposed budget and the Republican health care bill are bad for almost everyone, but Red States will suffer disproportionately if either proposal becomes law.  Oh, and that promise to bring coal jobs back in West Virginia?  Yesterday Trump’s chief economic advisor Gary Cohn said that coal “doesn’t make that much sense anymore.”  Which is true, but it’s not what he was telling folks in Appalachia when he was courting their votes.

I doubt that Trump even sees a disconnect between his promises and his policies.  He seems to live in a twilight world where whatever he wishes to believe is true.  You might describe someone like that by saying “He was crazy.  A real nut job.”  The most accurate commentary on Donald Trump comes from Trump himself, when he criticizes other people.  He projects like mad.

Many Trump supporters knew exactly what they were doing when they voted for him in November, and they’ll get what they deserve.  But millions of others were suckered by false promises.  Trump has made a living on the backs of suckers like that, from students who enrolled in Trump University to the myriad contractors he stiffed once they’d completed their work. 

Defrauded students and business partners can sue.  Voters can’t.  All they can do is vote for someone else next time.