A Stable Genius?

It has been nearly a month since I have made any reference, specific or implied, about the President of the United States. Ignoring him in this space has been mildly therapeutic, since grappling with such a man has proven to be quite a challenge. The audience for this blog is a disparate group which includes some who are ardent supporters, some who are cautiously optimistic, others who are thoroughly confused, and a fourth group who are horrified by the man. I fluctuate wildly between the last three groups. 

For all of my adult life I have been a fascinated observer of politics and politicians, and an admirer of very few of them. My overarching opinion is that politics is a grubby, pedestrian, unfortunate neccesity of our republican form of government. The people normally drawn to it are egomaniacs and narcissists of ordinary intelligence who either arrive in Washington rich, or quickly become rich during their tenure. If this makes me a cynic, so be it. A quick glance at the historical record, in my view, practically demands cynicism, but that’s another story. My general attitude towards government and the people who comprise it has been to give them a wide berth. I have endeavored to go about living my life in such a way as to limit interaction with politicians or at the very least, attempt to insulate myself and my business from their most egregious dictates. In this project I have enjoyed considerable but limited success. I say all this to place into proper context what I am about to say about the President’s latest(I think) tweet.

I follow the President on Twitter. I have never responded to any of his tweets, and never retweeted any of them. I follow him out of a combination of civic duty and my lifelong attraction to all things puerile. It has been a fascinating journey, reading the thousands of short, hastily constructed, emotionally charged outbursts which have gushed from the fingers and thumbs of the 45th President. But, this morning’s beats them all:

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 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!

Apparently some Democrats in Congress had been promoting the analysis of some shrink somewhere who had positted a theory that the President had taken leave of his senses and therefore, pursuant to the 25th amendment, a committee needed to be formed to make a determination of his mental fitness, etc... Since this shrink and the suggestion of envoking constitutional remedies came from the Democrats, I dismissed it as nothing more than the usual unhinged partisan rancor that has forever flowed from the party out of power. But, this particular President always feels compelled to crank up his Twitter account, and respond, so respond he did...and what a response!!!

My parents were consistent in their advice to me in only a few memorable things. One of them was in the area of pride. Every body hates a braggart, they would warn. Never toot your own horn. Let others praise you, never take up the job yourself. This was part of their lifelong negative opinion of self-promoting hustlers. Besides, they would insist, if you call yourself a Christian, you should be more concerned about the well being of others than you are about your own well being. Pride goeth before a fall became one of my mother’s favorite axioms, which she trotted out at the first sign of boasting among any of her children. So, what to make of the President’s tweet?

For starters, I don’t know that I have ever heard a really smart person actually say, I’m a really smart person. Most of the super smart people I’ve ever been around, if anything, have tried to hide their brilliance, sensing that it separated them from others. But, now we have a chief executive who is telling us about his two greatest assets being his mental stability and being, like, really smart. Later in the tweet, just in case we missed it, he goes one step further by declaring himself to be not only genius, but a very stable genius.

I, for one, am very grateful for the stability thing since history is full of examples of the perils of unstable genius.

So, this tweet had the effect of producing a President-themed blog post. I probably should have resisted, since now somewhere around 40% of you are pissed. I suppose the reason I gave in to writing this was the fact that sometimes I still manage to be astonished by things. Reading the words of a sitting President bragging about his genius is an entirely higher level of astonishment. Surely, most of our previous Presidents thought themselves geniuses. This one proclaims it from the rafters. 

Pride goeth before a fall......