Even in an Easter message, Trump can't shake his unhealthy fixation on Biden
Indifferent to the point of the holiday, the Republican president whined about 'Radical Left Lunatics,' 'WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges,' and his 2020 election defeat, before turning his attention to his principal target.
Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
In his bizarre and error-filled missive published to his social media platform — which, again, was ostensibly about one of the most important Christian holidays on the calendar — Trump went on to refer to his Democratic predecessor as a 'highly destructive Moron.'
One of the more common criticisms of Trump's personality is his apparent narcissism. The president is the hero of all of his stories. Every event he describes focuses on developments as they relate to him. He is his own center of gravity — and if you doubt that, he'll gladly tell you the stories about the big guys who called him 'sir' and who cried as they told him it's true.
But it's not altogether true to say that Trump sees literally everything through a self-centric lens. There are plenty of other things he also sees through a Biden-centric lens.
The idea of 'Biden Derangement Syndrome' never really caught on as a phenomenon during Biden's term, but to the extent that the ailment exists, there's reason to believe his successor has contracted a virulent strain, which has gone completely untreated.
Consider last week, for example.
Asked about Russia's war in Ukraine, Trump responded by talking about Biden. Asked about trade tariffs, Trump responded by talking about Biden. During a late-night exchange aboard Air Force One, a reporter noted the late hour and Trump responded by talking about how Biden would be asleep. Soon after, while talking about his recent cognitive exam, he claimed that the first question he asked his physician was whether Biden took the same test.
At one point last week, Trump declared: 'Jimmy Carter died a happy man. You know why? Because he wasn't the worst president. Joe Biden was.' He wasn't asked about Carter or Biden, but it was a thought the Republican wanted to share with the press anyway.
Last week was hardly unusual. A week earlier, the Republican spoke to congressional Republicans and asked whether they preferred 'Sleepy Joe' or 'Crooked Joe' as rhetorical lines of attack, as if this were an important consideration. The week before that, during remarks about trade tariffs, Trump made repeated references to Biden.
When the Signal chat scandal broke, Trump talked about Biden. When NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally returned to Earth, Trump talked about Biden. When lawmakers prepared to approve a budget resolution, Trump talked about Biden. When American hostages returned to the United States, Trump talked about Biden. When he delivered a national address to a joint session of Congress, Trump referenced Biden 16 times.
An analysis conducted by The New York Times found that during the first 50 days of Trump's second term, he mentioned the name 'Biden' an average of 6.32 times per day. The Times' report added, 'It is among his most frequently used terms (he said 'Biden' in more speeches than he had said 'America,' for example).'
The Washington Post had a similar report a couple of weeks after Inauguration Day, noting, 'He brought him up just after he was inaugurated. He ridiculed him while touring disaster sites in North Carolina, laughed about him in Las Vegas and pilloried him while delivering a virtual address to business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Joe Biden's presidency ended two weeks ago. His photos no longer hang on the walls. His artwork choices in the Oval Office are gone. But inside the head of President Donald Trump, he is still very much top of mind.'
Even during the 2024 election season, after Biden announced the end of his re-election campaign, Trump couldn't bring himself to stop talking about him, despite the fact that the Democrat was no longer running.
As for why in the world the incumbent continues to obsess over the retired Democrat, it might have something to do with the fact Biden was unpopular, and Trump might very well think he'll look better in the eyes of the public when compared with his immediate predecessor.
But I tend to think the explanation is more straightforward than that. Notwithstanding his forgotten Reform Party bid a quarter-century ago, Trump has run three national campaigns, and he won two of them. The third he lost, by a healthy margin, to Biden.
And by all appearances, he's still not over it.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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Boston Globe
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43 minutes ago
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He is likely to be met with a wave of protests around the resort, as well as the one in Turnberry. The Stop Trump Coalition, a group of campaigners who oppose most of Trump's domestic and foreign policies and the way he conducts his private and business affairs, is organizing a protest in Aberdeen and outside the U.S. consulate in Edinburgh. During Trump's initial visit to Scotland as president, in his first term, thousands of protesters sought to disrupt his visit, lining key routes and booing him. One protester even flew a powered paraglider into the restricted airspace over his Turnberry resort that bore a banner that read, "Trump: well below par #resist." 'Terrific guy': The Trump-Epstein party boy friendship lasted a decade, ended badly Trump's course in Turnberry has triggered less uproar than his Balmedie one because locals say that he's invested millions of dollars to restore the glamour of its 101-year-old hotel and three golf courses after he bought the site in 2014. Trump versus the families Three families still live directly on or adjacent to Trump's Balmedie golf resort. They say that long before the world had any clue about what type of president a billionaire New York real estate mogul and reality-TV star would become, they had a pretty good idea. Forbes is one of them. He said that shortly after Trump first tried to persuade him and his late wife to sell him their farm, workers he hired deliberately sabotaged an underground water pipe that left the Forbes – and his mother, then in her 90s, lived in her own nearby house – without clean drinking water for five years. Trump International declined to provide a fresh comment on those allegations, but a spokesperson previously told USA TODAY it "vigorously refutes" them. It said that when workers unintentionally disrupted a pipe that ran into an "antiquated" makeshift "well" jointly owned by the Forbeses on Trump's land, it was repaired immediately. Trump has previously called Forbes a "disgrace" who "lives like a pig." 'I don't have a big enough flagpole' David Milne, 61, another of Trump's seething Balmedie neighbors, lives in a converted coast guard station with views overlooking Trump's course and of the dunes and the North Sea beyond. In 2009, Trump offered him and his wife about $260,000 for his house and its one-fifth acre of land, Milne said. Trump was caught on camera saying he wanted to remove it because it was "ugly." Trump, he said, "threw in some jewelry," a golf club membership (Milne doesn't play), use of a spa (not yet built) and the right to buy, at cost, a house in a related development (not yet constructed). Milne valued the offer at about half the market rate. When Milne refused that offer, he said that landscapers working for Trump partially blocked the views from his house by planting a row of trees and sent Milne a $3,500 bill for a fence they'd built around his garden. Milne refused to pay. Over the years, Milne has pushed back. He flew a Mexican flag at his house for most of 2016, after Trump vowed to build a wall on the southern American border and make Mexico pay for it. Milne, a health and safety consultant in the energy industry, has hosted scores of journalists and TV crews at his home, where he has patiently explained the pros and cons − mostly cons, in his view, notwithstanding his own personal stake in the matter − of Trump's development for the local area. Milne said that because of his public feud with Trump, he's a little worried a freelance MAGA supporter could target him or his home. He has asked police to provide protection for him and his wife at his home while Trump is in the area. He also said he won't be flying any flags this time, apart from the Saltire, Scotland's national flag. "I don't have a big enough flagpole. I would need one from Mexico, Canada, Palestine. I would need Greenland, Denmark − you name it," he said, running through some of the places toward which Trump has adopted what critics view as aggressive and adversarial policies. Dunes of great natural importance Martin Ford was the local Aberdeen government official who originally oversaw Trump's planning application to build the Balmedie resort in 2006. He was part of a planning committee that rejected it over environmental concerns because the course would be built between sand dunes that were designated what the UK calls a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the way they shift over time. The Scottish government swiftly overturned that ruling on the grounds that Trump's investment in the area would bring a much-needed economic boost. Neil Hobday, who was the project director for Trump's course in Balmedie, last year told the BBC he was "hoodwinked" by Trump over his claim that he would spend more than a billion dollars on it. Hobday said he felt "ashamed that I fell for it and Scotland fell for it. We all fell for it." The dunes lost their special status in 2020, according to Nature Scot, the agency that oversees such designations. It concluded that their special features had been "partially destroyed" by Trump's resort. Trump International disputes that finding, saying the issue became "highly politicized." For years, Trump also fought to block the installation of a wind farm off his resort's coast. He lost that fight. The first one was built in 2018. There are now 11 turbines. Ford has since retired but stands by his belief that allowing approval for the Trump resort was a mistake. "I feel cheated out of a very important natural habitat, which we said we would protect and we haven't," he said. "Trump came here and made a lot of promises that haven't materialized. In return, he was allowed to effectively destroy a nature site of great conservation value. It's not the proper behavior of a decent person." Forbes, the former quarry worker and fisherman, said he viewed Trump in similar terms. He said that Trump "will never ever get his hands on his farm." He said that wasn't just idle talk. He said he's put his land in a trust that specified that when he dies, it can't be sold for at least 125 years.
