It’s All About Legacy
“There Ain't No Way To Hide Your Lyin' Eyes”

Eugene Robinson graduated from the University of Michigan in the mid-70s and in the late 80s was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. He is a columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post. Robinson won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his writing related to Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2011, he became a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board and was the chairperson in 2017-2018.

Eugene Robinson

Eugene Robinson knows a great deal about the world in which he lives, and he writes about it. He authored eleven books along with his work at The Washington Post. As he looks out on our world, this a quote about how he views Trump.

The astonishing thing is that the president of the United States is, let’s face it, raving like a lunatic — and everyone just shrugs…The nation is still reeling from two mass shootings. The financial markets are yo-yoing by hundreds of points. A bomb in Afghanistan, where we’re still at war, killed 63 revelers at a wedding. Tension between the United States and Iran continues to mount. North Korea keeps testing new missiles. India is playing with fire in Kashmir. Hong Kong has been convulsed for months by massive protests seeking to guarantee basic freedoms…And Trump obsesses about buying Greenland…The truth is that we don’t have an actual presidency right now. We have a tiresome reality show whose ratings have begun to slide — and whose fading star sees cancellation on the way.

While I don’t have Robinson’s credentials, I accept his conclusion, along with the rest of the mainstream media. The only news outlet that supports Trump is Fox News. Trump considers all the rest of the media outlets to be merely fake news.

It is not merely the media, but the entire world disses Trump. Everyone would agree with Robinson that Trump is “raving like a lunatic.” I can only think of five leaders in the rest of the world that seem to like our lunatic president. Putin has Trump as his lapdog. Putin does no wrong from Trump’s mindset. Erdogan in Turkey is another one that Trump admirer. Kim Jung-un of North Korea and Trump are close buddies. Trump said of Kim, “He wrote me beautiful letters and we fell in love.” Xi Jinping of China is admired by Trump one day, and then they raise tariffs on each other’s countries on the next day. Trump supports Netanyahu of Israel on issues like moving the capital to Jerusalem, and Netanyahu scratches Trump’s back. Trump has praised all these leaders while dissing all of our NATO allies and much of the rest of the world that would dare question him.

Then there was the Trump University scam. You would get, free of charge, a 90-minute introduction to the Trump University program, which was followed by a $1495 three-day seminar. It wouldn’t be long before Trump University would be pushing their Gold Elite program, which cost $35,000. Finally, both New York state and the federal government took Trump University to court, which ended that scam. Trump settled three lawsuits for $25 million dollars. Additionally, Trump’s companies have filed six bankruptcies. Would you want Trump as your CFO? Well, The New York Times warned us that the projections of national debt are nearing a trillion dollars under Trump’s financial leadership

The updated projections show deficits rising — and damage from Mr. Trump’s tariffs mounting — faster than the office had previously predicted. In May, the budget office said it expected a deficit of $896 billion for 2019 and $892 billion for 2020.

Our national debt

And the list goes on…. As of mid-June, Trump has either blatantly lied or consciously misstated the facts 10,796 times during his presidency based upon The Washington Post. Or as the Eagles sang:

You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes

So, we have a problem with our fake president. I get that. What I don’t get is why the Republican Party doesn’t do anything. From Moscow Mitch McConnell at the Senate level, down to grassroot Republicans, hardly anyone elected at the national or state level has stood up to Trump.

Finally, I have an advantage over most of my readers; I have danced with death twice. I know firsthand that I am not immortal. You know that statistically, but I know it having done the dance. The question that looms over all of us is how will we be remembered? How would you feel if you were a relative of Trump? It all has to do with legacy. Think about being tied to the Trump family as a child, grandchild, aunt, uncle, or cousin of our fake president. Think about being related to our fake president as he pines away about not getting Greenland.

Nonetheless, he is our Chosen One.

The Chosen One