Some people seem mystified by Donald Trump and his motivations. They take two forms.

One is Advanced Political Knowers in the Great American Media Discourse, who ponder why the Semi-Sentient Rotted Carrot does things like wreck the stock market with tariffs or pick fights with our dearest allies like Canada. The other is normal, good-hearted Americans like the kind I’ve written about here before.

The former is much less understandable than the latter.  Pondering articles like this one in the New York Times raises all sorts of questions about why Trump might be doing what he is doing. The latter can’t really wrap their head around what on earth Trump is doing; it’s alarming to see a president acting like this, hurting so many people.

The explanation for this is simple. It really is. Trump does everything he does because of either:

1. He is a complete moron.
2. He is a deeply cruel, vindictive, and mean-spirited person.
3. He is a greedy bastard.
4. Any combination of the above

That’s it. That’s the explanation.

There is no deep, 17-Level Ninja Chess going on with Trump. It’s like this…

If our two greyhounds see a squirrel during one of our walks, they will try to chase it. This is not a confounding puzzle as to why they would chase a squirrel. They are dogs; that’s what they do. They have a predator-prey instinct. It’s apparent.

Same with Trump; he is an idiot, a horrifying prick, and a greed-monster because that’s his nature. That’s who he has always been, and always will be until his heart mercifully stops pumping his fat-filled blood through his mushy arteries.

Journalists and pundits do not seem to accept the reality in front of them. Reminds me of Deep Throat’s quote in the movie All the President’s Men:

Forget the myths the media has created about the White House…the truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Same as it ever was, except worse. Just ask Paul Krugman, who advises to stop looking for methods in the madness. I mean, the guy thinks that modern dishwashers don’t use water, so you have to run them 10 times to get the dishes clean. The Smartest Minds of the Great American Discourse might not want to believe what is in front of them, but many of us will.

As for the regular old Americans who constantly ask “WHY” in my social media feeds, I have much more sympathy for them. It’s difficult to grasp the horror, to imagine this is where we are. Hell, throughout Trump’s first term, “polarization” seemed to be a big concern with people I talked to, which of course implies both sides were equally problematic. This is not to call them dumb. In fact, some real Very Smart People were trying to argue this. Here’s Lee Papa, the Rude Pundit, relaying a story in late 2018, well into the Trump 1.0 administration, dealing with college professors arguing about how both sides are just as bad, darn it:

Sometimes my Clark Kent life and my Rude Pundit life overlap, and so yesterday I found myself moderating a talk (by someone else) about Where We Are as a Nation. You know, Our Current Political Situation and all that. The talk itself had been dire, from a colleague who was a moderate politically (and may have been a Republican years ago), and offered a gloomy outlook for the future of the country.

 

During the question and answer part, people wanted to find explanations and excuses for Where We Are. One audience member offered that she felt like there was too much extremism on both sides and that these extremes were pushing things to a crisis. I interjected, “Well, let’s be clear about what’s considered extreme. On the right, you’ve got actual Nazis and white supremacists who are committing violence. On the left, what they call ‘extreme’ are politicians who want the same programs that most of the countries in the world have, like health care and free college.”

 

Another audience member argued with me, saying that I was demonizing the right and contributing to the deep divisions in this country. “Let me clarify,” I told this older professor. “I’m saying that on the right there are actual terrorists. People who murder for their beliefs. We readily call them ‘extreme.’ But the media and conservatives portray people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as extremists, as if that’s the balance. There are left-wing extremists, violent revolutionaries, ecoterrorists, and more. That’s who should be the counter-balance with right-wing extremists, not Bernie Sanders.” I might have also said something like “And ‘Antifa’ is short for ‘anti-fascist.'”

 

I was not very good at moderating.