It took all of one day for any optimism that greeted the new year to fade away into the abyss.
On January 2nd, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to respond to North Korean president Kim Jong Un’s action-packed New Year’s Day speech, in which, he talked up the nuclear capabilities of his country.
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018
Since his tweets about North Korea and the nuclear button, Trump had a Fredo-esque Twitter meltdown insisting his wisdom and stability, went hard at “Sloppy Steve Bannon,” wondered why the United States would welcome immigrants from “shithole countries,” and announced an awards show for the “Fake News Media,” that wasn’t even released on time.
….Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
It’s hard to imagine things actually getting better as long as a toddler is the leader of the free world. Prone to Twitter temper tantrums, petty beefs and nuclear dick-measuring contests, Donald Trump’s presidency has essentially been a remake of Disney’s 1992 film Honey I Blew Up The Kid.
If you haven’t seen the sequel to the 1989 hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, don’t worry, I watched it so you don’t have to. The plot basically goes like this:
Five years after shrinking his kids, inventor Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) is working in a lab trying to tinker with his invention to have the opposite effect. Szalinski feels underappreciated at his job and when he has a breakthrough, decides to go to the lab with no one but his sons to test his hypothesis.
Szalinski’s intended test subject for enlargement is a toy bunny, but his toddler son sneaks toward the bunny during the experiment and gets blasted with a laser beam. Szalinski’s two-year-old quickly grows from a small baby, to a 7-foot-tall NBA prospect, to a giant who almost destroys Las Vegas.
To prevent the gigantic toddler from destroying cities, Szalinski needs his son to stay still long enough to be blasted with a laser beam and shrunk down to normal size. To calm their son down, Szalinski makes his wife a giant so she can give him a hug and get him to stay still.
The same negligence, ego, and inability to learn from past mistakes that led to baby Adam Szalinski becoming a giant, have also ignited the rise of Donald Trump. The ascendence of Trump was a result of white male dissatisfaction, a failure to learn from the outcomes of past fear-mongering politicians, and a neglectful ‘this is fine’ attitude that also led to Rick Moranis’s bad Disney parenting.
However, the biggest parallel between Honey I Blew Up the Kid and Trump’s presidency is the fear ushered in by giving a small child the power to destroy the world.
As president of the United States, Donald Trump wields more power, influence and publicity than anyone else in the world. Handing that much power to a person who shouts out ideas without thinking them through, watches too much TV and has trouble drinking correctly seems like a bad idea.
Sensible leaders both globally and in the United States have tried to limit his control, but it’s hard to tell a child ‘no’ once he’s as tall as a skyscraper. Trump has shown such recklessness in his choice of words that he inspires little confidence in keeping the world in order.
From climate change to net neutrality to NAFTA to nuclear war, the world is hoping it can endure the next three years without Twitter fingers turning to trigger fingers. We can just hope that by 2020, Trump can be shrunk back down to normal size before too much damage is done.
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