The portrait of Dorian Trump

Assiduous readers may have noticed Walt's pro-Trump bias. I was hoping for a Trump victory. I bet on it. I didn't look too closely at the man himself, supporting his candidacy chiefly for what he said he would do about the problems that bedevil America today: stalled economy, immigration, weak foreign policy, crime...and the list goes on. I was truly hopeful that he would MAGA.

Now Donald Trump is POTUS. He started his presidency -- notice I didn't say "reign" -- with a flurry of executive orders which, if issued by a king, would have been called "edicts". I'm reminded of the scene in Catch 22 where General Dreedle (played so well by Orson Welles) tells Colonel Cathcart to have another officer taken out and shot, only to be told by his son-in-law that he can't do that, to which Dreedle replies anrgily, "Why not?"

So it seems to be with President Trump's first four months in office. Mr Trump is right when he says that he has been maligned, insulted, denigrated etc in the lamestream meeja as has no other president in history. But he has only himself to blame. He is thrashing around like the proverbial bull in the china shop, issuing an order here, firing someone there, emitting Tweets by the score without making sure his brain is engaged, then back-pedaling, changing his mind, and reverting to Original Plan 2C.

It is all quite disappointing, kind of like looking at the picture of Dorian Gray. In the case of Dorian Gray, the beautiful painting of a handsome man fell away to reveal an ugly old man -- physically and morally -- underneath. I won't be that harsh on Mr Trump. Unlike the loony-leftish "ladies" of The View, I don't think POTUS is an evil genius. What we are learning, to our horror, as we watch the real Donald Trump in action, is that there is almost no substance beneath the brash, charismatic (?) exterior. Peel away the veneer and you see... nothing.

President Trump is in over his head, elevated, in accordance with the Peter Principle, to a position which is clearly beyond his competence. The question now is whether the USA can survive President Trump's period of on-the-job training. Walt (and his stockbroker) hope so.