Trump Bashes Fox News Even While Cowering in His Fox News Bunker

The madness that consumes Donald Trump continues to manifest in bizarre and troubling ways. He’s making public demands that his Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, indict and prosecute Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. He’s holding coronavirus Super Spreader affairs at the White House, which he has already turned into a COVID-19 “Hot Zone.” And he insists that he’s way ahead of Biden in the “real” polls that are published in the crevices of his decaying grey matter.

Donald Trump, Fox News

If that isn’t enough, Trump is also attacking his Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News). This isn’t a new behavioral glitch. Trump has frequently lashed out at Fox News when he didn’t think that they were sufficiently adoring. It’s his way of “working the refs” to ensure constant adulation. But in the past couple of days it has reached a crescendo. For instance, during a marathon radio gabfest with Rush Limbaugh on Friday, Trump whined that…

“It’s a problem. Fox is a problem. […] When Roger Ailes ran Fox, I mean, Roger had a very strong point of view. It’s totally gone. And I think it’s influenced by Paul Ryan. […] They’re going the way of CNN, and they’re going the way of MSNBC, and it’s a shame. I mean, it’s a shame. When I watch it, I look at the people they hire. I mean, I could tell you some of the anchors, they’re so bad.”

First of all, Trump’s fond remembrance of the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes is touching because they share so much in common. Particularly the fact that they are both serial sexual predators. But Trump’s complaint about Paul Ryan, the former GOP House Speaker who now has a seat on the Fox board of directors, reveals that Trump has no idea what a board of directors does. They are part time business advisors who have zero input into programming.

In addition to Trump’s comments on Limbaugh’s radio program, he made similar comments on the radio show of Fox News host Mark Levin. He was attempting to make a point about the differences between his 2016 campaign and the current one:

“One of the biggest differences is Fox. Fox is a whole different ballgame than it used to be. Fox was great. Fox was great. Fox is no longer great.”

Among the reasons that Trump has arrived at this conclusion are the polls that Fox News has recently published. The most recent one shows him trailing Biden by ten points. But trump has been upset with Fox’s pollsters for quite a while. And you can be sure he was driven to new lows by the one that found that a majority of voters say that he doesn’t have the “mental soundness” to serve.

What makes all of this even more peculiar is that while Trump has been amping up his attacks on Fox News, he has also been spending more time there. In the past four days Trump has done interviews on Fox with Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson (with Marc Seigel), and Mark Levin. And he has another “interview” with Bartiromo on Sunday. He apparently has no idea that he’s only reaching people that are already voting for him. It’s all for his ego and the lack of any notion of how he can rescue his floundering campaign.

The many hours Trump is devoting to Fox News is severely cutting into his golf and Twitter time. It also indicates that he has nothing else of importance to do. But most of all it shows that his whining about how disloyal Fox has been to him is just a charade. He knows that Fox News is his official State TV network and is vital to his nefarious schemes for the future. And he knows that Fox won’t punish him for his fake hostility toward them. They have a parasitic relationship wherein they are both addicted to each other. And while that may satisfy their immediate cravings for attention, it won’t keep Trump from circling the electoral drain.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

In Honor of World Mental Health Day, Invoke the 25th Amendment on Trump

This week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would consider establishing “an independent commission under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to evaluate a president’s health and oversee the transfer of power to the vice president if the president becomes incapacitated while in office.” This is a long overdue measure that protects the interests of the nation under dire circumstances.

Trump Fear

This also happens to be World Mental Health Day, an annual observation of the need to focus attention on mental health issues and their personal and institutional impact on society. It’s sponsor, the World Health Organization (WHO), notes that…

“This year’s World Mental Health Day, on 10 October, comes at a time when our daily lives have changed considerably as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The past months have brought many challenges: for health-care workers, providing care in difficult circumstances, going to work fearful of bringing COVID-19 home with them; for students, adapting to taking classes from home, with little contact with teachers and friends, and anxious about their futures; for workers whose livelihoods are threatened; for the vast number of people caught in poverty or in fragile humanitarian settings with extremely limited protection from COVID-19; and for people with mental health conditions, many experiencing even greater social isolation than before. And this is to say nothing of managing the grief of losing a loved one, sometimes without being able to say goodbye.”

Unfortunately, Donald Trump withdrew from the WHO after falsely accusing it of being an accomplice to what Trump believes was China’s deliberate spreading of the coronavirus. In fact, that was just Trump’s way of evading his own responsibility for failing to handle the COVID-19 pandemic as it spread across the United States, and even into the White House.

Trump’s delusional attacks on China, the WHO, Democrats, and the media, are all further evidence of the need for Pelosi’s commission. He is an unstable, malignant narcissist and an aspiring dictator. He is the poster child (with an emphasis on “child”) for mental health awareness. He believes the world revolves around him and that he is superior to the other pathetic creatures that inhabit it. Once, when asked who he consults with, he replied that “My primary consultant is myself” because “I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” That attitude, along with an array of other symptoms of mental impairment, are reason enough to worry.

In the nearly four long years since Trump was sworn in as president, his erratic and impulsive behavior has caused broad based concern. He has continued his bromance with Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin, and other brutal authoritarians, while alienating longtime allies. His attacks on the media border on obsession and are aimed at delegitimizing any criticism. He has a perverse fixation on polling and crowd size. He repeatedly makes statements that are easily debunked as lies. And his Twitter feed is a scrolling document of mental instability.

Recently, Trump has taken to demanding that his Attorney Genuflect, Bill Barr, arrest, indict, and prosecute his political adversaries, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. And after turning the White House into a coronavirus “Hot Zone,” he is holding a rally there and inviting 2,000 people to participate in another Super Spreader event.

What better time to honor World Mental Health Day than while a madman is running rampant in Washington, D.C. and threatening not to leave after he’s voted out? This nation has endured many difficulties, but teetering on the edge of a fascist dictatorship overseen be a certifiably insane cult leader is not one than anyone contemplated. And we must not allow Trump and his army of glassy-eyed disciples to succeed.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.