You Just Keep Piling It On, Genius.

The morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes. Carefree highway, let me slip away, slip away on you   Gordon Lightfoot   Carefree Highway

Look, we’re all a little bit narcissistic, we like looking in the mirror when we think we’re rocking it, we like when people pay attention to what we say, or enter a room. That is positive, or at least benign narcissism, based on positive attention.

Donald Trump is a different breed of critter. Trump’s narcissism is obsessive narcissism, meaning that any kind of public recognition, positive or negative is still good, because it’s recognition, and therefore feeds his  craving for attention. Even if people think he’s a total asshole, at least they noticed him. And it’s this desperate craving for attention that keeps him burying himself deeper and deeper into the pit, even when he doesn’t have to do anything.

I’m not even going to waste time on the three couture signatures Trump put to paper yesterday at Bedminster, they aren’t even actual executive orders fer Christakes!. they’re memoranda, a request for somebody else to take a look at something and see if anything can be done.

The big boy of course, was the executive order extending federal assistance for unemployed workers. Being Trump, he of course did it on the cheap. He cut the benefit from $600 a week to $400, and demanded that the local states kick in 25% of his largess. This gives individual states the easy out of pleading poverty due to the pandemic, and refusing to sing on. Also add in the fact that even if he manages to cadge the cash, it will be incredibly difficult for Trump to carry through on his promise, logistically.

But see, here’s the critical thing. Trump was completely out of the loop on this thing. This was a pissing contest between Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic-led House, and Mitch McConnell’s GOP-led Senate. The House passed a bill and were accusing the GOP of screwing over the American people by dragging their heels. And the GOP was accusing the Democrats of using the coronavirus as an excuse  This was a legislative battle, Trump was not involved in it in any way, nor did he seek to become involved in a constructive manner. He was out of the line of fire.

But thank God Trump is such a stable genius. Trump is getting dry cornholed in the polls right now, and he saw a way to stick it to the Democrats.  Right now, the American people need cash to survive, they need help in keeping their homes and apartments, they need help with their student loan debt, and they need money in their pockets. So Trump would swoop in, sign a bunch of questionable executive orders, and sit back and wait for the Democrats to challenge him in court, allowing him and the GOP to portray Biden and the Democrats of trying to cut off desperately needed assistance for everyday Americans.

But here’s the McGuffin. The Democrats don’t have to do a goddamned thing. Three of Trump’s orders are advisory only, with no legal force of action, and the most important one, the extension of federal assistance for unemployment benefits, may be almost impossible for Trump to pull off, even if the Democrats don’t oppose him on it! And yet Trump sat down at an ornate desk, in front of a bunch of drunken club members, and took sole ownership and responsibility of the whole fucking thing! Everything!

Trump put Sharpie to paper, and took sole responsibility for an extension of federal unemployment benefits, a moratorium on evictions, a moratorium on student debt, and a moratorium on the payroll tax. None of which he can produce! Three of the four will disappear into the bureaucracy, and the fourth, the unemployment extension, is a logistical nightmare.

Y’all know that Teri was furloughed on the day after St Patrick’s Day, and that it took her 5 weeks to get her first unemployment check. Most states unemployment infrastructure is pathetically antiquated, and totally incapable of dealing with the massive influx of claims from the pandemic. If Trump had just left things like they were, at $600 a week, if he could come up with the cash, he could have used the existing infrastructure and programming, and made a fairly seamless transition of it. But being Trump, he had to dick around, cut the benefit by $200 a week, and demand that the states kick in 25%, which will make for a programming nightmare, even for states that decide to go along. The restoration of benefits will be delayed until the week after the Resurrection.

And now, Trump owns it! He owns it all. In his desperation to turn the tides on his polling, to be the tough guy that got things done, Trump signed on to a package he almost certainly can’t deliver on. And when it all comes crashing down around his ear. there will be nobody to share the spotlight with him. What a stable genius.

To know the future, look to the past.before the insanity of the 2020 election, relive the insanity of the 2016 GOP primary campaign, and the general election, to see how we got to where we are. Copies of President Evil, and the sequel, President Evil II, A Clodwork Orange are available as e-books on Amazon, at the links above. Catch up before the upcoming release of the third book in the trilogy, President Evil III: All The Presidents Fen

Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35