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Not sure if this has been posted in other threads, and I'm not breaking any news here...but this feels disturbingly appropriate for the waning days of a Donald Trump presidency, in the midst of a pandemic that is unnecessarily consuming us. Could it have even ended any other way? We elected a reality TV character.
and almost on cue, China fires up their home-brew Tokamak.
Edit: I should add that China recently completed a telescope larger than Arecibo was, becoming fully operational just this year.
While the reality TV conman has been trying to make a strongman show in dealing with China, they've just been doing there thing - relentlessly progressing. I think, in time, Donald Trump will be remembered as one of the most damaging presidents of all time. I'm biased as I have always hated Donald Trump - long before he announced his candidacy, long before he identified as a Republican. He is a con man and it's unbelievable to me how many people buy his ****.
Its perhaps a minor example in the grand scheme of things, but still indicative - Donald Trump cannot understand that things like the Arecibo Telescope is what has made America great. Materially, what has Donald Trump even done to make America great? Lower taxes? Attempt to build a border wall? Keep out brown people? Where do those figure in the list of things that make America great? Even being generous, they are basically boilerplate GOP line items - hardly imaginative policy. After Steve Bannon left, the Trump administration went from bad-faith ideas to simply no ideas. The Trump administration might be one of the most visionless ever. The man himself had no answer for what his second term would involve, not because he was being cagey, but because it hadn't occurred to him. This is the guy that 70 million people still voted for. Why?
Donald Trump has no capacity to understand leadership. He cannot understand what made great leaders great - tough choices. If he were president in Lincoln's time, he would have complained about how the Civil war made him look bad. If he had been president during FDRs time, he would have said that the economic depression was not his fault and, at best, the war was Europe's problem - I struggle to see him as being truly opposed to Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler back before they were the losers and villains of history. His understanding of the world is entirely through one lens - television. His obsession with "central casting" people I think is revealing, he only cares about the appearances of things. He wanted to be a "great leader" by looking the part, not doing the work. Faced with real crises of the type that would actually reveal true leadership, he has only reacted with agitation or even jealousy at the attention diverted away from him. Donald Trump's only enduring legacy will be the President who willfully disregarded the threat of a monumentally deadly pandemic because it was too hard of a problem and too hard to make it look good on TV. Donald Trump never wanted to be President of the United States, he only ever wanted the prestige of the title and the self-importance of signing things with his made-for-TV signature, and all of us are paying for it.
and almost on cue, China fires up their home-brew Tokamak.
Edit: I should add that China recently completed a telescope larger than Arecibo was, becoming fully operational just this year.
While the reality TV conman has been trying to make a strongman show in dealing with China, they've just been doing there thing - relentlessly progressing. I think, in time, Donald Trump will be remembered as one of the most damaging presidents of all time. I'm biased as I have always hated Donald Trump - long before he announced his candidacy, long before he identified as a Republican. He is a con man and it's unbelievable to me how many people buy his ****.
Its perhaps a minor example in the grand scheme of things, but still indicative - Donald Trump cannot understand that things like the Arecibo Telescope is what has made America great. Materially, what has Donald Trump even done to make America great? Lower taxes? Attempt to build a border wall? Keep out brown people? Where do those figure in the list of things that make America great? Even being generous, they are basically boilerplate GOP line items - hardly imaginative policy. After Steve Bannon left, the Trump administration went from bad-faith ideas to simply no ideas. The Trump administration might be one of the most visionless ever. The man himself had no answer for what his second term would involve, not because he was being cagey, but because it hadn't occurred to him. This is the guy that 70 million people still voted for. Why?
Donald Trump has no capacity to understand leadership. He cannot understand what made great leaders great - tough choices. If he were president in Lincoln's time, he would have complained about how the Civil war made him look bad. If he had been president during FDRs time, he would have said that the economic depression was not his fault and, at best, the war was Europe's problem - I struggle to see him as being truly opposed to Stalin, Mussolini or Hitler back before they were the losers and villains of history. His understanding of the world is entirely through one lens - television. His obsession with "central casting" people I think is revealing, he only cares about the appearances of things. He wanted to be a "great leader" by looking the part, not doing the work. Faced with real crises of the type that would actually reveal true leadership, he has only reacted with agitation or even jealousy at the attention diverted away from him. Donald Trump's only enduring legacy will be the President who willfully disregarded the threat of a monumentally deadly pandemic because it was too hard of a problem and too hard to make it look good on TV. Donald Trump never wanted to be President of the United States, he only ever wanted the prestige of the title and the self-importance of signing things with his made-for-TV signature, and all of us are paying for it.
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) say it's his fault really...I more meant it's symbolic of a nation that would elect Donald Trump - an increasing hostility to intellectual pursuits. You'll not find any comment (or at least I couldn't) from him about Arecibo - it clearly doesn't matter at all to him.
