Everybody Stands Up and Claps

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Bob Woodward, one-half of the Washington Post duo of Woodward and Bernstein, who was instrumental in bringing down the presidency of Richard Nixon, has been reporting on the national political scene for over half-a-century.  In addition to reporting, Woodward has been the author or co-author of eighteen  non-fiction books centering on politics.  When Woodward's books go to press, they always stir controversy and headlines.  His latest, War, is no exception.

While War  will not be officially released until next Tuesday, advance copies are already circulating among journalists and the chattering class, and the shock headlines and critiques are already popping up on news sites and social media - as the publishers hoped they would in order to spur sales.

One of the big stories from War is that conversations with people close to Trump convinced the author that Trump has had as many as seven private telephone conversations with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin since Trump left the presidency nearly four years ago.   Trump, whom many believe talks faster than he thinks, has, by virtue of being a recent President of the United States, a vast knowledge of US defense secrets and strategies.  If he has been having unsupervised  discussions with a foreign leader who poses a serious threat to world peace, then that should be an automatic disqualifier for serving again in our nation's highest office.

Trump and Putin both deny those allegations.

Based on his extensive interviews with those in the Trump orbit, Woodward also discloses that Trump sent COVID testing equipment to the Russian leader for his own personal use during the pandemic, equipment that some US hospitals did not have.  If true, that should also be another disqualifier for Trump serving another term in the White House.

Trump and Vlad will stonewall those allegations all the way to the grave.  Trump's own words, however, also provide some insight into the strong bond between the ruthless autocrat and the ruthless autocrat wannabe.  As an outspoken critic of the war in Ukraine, Trump has said repeatedly that the US should not have gotten involved in the conflict, and he has also said if he returns to the White House he could end the war in 24 hours - without presenting anything in the way of a plan to do so.  In that context his close friendship with Putin is extremely troubling.  Will the US under a Trump presidency just walk away from our commitments to the people of Ukraine and NATO?

Perhaps the section of Woodward's new book, War, that is the most revealing about Trump's personality and narcissism is what he wrote about the former President strutting around his home and country club in Florida.  He quoted Trump bootlicker Senator Lindsey Graham as saying that visiting Mar-a-lago was "a little bit like going to North Korea."   The Republican Senator said that whenever Trump enters a room at the resort, "everybody stands up and claps."

A British videographer who visited Trump's Florida club in 2022 said the same thing, and he revealed that Trump especially liked to walk into the dining area and circulate for the applause and attention and that he would intentionally enter and leave rooms several times in an evening just for the adoration and attention.

While "normal" people might be put off by that type of narcissistic behavior, the rich people who pay their dues to dine in Trump's club and for the influence that comes with the membership payment, view it as a normal cost of doing business.  Kim Jong-un would certainly understand and approve.

All of that and Donald Trump is seventy-eight-years-old, speaks on a fourth-grade level, and rambles into incoherence at his long-winded rallies.

America can do better.

America must do better!