The following images are going viral. Before you view them, bear this in mind:

  1. Walter Reed Hospital had a state of the art, ne plus ultra, it doesn’t get better than this reputation. Now its reputation is shit.
  2. Sherlock Holmes once said, “We are in dark and treacherous waters.”
  3. Rick Wilson observed, “Everything Trump touches dies.”

Donald Trump insisted on returning to the White House Monday night — and why not? He’s got a medical suite there and the best medical treatment available on this planet and the yous and mes pay for it. He knows that and so he bullied his way back to the White House in order to proselytize the Trump As Superman narrative and here’s what that looks like.

Gasping for air, wincing in pain, both and most probably more. Call the shot the way you see it — literally. This is the reality TV guy doing all that he knows how to do, which is project an image. There is no substance, only form. Trump is not only an illuminated pixels only “leader,” he’s a simulacrum of a human being. He’s only alive when the red light is on, on the camera. Otherwise, he doesn’t exist. The reason that he is literally killing himself now to keep his image up, is because he knows after November 3, he’s canceled. At that time, he’ll be not only an irrelevant joke, he’ll be looking at prosecution and prison. His stance now is born of desperation — and borne out in purely stupid and self-destructive acts. What else? This is Donald Trump we’re talking about.

His quandary now is that he has to face a challenge he is totally unprepared for — which is dealing with reality. Not reality TV but reality itself. Life on life’s terms. And he hasn’t a clue how to do that. That’s because Donald Trump is not “alive” like the rest of us, i.e., responding to stimuli. The only stimulus he knows is whatever gets him an attention fix and augments the fantasy that he has created about himself. He does not interact with other human beings in any normal fashion. The supreme paradox of this phenomenon of Trump is that he’s in public service, to serve mankind, if you will, and he hates people — he’d sooner take them into outer space and cook ’em in a pie, like that Twilight Zone episode.

Trump’s problem now and it is existential, is that he’s in love with the fantasy of who he is — just like his base.  And like Dorian Grey, there’s a dreadful truth in the closet and he doesn’t want to look at that.

Trump’s inherited wealth afforded him a luxury few who hate themselves as he does can know. And that is, that his supporters actually bee-leave him to be the big shot, rich, powerful, smart, infinitely cool dude with the arm trophy wife and the golden shitter. Wow, how amazing is that? He got millions of people to believe his bullshit. What an ego juice that is. And that ego juice is the sole sustenance of his life. He has nothing else. This man is hated and reviled and he was drummed out of New York City, the place he always wanted to impress.

So Trump wakes up every day, alone in his own skin — as do we all — hoping that the fantasy can just, dear God, keep going. And the truth is that the fantasy has become a mirage in the desert. And the more he chases it, the closer he comes to it, the more it melts and recedes.

COVID-19 is Trump’s last mirage — one way or the other.  The office of president of the United States is not a PR job. Or ceremonial. And Trump is faced with dealing with that horrible reality — not to mention prison.

 

 

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1 COMMENT

    • Well obviously can’t breathe and probably not getting enough oxygen.

      But still not high IQ or won’t listen to advisors. Suspended talks for second stimulus and his “favorite”, the stock market, goes down.

  3. There’s an “Old Corps” expression (albeit one used other places too) for what you saw Trump doing in those clips of him struggling to breathe – it’s called SUCKING WIND! Literally. Mouth slightly open sucking in air. Like through a straw. Because he was trying to hide that he desperately needed air. Sucking wind. I didn’t watch the cray-cray (so I’m told by those who did) of him a little later spouting all the stuff that has experts so alarmed but I saw a short clip of a brief part of it and even then he was struggling some to look and sound normal – still fighting for air. I imagine someone from the WHMU was standing just off camera with a bottle of oxygen so that as soon as he was done they could slap an oxygen mask on his face and crank the valve open as far as it would go! I’m also thinking back to your “I don’t want to go out like Stan Chera” thing the other day, and imagine right now what really terrifies him is the prospect of going out like his pal Herman Cain. Lest we forget after Cain was diagnosed (caught it at that pathetic Tulsa rally) we got weeks of “getting better” notices from him. Stronger all the time crap including one three days before he DIED! I don’t want Trump to die. I want him to live a good long while soaked in the humiliation of the defeat he’s about to suffer. I want that defeat to be so overwhelming that while he will never, ever admit it to anyone else know deep inside he’s a “bigly” loser, rejected by the country and even a chunk of his vaunted base.

    My biggest worry in fact is that the rejection will kill him (literally) off too soon. One thing that’s crucial for people seriously ill or injured to survive is the will to fight to live. I fear a massive rejection in November, one that even as he tries to fight in the courts has polling even Fox can’t ignore that people strongly disapprove of his trying to overturn the will of the voters will cause him to lose his will. That one night, shortly after the election he will go to be SO broken and dispirited that he never wakes up. It’s the LAST thing I want to see happen and for more than one reason I won’t go into now.

    • He has pneumonia, and checked himself out of Walter Reed – I’d guess the doctors were Not Happy, because they know he’s still sick and likely to be back by the end of the week, probably not walking on his own.

      • It’s common for lots of hospitalized people to want to get the hell out of there and as soon as possible. Over the course of my life I’ve visited plenty of people who couldn’t wait to get home. I’m into my sixties now and last fall for the first time in my life I was hospitalized. Twice. I didn’t want to leave the first time (the short version is I would be coming back soon for a surgery) and had wanted to stay an extra day or two the second time. But I get the desire of so many to get out of there. In Trump’s case, his whole political world (and with it his financial world and perhaps freedom) is crumbling and his mishandling of the Covid crisis turned what might have been a close election into one where he’s facing not just defeat but a rout. Visions of Carter and his “trapped in the Rose Garden due to the hostage crisis” campaign and subsequent loss have probably been in his mind. Still, he had a chance to turn his illness to advantage, but it would have required something his is simply incapable of doing – showing admitting he was wrong and showing a little humility and then becoming a salesman for masks and social distancing. The odds of that are about as good as the Marines recalling my old fat ass to active duty and me being Commandant. Or my beloved Cubbies (after another humiliating end to the post season) buying me a new first baseman’s mitt and telling me I’d be replacing Rizzo at first base next year.

        Trump has chosen instead to try and brazen his way through the mess he’s in by returning to his “Covid is no big deal” schtick, and touting his “superior” genes and his “man’s man manliness” and so on. It’s a helluva gamble he’s taken even though I’m sure the WHMU has been beefed up & there’s the equivalent of an intensive care ward set up in the WH now. If his condition goes bad (which is common for people with his age and risk factors) a trip back to the hospital will be very bad for him indeed. He will fight ANY attempt to send him back but at some point his doctors including Conley (a Navy Cdr.) will be faced with losing their medical licenses or doing what has to be done if Trump’s condition deteriorates. They might try to sneak him out of the WH on a stretcher if he’s too weak to argue with them (or too afraid of dying to object) or unconscious but the Secret Service would freak out over a single vehicle like a suburban was used without escort. And I’ll bet different press outlets have stringers along various routes looking for those telltale Secret Service SUVs escorting “some” vehicle.

        The bottom line is that if Trump has to go back to the hospital the campaign and the election is over. And he will take the GOP down with him next month. They are all already sliding over the edge of the cliff and such an event would be like giving them a big shove after having sprayed the whole thing with grease. I can’t imagine that many Republicans are happy he left the hospital so soon for exactly that reason. The damn fools simply have denied the reality that has been obvious to so many clear thinking people – that as far as Trump is concerned if HE is going down he’s going to drag as many people with him as he can. Just for spite. If things happen that way I have no sympathy for any of them. They had a chance to stop him cold early in the primaries in 2016. They had a chance again with impeachment after knowing damn well he was guilty and of a LOT more than lying about a blowjob. AND having seen all the damage he’d wrought that cost them a well gerrymandered majority in the House and with THEM being the ones defending more Senate seats this time (vs. 2018) maybe the Senate too. They could have been rid of him and guess what? PENCE would have nominated Barrett or someone just as bad and McConnell would STILL be working overtime to ram the nomination through!

        It’s a huge gamble Trump has taken by returning to the WH. He apparently browbeat his doctors, many of whom are in the military chain of command to let him leave Walter Reed and has surely issued orders they are NOT to send him back. So I’ll again note that since many of them are looking at the kind of malpractice that could cost them their careers if he needs to be re-hospitalized and they don’t send him back in the end they will be begging the Secret Service to help them out. And for Pence to intervene with THEIR boss at DHS to allow them to fulfill their mandate to protect the President no matter what.

    • I’m glad you liked it. I thought the prose was a little purple but I was livid when I wrote it This Trump phenomenon keeps doing that to me. Because while Trump is unpredictable, he is consistent. We don’t know what he’ll do next, but we do know it will be a skit that will buttress one of his talking points. That’s all this is, is reality TV. What a thing for a country to walk up to every day — and we have, unfortunately.

  10. Noticed the painful breathing was after he climbed the stairs. So that’s the condition his lungs are in. He didn’t realize he was showing that to us and then wanted to refilm it. Oops

    • When I read the tweet about refilming it, it was yet another low. This is all an act. Not that that is new information, but the more you see what an act it is and realize that that is what the Rethugs actually put on their ticket, it reaffirms the horror all over again. At least that is the effect it has on me, watching this display.

      • I am so fucking sick of these people. I just got back from the Board of Elections where the first day of early voting is happening (bumper turnout! Tons of black people!). There was a young, white guy there passing out lit for the GOP challenger to our fantastic progressive congresswoman (a hopeless cause since our district typically votes 80% Democratic). This asshole was just about the only person out there — voters, cops, candidates and their friends, people from the League of Women Voters _ who wasn’t wearing a mask and he was coming up to within 3 feet of people. If I’d ever been inclined to consider this candidate (I’m not), that would have ended it. Republicans are jerks.

        • Think I’ll measure my leg & pin a note saying: no mask? keep safe distance, known to kick. Maybe circle one leg with warning tape. By the way that’s not an idle threat

    • Yeah, he never should have taken his mask off. He could have projected both better health, role modeling and the learning of lessons if he kept his mask on. Not that any of it was true, but he could have projected it.

  11. I think Walter Reed is fine. It’s Conley whose reputation is gone. (Not that there’s much they can do when the patient decides he’s well enough to leave.)

  13. Thanks for the article.

    Can I just say….I was caregiver to a heart transplant recipient in 2015 (he got it, is healthy, which is why it’s past tense…he doesn’t need a caregiver any longer). Anyway, with prednisone, a steroid relative to what Trump is on, and other drugs, he was walking around 24 hours after his transplant. He literally could have done Trump’s public event thing. That did not mean his struggle was over.

    Trump has an incurable virus in his system that is reproducing exponentially. I want him well so that we can beat him like a drum and say that it’s the mandate that it is…but I just can’t get past what he has and what could happen as he fight is.

  14. Wowwwwwwww…I comment (mostly respectfully) at TownHall.com. I know, I know…maybe pointless. But I think breaking through media bubbles is helpful. My message is “if you want this uncertainty and chaos to end, you can pull the lever for Biden in the privacy of the voting booth, and no one ever has to know.”

    Anyway…Pat (barf) Buchanan (double barf) just posted an op-Ed. I was expecting truly cringe-worthy demagoguery, but Uncle Pat sounds resigned to losing. I have never in my life seen that level of resignation from a political figure a month out. I’m just…shocked. I mean, clearly a loss is coming for the right unless things change, but wow.

    Don’t go read it unless you’ve had your shots…it’s a very toxic site. But my dad was a Baptist minister, and I feel that you don’t give up on sinners.

    • Well, Pat has been around since the Nixon White House. As such, he’s been around long enough to know a defeat when he sees one. If he sounds deflated like you say, it’s because he knows his entire life’s work has been ruined. His version of conservatism is finished and it was all for nothing.

  15. Very good description, Ursula. It sounds like a novel I must have read at some time or another. English teachers could use it to teach character description, beginning with “Gasping for air…”

  16. I would add
    #4. Rex Tillerson: ‘He’s a fucking moron.’

    I find tRump’s little display yesterday on the balcony one of the phoniest, most shallow performances he’s given us yet. How pathetic he is, pretending to be a tough guy! He’s such a pitiful specimen, all braggadocio, no substance, just a hollow shell that you can see right through. If he hadn’t caused as much misery, chaos and death in this country as he has, I might be inclined to feel sorry for the wretched POS. As it is, I’m looking forward to him getting what he has coming.

  17. Beautifully written????????? I CANT BELIEVE THE VINCE McMahon OF POLITICS IS STILL EVEN ON THE MONDAY NIGHT RAW TOUR HE STARTED IN 2016??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️ ITS UNREAL ITS NOT BELIEVABLE TO THINK I HAVE A FAMILY DIVIDED IN POLITICAL VIEWS AND NONE RATIONAL ARGUMENTS OF A REALITY STAR WHO I MUST ADMIT IS PR GENIUS BUT AT ANY DISGUSTING HUMAN COST, ITS HARD TO BELIEVE MY FAMILY BLOOD SIBLINGS PARENTS FIRST COUSINS ARE ALMOST COMING TO BLOWS AND SO HATEFUL AND HYPNOTIZED WAIT HERE IS THE KICKER POLITICAL PARTIES AND RACIST UNDERTONES THAT NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER WERE TALKED ABOUT NOT EVEN ONCE IN MY 37 YEARS ALIVE IN MY FAMILY, MY FAMILY HOUSE, AT DINNER, SO DIVIDED WITH THE SAME BLOOD SPEWING HATRED WORDS AND FIGHTING AND NOT STOPING AT A REASON NOT ONE TO PROVE AND SCREAM WHOS POINT IS RIGHT??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️??‍♂️ THIS NEVER EVER HAPPENED IN OUR FAMILY NOR WERE POLITICAL VIEWS A DISCUSSION NEVER MIND COPS SHOWING UP A FEW TIMES SHOUTING TIL SOMEONE ALMOST PASSES OUT WITH VEINS POPPING OUT OF FOREHEADS AND REALLY BREAKING DOWN A THOUGHT THAT WAS NEVER EVEN CONCEIVABLE UNTIL DONALD TRUMP THE WWE CHAMP OF REPUBLICANS CAME INTO THE PICTURE LIKE MAYBE I HAVE NO RELATIONSHIP WITH SIBLINGS PARENTS COUSINS REALLY REALLY REALLY SOON!! ITS GETTING SO UGLY THAT IT IS REALLY BREAKING FAMILIES APART THIS IS JUST ONE MY STORY OF THIS!! BELITTLING BLOOD IMMEDIATE FAMILY MEMBERS MOM DAD BROTHERS FKRST COUSINS THAT JUST NEVER TOOK PLACE AND WAS JUST NOT POSSIBLE IN MY FAMILY TO BE READY TO THROW FIST CUFFS TO SHOW IM BETTER THEN YOU AND WHAT I READ SEE AND BELIEVE IS BETTER THEN YOU AND WE MIGHT FUCKING FIGHT OVER IT OR PART WAYS!! FAMILY THIS FAMILY FUCKING MY FAMILY OF 37 years!! WHAT PART OF TRUMP JOB DUTY IS THAT? What part is the division a moral standard now to be president??? AND PEOPLE THINK HE EVR THOUGHT HIS WORDS ACTIONS VIEWS HAVE DONE THIS TO FAMILIES?? WELL SAID ON THE RED LIGHT NEEDS TO BE SHINING ON THE CAMERA FOR HIM TO CARE ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL!!! People should read this it’s real and believe not just in my home!!! Please believe not just in my moms home!! FUCK BEING PRESIDENT A MORAL HUMAN BEING WOULD CONSCIOUS OF DIVISION LIKE THIS WHEN MANY SAY THEY ARE LEADING THE DIVISION!!! THE WORLD IS SCREWED UP WE NEED A LEADER ITS NOT HIM AND MAYBE NOT BIDEN EITHER SO IDK BUT WHAT IDK MAKES UP FOR THE MOTHERFUCKING HATE I FEEL EVERY WHERE AND THE COMMON DENOMINATOR IS DONALD TRUMP!! WHat dr would let someone with a deadly disease leave the hospital to wave like this a gAme?? What dr?? WHAT LEader says it not safe to go to work completely cause u fools think what u want i camt find a job mKing whT i was making at a place i worked years still on furlough since april asking everyday can i come back to work know what they say prob after election ? u cant have it both ways not safe but no stimulating the country figure it out u cant have both of those things!! Ill end this by saying im still confused n shocked how his eyes must spin n i dont see it cause the hypnosis he put on half a fucking country is insane!! FACTS ARE NAME CALLING SCIENCE IS POLITICAL NOW AND RELIGION IS ALL POLITICS IS LEGISLATING NOW IM SO TURNOFF N SCARED FOR WHATS NEXT IT LIKE JUST FEEL NUMB TO IT ALLU KNOW NUMB TO MAYBE NOT BEING FAMILY AND HATE IN THE SAME PEOPLE WITH BLOOD AND DNA I HAVE ITS SOOOO FUCKING DRAINING N WATCH JUST STARTED ITS BOUT TO BE CRAZY VIOLENT AND NOT A SHREAD OF REMORSE FOR HUMANITY REAL SOON LIKE DAYS away!!!

    PLEse read this is fucking reall!! Dpv NEW JERSEY!!

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