Dorian Trump

As we age and our cognitive abilities diminish, often it's not the mistakes we make but our overreactions to them that really give us away.

Like Donald Trump getting confused about where Alabama was. No big deal. I laughed; but I also wondered if I could still fill in all the state-names in the right spots on the wordless maps Southwest Airlines used to have on napkins. I guessed I could, taking my time; but if someone else couldn't, so what?

But the Donald couldn't just laugh and shake his head and correct himself.

Trump was talking about Hurricane Dorian, mistakenly announcing it would harm Alabama. Huge hurricanes have huge consequences, including evacuations and even deaths. So correcting himself, to avoid confusing the South Carolinians facing possible disaster or scaring Alabamians into various unnecessary actions – would have been a significant kindness. But the Donald didn't do that.

This wasn't “my crowd was bigger than Obama's” or “I know more about climate change than anyone,” but garbling an urgent message to people facing danger.

As usual – though more absurdly and dangerously – he doubled down. He made misleading statements and provided a sharpie-altered map, and his minions gave U.S. Weather Service personnel a hard time for correcting him publicly. Yeah, they had some duty to give clear information about who was in danger and who wasn't; but to the Donald, establishing beyond peradventure that he hadn't erred was more important than little folks' lives and safety.

Trump isn't saying “models are models, you can never be sure.” He's insisting that as Dorian approached the U.S., and the models showed the hurricane passing near Florida's east coast, he was right to tell Alabama, on Florida's west, that it was in grave danger. However, all that stuff is easily verifiable. Two days before Trump spoke, the authorities agreed the storm would pass east of Florida, maybe touching it, then head north. 

None of this is particularly interesting. Me driving to the Pan American Center to watch basketball isn't interesting. Nor is turning the wrong way at University and Espina; but if, having watched basketball there since 1969, I haven't a clue how to get there, that could be troubling. If I get agitated and insist the basketball arena used to be over by Denny's, or that the City keeps changing all the street names, I have a problem.

In a sane world, where everyone wasn't rooting so passionately for his or her political team that rational discussion was impossible, this might be the moment many would finally say, “Aha! I see. This dude simply isn't presidential material. He doesn't have the temperament or character for it; and he might be dangerously 'round the bend.” 

As one Republican who served in the White House under Reagan and both Bushes wrote, “Trump is not well.” How unwell is he? I'm neither a shrink nor in personal contact with Mr. Trump; but this incident reinforces widespread reports that his staff and friends are more concerned than ever about his cognition and temperament. 

These aren't political observations, although they'll be construed as such. This isn't about policy differences over progressive tax rates, medical care, or climate change. It's not about whether or not Republican policies or appointments pose long-term dangers to our environment, economy, and international standing. It's about ascertaining the facts and assessing whether Trump's mental condition poses a more immediate and insidious threat.

                                                   -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 15 September 2019, in the Las Cruces Sun-News as well as on the newspaper's website ("It's not the Mistake, it's the Inability to Admit It") and on KRWG's website ("Thoughts on Trump's Hurricane of Controversy").  A spoken version will air on KRWG and KTAL (101.6 FM -- www.lccommunityradio.org) during the week and will be available shortly on KRWG's website.]

[As I read this over, one question arose: is it unfair to link all this to Trump's age?  Did he ever know things he doesn't know now?  As an old guy, I could take offense at this column, if some young person had written it.  But at any age, that kind of obsession with avoiding any appearance of fallibility, even at the cost of actual damage to people, would be a symptom of something amiss in that person's troubled mind.  By the way, you can read the piece by Republican former White House official Peter Wehner here. ]

[For another view, this is the first comment I received soon after the column appeared in this morning's paper: 

"Thanks for your observations about our inmate in the White House asylum.  My dad would assess some people saying "he's crazy like a fox".  A lot of the old snake oil peddlers used diversions to sell their snake oil.  

"It's agreed that Trump appears to be nuts.  However, like Hitler, he's doing a whole lot of damage to everyone who's not a billionaire.  So I still think poorly of his mother for giving birth to him......it's not right for a human to give birth to a weasel......." ]

[If anyone thinks Trump might have been close to accurate, as he claims, in warning Alabama of great danger, go on-line.  He spoke on the morning of Sunday, 1 September.  Google the phrase, "September 1, 2019" with also the individual words "Trump" and "Dorian" and you'll get not only various articles on this, but the actual weather experts' models and predictions.  As early as 30 August, experts were in agreement that the storm's basic path wouldn't include Alabama.  (Substitute August 30" for "September 1" in the Google Search.

 

For example, Force 13 Morning Update at 9 a.m. On 31August had Dorian stil a Category 4, w up to 145 mph winds, and said that although it still might impact Florida severely, it was now possible it would not even make landfall on Florida, but move up the coast and hit South Carolina, noting “the trend has been quite clearly a turn away from Florida. – a report you can watch here.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/31/hurricane-dorian-storm-strengthens-path-toward-florida/2177471001/ :

On August 31, at 8:14 a.m., the USA Today headline was, “Dorian, packing near 150 mph winds, on track to skirt Florida coast”, and the story started:

As a strengthened Hurricane Dorian bore down on the Bahamas Saturday, new tracking forecasts suggested the storm would likely turn north before hitting Florida and skirt the coast toward the Carolinas.

But even as Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina braced for a possible hit, forecasters and government officials warned Floridians not to ease up on preparations for a devastating storm early next week. 

"Everyone's waking up and saying, ‘Whoa, it's a little farther east, maybe things are OK.’ But we’ve got to be careful at this time,” said Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, on Saturday morning. 

No mention of Alabama.  At 11 p.m.  August 31, the report had Dorian now Category 5, and gave the distance from several cities (including Wilmington, N.C. 575 miles, but no cities  or towns in Alabama), and the map showed the hurricane turning north, moving north quite near Florida's east coast, and up toward Georgia and the Carolinas, then out to sea. – watch at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii3Y7Mry2ao

On Sept. 1, the president wrote on Twitter that Alabama “will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service in Birmingham posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”]