The latest Trump Tweet that suggests something wrong with the guy is yesterday's in which he said, "My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before…."
As FactCheck.org and others have pointed out, that's really misleading. Trump ain't renovated or modernized anything. He signed an order (and it wasn't even his first as President) to have a review done to see if upgrades were necessary — as every Chief Exec does. That's about it. If our nuclear arsenal is far stronger and more powerful than ever before, and it probably is, it's because of what Trump's predecessors in the job have done.
Our friend Kevin Drum asks, "Was this a false claim or was it a lie?" He offers five possible descriptions of what happened there…
- Trump knew it was false, but he said it anyway. He lied.
- Trump literally doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He continues to consider his lies to be "truthful hyperbole," the term he applied to generalized puffery during his real estate career.
- Trump is delusional. He thinks that ordering a review magically makes things happen.
- Trump is surrounded by sycophants who have assured him that the US nuclear arsenal is stronger than it was six months ago. He believes them.
- Trump is losing control of his faculties. He vaguely remembers some kind of nuclear order and figures it must mean that our nukes have gotten better.
I would like to offer a sixth possibility…
- Trump doesn't care if what he says connects to reality. He says (or tweets) whatever at that moment works for him at that moment and doesn't think past that.
It is imperative with this man to retaliate immediately against every criticism and to lash out at every opponent without delay. If he can do it with facts, great. If he can't, he'll make them up because it's the instant response that matters. It might be that he believes his base will ignore the misinformation as long as he maintains his image as guy who always wins. If that's how he thinks, we can all understand why he thinks that…but he may not even think that.
Consider what happened when he was roundly criticized for his speech at that Boy Scouts Jamboree. The Boys Scouts leadership felt the need to apologize for it and Trump immediately fired back saying, "No, they loved it. They even called me and said it was the greatest speech ever!" He didn't even pause to consider that maybe the Boys Scouts leadership would then make him look even worse by saying, "No, we didn't call him."
Betcha this guy never played Chess in his life. In Chess, you have to think at least a few moves ahead — and the farther ahead you think, the greater your chance of winning. Trump never thinks ahead. On the campaign trail, he promised that Mexico would pay for the wall and that everyone would have better healthcare and it would cost less. He had no idea how to make those things come about and he didn't care. At that moment, those things seemed like the right things to say…and no doubt, he thinks (a) that those were the right things to say then, given that he won the election, and (b) that he can weasel out on them just as he's weaseled out on countless business deals.
I had an acquaintance years ago who bragged to me that he'd bedded a certain very attractive young lady by promising to loan her — interest-free and without a due date! — the cash to buy a new car. This acquaintance didn't have the dough to buy even an old car for himself and he also prided himself in never doing anything for anyone but himself. One of those guys.
I suppose I already knew the answer but I had to ask, "So…how are you going to make good on your promise to this lady?" He just looked at me like I had to be out of my mind.