Stop defending stupid stuff …

This is for both sides of the political spectrum.  But first, Trump. 

There are some things I like about Trump. Still, there are many, many things about him I don’t, including his apparent inability to know when to STFU.

Especially when he is clearly wrong, or completely out of line. 

Those are actually two entirely different things, both bad.  Even worse, for me, is when he doubles down on stupid stuff, and when his own staff perpetuates the nonsense making him and them look even sillier and immature. 

We and they don’t need this crap. The job of running the country is hard enough without constantly shooting yourself in the foot.

Before anyone goes there, I’m not concerned about bridging the political divide, reaching across the aisle, or even the opinions of other world leaders.  Nor should Trump – he was elected to shake things up and overturn the status quo here and abroad.  However, to do that he needs to be taken seriously, something he seems intent on preventing. 

Part of the problem is that he doesn’t get his facts straight before he spouts off. Some of his supporters love that he says whatever’s on his mind. However, there’s such a thing as restraint and holding your opinion until you have facts instead of just feelings.  If Trump would just take a pause to gather real facts before he spoke he’d be much better off. He’s a smart guy, he’s surrounded himself with smart people in most cases, plus he has access to the best information in the world.  Use it. 

Rather than make a completely false statement – such as that the crowds were bigger for his inauguration than for Obama’s, or that the murder rate in the U.S. is higher than it’s been in 40-50 years – a simple pre-emptive fact check would prevent him from looking like a complete ass. Then there would be no need for his spokespuppets to come up with ridiculous assertions that what he said is actually true, based on “alternative facts.”

There’s no such thing as “alternative facts”; something is either a fact or it isn’t.    

Another part of the problem is crossing the line between fair criticism and ad hominem attacks. It’s one thing to be critical of a court’s decision; it’s quite another to attack individual judges. Calling a sitting Federal court judge a “so-called judge” is indefensible, especially for a President. 

It’s no wonder Trump’s nominee for the SCOTUS, Neil Gorsuch, reportedly called that and other derogatory statements Trump’s made about other judges “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” I would expect nothing less from someone who might possibly join the highest court in our land one day; in fact, I was proud Judge Gorsuch might have said that. It made me think Judge Gorsuch is the type of principled straight shooter we need on the Supreme Court.   

Still, even though other sources confirmed what he said, and Judge Gorsuch didn’t deny he said that, Trump and his spokespuppets have tried to claim that Judge Gorsuch’s comments were taken out of context. Trump tweeted that Senator Blumenthal – to whom Judge Gorsuch said those things in a supposed closed-door meeting – was misrepresenting what Judge Gorsuch said.

Possible. However, that wasn’t enough. 

In the same tweet, Trump felt compelled to also bring up “lies” Blumenthal made in the past about fighting in Vietnam, nakedly implying that no one should trust anything Blumenthal says.

The latter, my friends, is what’s known as an ad hominem attack. When someone can’t disprove the message, then attack the credibility of the messenger. 

Finally, Trump seems unable to resist rising to the bait.

When Nordstrom decided to drop Ivanka’s line of clothing because of what it said were poor sales, that’s purely a business decision; even if it came because of public pressure on Nordstrom, it’s still a decision fully within the right of Nordstrom executives.  Yet Trump felt it necessary to claim it was unfair and the result of targeting Ivanka because of him, alone. 

Why? As a businessman he should be the first to defend the right of any business to decide which vendors to use. I doubt he would question any other business's motives were it not affecting a business associated with his daughter. Doing so in this situation made him look narcissistic – all about him – and  thin skinned, as if he needed any more help with either. 

Of course, his spokespuppets once again leapt into the fray to defend him saying he is very protective of his family, which any father would be.

In one sense, that's understandable. 

Except for two things: Ivanka doesn’t run that company anymore; next, he is the President of the United States of America and shouldn’t be overreacting to stuff like this.

Then there’s the “killers” debacle. 

When Bill O’Reilly interviewed Trump, he asked Trump about Assad, Syria, and Putin’s support of Assad. When O’Reilly said Putin was a killer, Trump couldn’t resist saying that America wasn’t innocent either, and that we’ve had a lot of killers, too.  While historically true, it implied a moral equivalency between Putin’s Russia and America.

While O’Reilly wasn’t baiting him, Trump bit anyway and went too far. Once again. 

There’s really no excuse for all this.

Trump is doing a lot of good things right now – things with which I completely agree. I like his cabinet picks for the most part.  I like that he stepped right in and started to make necessary changes; changes his supporters wanted. He’s delivering on his campaign promises.   

But he’s also doing a lot of damage to himself and his agenda by getting caught up in petty crap and shooting off his mouth when he doesn’t need to.  Especially when he doesn’t have – or seem to care about – the facts. 

He’s not on the campaign trail anymore. Everything he says actually matters. 

He needs to remember that.  And he needs to have a frank discussion with his staffers and cabinet members about their need to more aggressively manage up as well as down. They can’t stop him from tweeting, but perhaps they can convince him to wait a bit before he lashes out, and to focus on what’s important instead of what bothers him at that particular moment. 

He can’t afford to surround himself with people unwilling to challenge him. Someone he trusts needs to have a serious come-to-Jesus with him if he hopes to succeed.  

Otherwise, at best he'll be a one-term President. If he lasts that long.