The Time cover Trump hates
I discovered the word kakistocracy and thought, wow, I’ll be using that as often as possible, then forgot all about it.
Meaning “government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state”, it is drawn from the superlative of the Greek word for bad.
If you were to say that President Trump’s administration is deeply deserving of the label, I wouldn’t disagree.
But maybe we need another word or phrase to encompass a politician considered wildly unsuitable for the role he holds – and yet everyone he meets seems compelled to say what a sound and swell guy he is.
Perhaps psychotic sycophancy fits the bill, as the first word suggests losing some contact with reality – while the second suggests you are, to clatter downstairs to the linguistic basement, a terrible arse-licker.
Some still love Trump, while others, in the US and abroad, now gaze in abject puzzlement, wondering how such a morally dubious, imperious, misogynistic, vainglorious dunderhead could twice have become president.
A dunderhead, should that page have loosened in your dictionary, is an informal word for a stupid person; a splendid word, even if Trump is not that so much as a man totally unencumbered by knowledge.
A man who knows better than everyone else even though he knows nothing. Then again, perhaps a mock-monarch intent on grabbing all the power there is, while seemingly amassing as much wealth as possible for himself and his family, is less of a dunderhead than those who voted for him.
As we know to the vanishing point of boredom, Trump’s every graceless speech is embossed with cheap studs of boastfulness and wrapped in gold ribbons of self-regard.
Mind you, he’s had a good week, having brought eternal peace to the world, or something. It would require a deeper brain mine to examine in detail the agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza and release hostages. Is it a peace deal, another ceasefire or a shifty smudge somewhere between?
Even a shallow-brained observer might peer through the reality-TV-style braggadocio and fear everything could fall apart if the pressure isn’t maintained. Trump is interested in bragging rights rather than details, so it could happen. And he bores easily, much as the rest of us do when forced to listen to him.
One detail mentioned by many observers is that Trump’s deal is essentially the same as one agreed ten months ago by President Biden – but Trump wanted that deal delayed until he was president. As did Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
Follow this argument to its grisly conclusion and you see leaders who were apparently prepared to keep the deaths mounting in Gaza for their own political ends. Again, deeper brains than mine will determine the truth of that allegation; but how shocking if true.
Psychotic sycophancy, by the way, seems to be a quality Trump values in those he employs. Steven Cheung, the White House’s director of communications, wrote that Trump would “continue making peace deals, ending wars and saving lives”. Adding, as if that weren’t plenty already, “He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.”
You might quibble that many politicians from many countries worked on that deal, while Trump slapped his name on it. But those of us who detest the man can at least concede that he got this deal, if that’s what it is, over the line.
Still, all that bullying talk, pleading and shameless lobbying to be given the Nobel Peace Prize was and remains demeaning and pathetic. Asking for something so often and so loudly should trigger an immediate disqualification.
Death and misery all round, and Trump seemed most concerned about whether or not he won a ‘gold star’ from Norway. In the event the prize went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina (who promptly announced that Trump ‘deserved it more’, for heaven’s sake).
There has been some uplift for the anti-Trumpers in that photograph just used by Time magazine for its cover. The story inside is a glowing report, but Trump still wasn’t happy. The vain old fool just hates the photograph, calling it “may be the Worst of All Time”.
Taken with the sun behind his head, the photograph peers up from below, putting emphasis on his crumpled concertina neck, and peeping beneath his carefully arranged coiffure to suggest the bald head within. A sly way to poke fun at Trump while celebrating him.
Oh, and incidentally, the ear hit by an assassin’s bullet appears to be in splendid nick, should you be wondering.