Also Trump had several Trump-branded (and Trump organization-managed) projects in Canada, that went bust during his first term, and apparently he now blames the Canadian government (or at least certain people in it) for this, despite the fact that the failures were all his*. He’s been stewing over this for years now, and though Trump was pretty horrible about Canada during his first term, he hasn’t got anyone holding him back now, and he’s clearly suffered serious cognitive decline (that’s causing old grudges to take on new weight).
*Seriously the whole Toronto Trump Tower thing was a hilarious farce from beginning to end. E.g. his first business partner was “a fugitive who had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement” and was eventually replaced by a guy who simply had no experience in real estate development (and who ended up embroiled in lawsuits with investors, buyers, and Trump himself). They were charging Manhattan level prices, there was all sorts of fraud against buyers, etc. Then Trump ran for office, which rendered the Trump brand too toxic, the final nail in the coffins of the Toronto and Vancouver hotels.
Yeah, that does seem to be what we’ve got now, at least from Trump himself. Trump’s whole “politics of grievance” turns out to not just be about his voters (and his appeal to them), but all his policies as well. I think with the cognitive decline, that’s basically what consumers him now. I’m not sure there’s room for anything else. Every time I see video clips of him, regardless of the context in which they were made (or what he should have been talking about), it’s him talking about some weird, often petty grievance, and some policy (or desire for policy) based on that. It’s all about people who have been mean to him (e.g. just contradicted him, asked a question he didn’t like, etc.), people helping those who are mean to him, people/countries he imagined slighting him in some way, etc. all being punished.
I don’t even remember, was it ever anything else? How much of what he’s done wasn’t built around spiting Obama who made fun of him, spiting wind turbines like they put around his golf course, spiting non-whites like the clients in that lawsuit forever ago…
His “airing of grievances” makes it like every day is Festivus, but if that holiday also included “bearing false witness” as one of its central concepts.
I do wonder how much of Trump’s plan just coincidentally matches up with Elon’s grandfather’s, and how much is actually Elon whispering in Trump’s ear…
If this were a TV show, people would definitely be complaining about how one-dimensional and lacking any depth the characters are. Critics would say the writers were lazy and overused clichés.
But the absurdity is right in front of us and apparently people don’t care. Worse, I think a lot of people invited the absurdity to lunch and it is abusing our hospitality.
