TRUMPS WAKE; or, HOW DONALD REWROTE FINNEGANS

TRUMPS WAKE; or, HOW DONALD REWROTE FINNEGANS
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After watching the last of the Trump Trilogy of debates and listening to the post-debate analysis, I was reminded of Simon & Garfunkel’s line in “The Boxer”: “Still a man hears what he wants to hear, And disregards the rest” especially when Hugh Hewitt opens his mouth. I always believed that Kellyanne Conway could spin the Holocaust as a way of controlling over-population, but Hewitt, too, is excellent at taking what seemingly is obvious and spinning it into something that is closer to being extra-worldly than one might imagine. Case in point. Since it seems that everyone was using sports metaphors before the debate (either baseball or boxing ones) Hewitt decided to go with the latter and after the debate said that out of the 15 rounds, Trump won 14. Of course, the one thing everyone could agree on was at least the one round he lost was when he refused to acknowledge that if Clinton won he’d not make a concession speech. That answer seemingly made both Michael Steele and Steve Schmidt systemically ill. But if we’re keeping with the boxing analogies, that wasn’t a “lost round,” but a comment that made Ali’s quick work of Liston in their second fight not even worth scoring. But as I watched most of the debate (the Cubs-Dodgers game was more exciting) I was able to catch a number of Wallace’s questions, and one of the most revealing of which was:

“If we are able to push ISIS out of Mosul and out of Iraq, would you be willing to put U.S. troops in there to prevent their return or something else?”

Now, I’ve been writing essays about Trump’s rhetoric since he began insulting Mexicans over a year ago, so I was interested in seeing if (as Chris Matthews and others were hoping) he’d “pivot” to acting and speaking more Presidential which, after 15 months, was as likely as Trump winning the upcoming 2016 Nobel Peace Prize. His answer didn’t disappoint.

“Let me tell you. Mosul is so sad. We had Mosul but when she left, when she took everybody out, we lost Mosul and now we are fighting again to get Mosul. The problem with Mosul and what they wanted to do is they wanted to get the leaders of ISIS who they felt were in Mosul. About three months ago, I started reading that they want to get the leaders and they’re going to attack Mosul. Whatever happened to the element of surprise? We announce we’re going after Mosul, I’ve been reading we’ve been going after Mosul, how long has it been Hillary, three months? These people have all left they've all left. They’ve all left. The element of surprise. Douglas MacArthur George Patton, spinning in their graves when they see the stupidity of our country. So we’re now fighting for Mosul, that we had, all she had to do was stay there and now we're going in to get it, but you know the big winner in Mosul is going to be after we eventually get it and the only reason they got it is because she's running for the office of president.”

He begins in typical Trumpian fashion by stating, as Basil Fawlty might say, “the bloody obvious.” Mosul is sad. Actually, it’s not sad, it’s a humanitarian nightmare, but sad is an easier word for Trump to remember. As is the word, “nice”, in the sentence he will deport illegals in a “nice way.” He then continues blaming Clinton for taking “everybody out.” I have no idea what that could mean since Clinton could not make that decision and then like everything else in Trump World it’s embellishment. Believe me. The notion that “he started reading” months ago about the attack is totally not in keeping with who he is since, well, he doesn’t read. That’s been corroborated time and again by Tony Schwartz who effectively wrote “The Art of the Deal.” One must wonder where Trump gets his knowledge of military strategy. He certainly doesn’t have time to read Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” let alone study it. Perhaps, it was all the grueling study he had to go through at the New York Military Academy which, for Trump, was akin to serving in Vietnam. Besides the fact that when Trump is at a loss for words he doesn’t necessarily invent new ones, but finds it much more expedient to repeat them and by so doing he “fills up space” since the one thing Trump cannot tolerate is a void. Of course, I’m not sure what he was thinking about when he connected MacArthur and Patton with surprise attacks and by stating they’re probably spinning in “their graves” because of the “stupidity of our country.” Such a comment seems to imply that the military training of both MacArthur and Patton, not mention Eisenhower, who was instrumental in the planning of DDay, was in some way, feckless. Trump concludes that portion by rambling in a way that would make Joyce’s Finnegans Wake read like Charlotte’s Web. There’s probably no one who’s ever run for the office of the President who’s been more inarticulate as evinced by: “So we’re now fighting for Mosul, that we had, all she had to do was stay there and now we're going in to get it, but you know the big winner in Mosul is going to be after we eventually get it and the only reason they got it is because she's running for the office of president.” He’s the king of the run-on sentence and uses repetition in a way that would have made Beckett blush, but no one really questions him on what, exactly, he just said least of all Hugh Hewitt. But Trump wasn’t done with not answering Wallace’s question.

“And they want to look tough. They want to look good. He violated the red line in the sand. And he made so many mistakes. That is why we have the great migration. But she wanted to look good for the election. But who is going to get Mosul really? We will take eventually. If you look at what's happening much more tougher it's going to be more deaths than we thought. But the leaders I wanted to get are all wrong is because they're smart. What do we need this for? So Mosul is going to be a wonderful thing and Iran should write us a letter of thank you, just like the other really stupid. The stupidest deal of all time. A deal that's going to give Iran absolutely nuclear weapons. Iran should write us yet another letter saying thank you very much because Iran as I said many years ago Iran is taking over Iraq. Something they wanted to do forever but we made it so easy for them. So we're now going to take Mosul and you knows who is going to be the beneficiary? Iran. Boy are they - they are outsmarting -- look you are not there you might be involved in that decision but you were there when you took everybody out of Mosul and out of Iraq. We shouldn’t have been Iraq but you did vote for it. You shouldn't have been in Iraq but once you're in Iraq you should have never left the way -- the point is the big winner is going to be Iran.”

Where does one begin to analyze this paragraph? He doesn’t speak in sentences. He speaks in bullet points and even those are illogically arranged. I won’t even mention the phrase “much more tougher” since there’s so much more to read. By that time, Wallace’s head must have been spinning since his original question dealt with whether or not Trump would be willing to put US troops into Mosul to stabilize the peace if ISIS were defeated there. But Trump knows nothing about Mosul nor the history of Mosul nor where Mosul might even be nor what the military is actually doing in Mosul and he doesn’t have any interest in learning about Mosul and in order to avoid talking about Mosul and answering Wallace’s question, he pivots to talk about Iran and Iraq presumably as a way of making him appear knowledgeable about the Middle East, when, in fact, it just validates that he’s totally ignorant of what’s going on in the Middle East. He concludes his rant by stating: “You shouldn't have been in Iraq but once you're in Iraq you should have never left the way -- the point is the big winner is going to be Iran.” So, he began his answer with Mosul and ended his answer with Iraq denying as he did that he was ever in favor of going into Iraq when, in fact, he was. This was only one of a number of labyrinthine answers Trump gave throughout the debate that would even have puzzled Borges.

At the end of all that persiflage, one really had to ask the question: What’s happened to the art of critical thinking? If Hugh Hewitt, who went to Harvard and received his JD from Michigan, can actually believe that Trump won “14 out of 15 rounds,” then the only conclusion one can come to is that the fight was rigged.

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