Probably a billion words have been written about Donald Trump. And a billion more will be. He’s not just an unpopular president, he’s a sociological phenomenon. He’s also a living Rorschach test. Depending upon how you see Trump, you are telling others how you interpret the world. People in the past may have loathed George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan or name somebody for a variety of different reasons. But we didn’t have a Reagan or Bush cult. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were charismatic and popular presidents but they didn’t have a cult. Trump has a cult. And right now this nation is split down the middle, do you love or hate the man, which is another way of asking if you see him as a force of good or of evil. Brian Cox who played the patriarch in Succession is not a MAGA.
Actor Brian Cox on Donald Trump: “He might be an idiot, but he’s a dangerous idiot. I shant be going back to America too much. I can’t deal with this man. I can’t believe they have voted for him. And they can’t see what he is. The guy is a liar.” pic.twitter.com/nW4dc49kM9
— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) August 8, 2025
I concur completely. I don’t know why people can’t see Trump for who he is. I saw him for who and what he was when he showed up in the summer of 2015. I was horrified then and my horror has only compounded the past ten years. I agree with Brian Cox that there is something wrong with a country that can elect this man — although I wish Cox had spoken more about the power of television. As an actor, that’s a medium that he should certainly understand, at least more so than the yous and mes who aren’t in that business.
Trump has succeeded with low information, low educated people who get their news and information from TV. So to give them a good show is how to get their votes. Although even there, Trump continues to baffle me. Is his racist bullhorn really a good show? So it would appear. It wasn’t all that long ago that Lyndon Johnson said, “If you convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
It’s a shame Johnson isn’t here to explain things to us. I think he would know. He seemed to have the inside track then and he would understand this madness in America now — expecially coming in on the heels of eight refreshing years of hope with a government and leader we were proud to show the world, Barack Obama. Now we’re cringing in embarrassment.
Trump is a creature of television. He knows how to sell an idea on television — like selling his sneakers or his cologne. The problem is that so many of Trump’s ideas simply will not stand up to the light of day. The tariffs issue is a glaring example of that. Scott Bessent has had to have it dragged out of him on television that the actual cost of the tariff is paid by the importer and then the importer passes it along to the consumer.
Bessent has tried to waffle his way out of this simple admission but it’s not working anymore. This is important because Trump’s economic house of cards is going to come tumbling down (and the stock market with it) sooner rather than later. That’s because all that MAGA hears is all this big money that Trump is “bringing in” somehow, the “$600 Billion from the EU,” that flat out doesn’t exist. They will only wake up when the bill at Walmart is through the roof.
Trump is an improv comic. He makes things up and then he believes what he has made up. He knows deep down he didn’t win in 2020 but he will continue to beat that particular dead horse non stop because it’s good theater.
Maybe we can’t expect an actor to explain Trump to us. Maybe we better stick with the psychiatrists and the sociologists and anthropologists. I hope they find an answer to all this so that America can never, ever repeat this kind of a mistake.
The Germans realized their horrific mistakes of 90 years ago. Maybe that’s the *good* that will come out of two terms of Trump, is that America will learn a terrible lesson. But bear in mind how dearly the Germans paid for their lunatic. Will it really take that level of horror for Americans to wake up? Is that what we’re in for? We’ve already got Alligator Alcatraz, how bad will it get from there?
Ar ha hah harrr! There’s a certain beauty in your choice of words describing Trump as “… a living Rorschach test …” Boom! Boom! A blot like something that’s dropped from the back end of a worthless snivelling cur, smeared on a street pavement, one hot steamy day.
whoever keeps the stock market up, wins.
“I don’t know why people can’t see Trump for who he is.” that would apply to a lot of his supporters but by no means all. The reason those people can’t see him for what he I is because they are living in a WWE reality-show bubble. He’s just one tough hombre, that’s all they care about. But I think many of his supporters do see him for what he is. The point is, they don’t care. He is against what they are against, and for what they are for. But I don’t think the country is “split down the middle”. While the GOP may have a stranglehold on the government, it represents a definite minority of voters. Thank extreme GOP gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and disproportionate representation in the Senate for that. Add to that the poor media position of the Democrats. Over the last ten presidential elections, GOP candidates won the poplar majority in only three: George H.W. Bish, 1988; George W. Bush in 2004; and Donald Trump in 2024. And I’m not at all sure about that last one.