Alan Zendell, June 28, 2025

There’s an important part of Trump’s repertoire, whose central theme is creating chaos and then swooping onto the scene like a vulture, claiming to be a hero because he cleaned up the mess he created, that’s largely unnoticed. Others have used it, but not even close to the extent that Trump does.

Gerald Ford relished his comical meme of a clumsy oaf who kept tripping over things, despite being in the University of Michigan’s football Hall of Honor. Ronald Reagan liked to pretend he was just an average guy who didn’t know much, because it appealed to people to see a politician who looked like them. George W. Bush did it with his six-shooter-totin’ cowboy approach to diplomacy, also designed to make him look like a regular guy. Dan Quayle did it, dumbing down his intellectual prowess to pretend he was a bumbling idiot when it suited him – do you think he really couldn’t spell “tomatoes?”

In Donald Trump, among other things, we have a president who goes out of his way to look stupid, but don’t be fooled, he’s not. Yesterday was a perfect example. He was making his despicable argument against birthright citizenship, which is nothing more than an attempt to head off the trend that America was in danger of becoming majority non-white. There are some dates that every American who went to school knows as well as their own names. The years 1776, 1812, 1861, 1929, 1941, 1945, and 2001 (nine-eleven) all have enough special significance to Americans that we instantly recall what event each refers to. Does anyone reading this not know that the Civil War ended in 1865? Give him credit – Donald Trump is a well-practiced clown of the most sinister kind, and far better at pretending to be a bumbling idiot than Dan Quayle ever was.

His entire public persona is based on deliberate lies and misdirection. Some of it is intentionally aimed at his base, whom he sees as stupid enough to buy anything he says, not to mention contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to his campaigns that most of them can ill afford, and much of which winds up in Trump’s pockets.

Trump claimed, the other day, that he had just signed a trade deal with China, while failing to mention that it only involved critical rare earth minerals which are vital enough to both countries, they prompted Trump to threaten to steal Greenland from ally Denmark and strong-arm Volodymyr Zelensky to hand Ukraine’s over to the United States in return for defending him against Russia, a tease Trump appears to be reneging on. There is still no deal that addresses broader trade issues with China, like tariffs, supply chains, and taxing American corporations for manufacturing their products in other countries to increase profits.

He has alienated our most stalwart ally, Canada, whose citizens overwhelmingly voted, last week, to abandon trade talks with the Trump administration and seek deals with partners who treat them with respect. He continues to claim that he cares about his base, yet he fights for tariff policies that hurt American farmers, champion a billionaire tax cut that takes money out of his base’s pockets, and treats the elimination of health care for more than ten million Americans as a normal part of doing business.

He very deliberately equates families fleeing tyranny and murder with hardened criminals and drug traffickers. By now, the entire country understands that MAGA is so desperate to ensure that non-white people don’t one-day dominate our elections, they’re willing to arrest innocent, hard-working people who only want a safe place to raise their children and deport those same people back to the horror show they left, while simultaneously causing severe financial harm to millions of small businesses that depend on those people to work.

Trump’s stupid lies, like claiming the fourteenth amendment was intended to assure that babies of freed slaves were citizens, are truly offensive. They imply that Americans have no idea what their Constitution says, although that amendment has been in the spotlight throughout both of his terms as president. It’s an appeal to the anger and frustration of people who struggle every day and need someone to blame. Trump’s message is, “I can do any damn thing I want and no one can touch me.” The dangerous subtext is “so can you.” Have we forgotten January 6, 2021?

Congress has a chance to cut through Trump’s bullshit by stopping his Big Beautiful Bill and passing a new war powers act. People in our government who understand the value of our alliances and mutual defense treaties, including the Joint Chiefs and our senior diplomats, have a chance to reign in the destruction of our image around the world. If someone doesn’t stand up to Trump’s strongman tactics soon, he’ll win, and all of us will lose.