It’s Election Day, so I thought we could prepare a small tribute to the ridiculous things our president has said before voters decide how much congressional supervision this man requires. Consider it a highlight reel, except the highlights are flashing on the dashboard and the mechanic has quietly gone home.
There is a lot riding on today. I am choosing to believe the American people have noticed that something’s wrong, although I recognize this requires optimism from a country that has now watched the same man touch the political stove twice.
We begin with this morning’s appearance on Fox & Friends, where Donald Trump described his interview with Sean Hannity the night before. According to Trump’s own delighted account, Hannity listed his achievements, and “all I had to say is, ‘Yes.’”
What a beautiful arrangement. Most of us have to prepare for a job interview. Donald Trump gets a man who reads his résumé aloud and waits for him to confirm that he is, in fact, magnificent. Imagine a performance review conducted by your scented candle. Warm. Soothing. Absolutely no questions about the missing money.
The remarkable thing is that Trump volunteered this description on Fox. He explained the service while the service was still being provided. Somewhere in the control room, I imagine a producer slowly lowering a coffee mug as the president demonstrated how the sausage is made, kissed the sausage, and thanked the sausage for its tremendous ratings.
Then he turned to Hannity’s wife, Fox host Ainsley Earhardt, and explained that her husband talks so much he sometimes invents an incoming call from China’s president to escape. According to Trump, he used the excuse four nights in a row.
Four nights. The president of the United States apparently needs a fictional diplomatic incident to establish a personal boundary. Most people pretend they’re entering a tunnel. Donald Trump mobilizes Beijing. I would like to pause here and acknowledge the achievement: Trump has identified another person who talks too much. This is a smoke alarm filing a noise complaint.
There is also something exquisitely humiliating about being so devoted to a politician that you supply his answers on television, only for him to return the next morning and explain to your wife how he gets rid of you. Hannity built the man an escape room with no locked doors, and Trump still called China.
Which brings us to the other great obstacle confronting this presidency: the lawnmower.
At his October 27 rally in Lubbock, Texas, Trump complained about environmental controls and modern equipment, declaring, “You have to go to MIT to learn how to turn on a lawn mower.” He also suggested that starting one requires becoming a doctor of science.
At last, a credible explanation for student debt. Millions of Americans took out loans because the backyard was getting shaggy. Somewhere in Massachusetts, a doctoral candidate is defending her dissertation on the little rubber bulb you press three times. Her parents are weeping. Six years of research, and she can finally do the side yard. I am trying to picture the admissions essay. Ever since childhood, I have dreamed of making the grass shorter. My extracurricular activities include standing in the shed and asking whether this thing has gas in it.
There are difficult questions about modern equipment. Owners should be able to repair what they buy. Machines should be practical, affordable, and usable. Those are conversations a serious president could have with people who work for a living. Trump took the conversation somewhere else: a golf-club owner describing machinery as though the riding mower had asked him to solve a murder in French.
And here the two stories meet. On Fox, answering a question requires only agreement with a compliment. Out in the yard, operating a household machine apparently requires postgraduate study. He’s found a television interview easier to operate than a lawnmower. I believe him. The lawnmower has a safety mechanism.
That’s what makes these moments funny, and what makes the laughter catch a little. We’re watching a president describe a world arranged around his convenience, where praise arrives preassembled and difficulty becomes evidence that somebody has ruined the country.
The rest of us have to live with the actual problems. We need wages that cover the bills, healthcare we can use, clean air, and public officials who can answer an inconvenient question without needing someone to rub their tummy first.
Congress is supposed to ask those questions, examine the spending, and demand explanations. The midterms decide, among other things, who gets to do that work. A president this comfortable with applause could use a few more people requesting an answer.
So yes, I hope voters have recognized the ridiculousness. I hope they have also recognized what it costs to keep treating it as harmless entertainment. We’ve spent enough time watching powerful people mistake being indulged for being competent.
Happy Election Day. Let’s hope the country can locate the off switch without applying to MIT.
A fitting tribute!
'Bout sums it up!!