Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a writer and former educator who lives in Calais.
[O]nly moments after President Donald J. Trump began his graceless, blunt-force-trauma of an inaugural address last Friday it became apparent that he had learned nothing between the election in November and taking the oath of office. With the same Nixonian scowl he’s worn for the last year, he shared his dark vision of a “carnage” filled, hardly recognizable America, coupled with the unhinged messianic notion that he’s going to clean it up, beginning “right here – right now.” Move over Wyatt Earp, there’s a new sheriff in town.
Unfortunately, in less than 24 hours, the new sheriff proved to be as peevish and thin-skinned as ever. Any effort at looking or sounding presidential fell by the wayside the next day when he received pushback — reality, that is — after claiming that his inauguration crowd was the biggest in history — which given photographic evidence — it clearly was not.
Worse yet, he doubled down on the boast during a visit to CIA headquarters, once again lashing out at the press as “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” going so far as to suggest media also “made it sound like” he had a feud with the intelligence community, which he compared to Nazi Germany barely a week ago. But the duplicity that worked so well for Trump campaigning to adoring crowds withers in the face of real-world scrutiny.
Former CIA director John Brennan — who resigned Friday — was having none of it, blasting the president’s “despicable display of self aggrandizement” in front of the agency’s Memorial Wall, a tribute to agents who have lost their lives. Nick Shapiro, who served as Brennan’s chief of staff, said his former boss thought “Trump should be ashamed of himself.”
While Trump’s ego remained — as usual — front and center at the expense of everything else, he and his team continued trying to frame a series of statements as accurate by some other method than simply evaluating evidence.
But shame appears nowhere in the new administration’s playbook where truth is fast becoming an endangered species and reality a barrier to overcome at all costs, lest the Trump mythology be threatened with a very public unraveling — which despite their best effort, appears to have already begun during the first days of his presidency.
Sean Spicer — likely at Trump’s direction — made a ghastly debut as White House press secretary, berating reporters for “intentionally framing” inauguration photographs to “minimize the enormous support” and emphatically saying: “This was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.” Had he looked out the window he might have realized that it wasn’t even the largest crowd of the weekend. The Women’s March on Washington by all estimates had three times as many participants Saturday as Trump attracted on Friday.
As all this became ridiculously obvious to anyone, Trump’s surrogates were out in force, defending him on Sunday morning talk shows with a series of breathtaking arguments that stretched credibility to the breaking point. Kellyanne Conway, senior White House aide, fast becoming known as “Propaganda Barbie,” suggested on “Meet the Press” that Spicer was offering “alternative facts,” rather than bold-faced lies. To his credit, host Chuck Todd — who Conway chided for being “overly dramatic” — held his ground: “Alternative facts aren’t facts, they’re falsehoods.”
While Trump’s ego remained — as usual — front and center at the expense of everything else, he and his team continued trying to frame a series of statements as accurate by some other method than simply evaluating evidence. Startling as their effort was, it was overshadowed by the trivial nature of what they chose to defend: “My crowd was bigger than your crowd” … Seriously? Was there nothing more important to do during the first several days of a new administration?
But even as concern grew over Trump’s priorities, his need for almost constant adoration and tendency for pathetic self aggrandizement, was becoming more worrisome, even to his White House staff who reportedly made several unsuccessful attempts to focus his energy on more relevant issues. Where narcissism’s poster boy will go from here is anyone’s guess, but based on his administration’s lost weekend, if Team Trump wants to retain any credibility at all, they need first engage objective reality and give up trying to create their own.
