What Trump Said When About COVID
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Saturday April 11, 2020
Franny and Donny
If you need a good laugh or five or 10, check out Michael Schulman's interview with Fran Lebowitz in The New Yorker. What a treasure she is. First question is about how she's spending her time in the Covid era, and she responds, “It depends how much you count the time you spend sulking. Let me put it this way: when they compile a list of the heroes of this era, I will not be on it.” Well, she's on mine. She's my hero: Cynic, wit, grouch, germaphobe. I'm half those things and aspire to the others.
Sample:
Has this crisis shown us anything about Donald Trump that we didn't know before?
No. Every single thing that could be wrong with a human being is wrong with him. But the single most dangerous thing about Donald Trump is how unbelievably stupid he is. It's not the most dangerous thing in someone who has no responsibilities, but in a President it's the most dangerous thing.
His absolute belief in himself, that is something that is not going to ever change. And he doesn't care. When people say he's not showing enough empathy—he doesn't know what it means. Whenever he uses the word “love,” which he does occasionally, I think of the word “algebra,” because I don't know what algebra is. I took Algebra 1 four times, because I failed it four times, and I still don't know what algebra even means. I know the symbols. And that is what love means to Donald Trump.
Yes yes, a thousand times yes. Virtually anyone would make a better president than Trump because most of us know what we don't know—and would rely on experts. Trump not only doesn't know what he doesn't know, he thinks he knows it “better than anybody.” See: list.