The Ugly American

Real photo, not digitally altered to make him look like a zombie trawling for brains..

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Have you heard about what happened in Davos? Here’s a summary:

In Davos, President Trump Outlines Bold Vision for American Prosperity, Transatlantic Strength

That was the headline on Whitehouse.gov. It’s the official government account of Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum.

Here’s my headline:

In Davos, President Trump Humiliates Every Single American Onnaconna We Elected This Shitcake Buffoon

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You didn’t watch it, did you? Good. I did, because I had to. Then I took a deep dive into the transcript, comparing Trump’s lengthy speech to the similarly lengthy one delivered by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The first thing I did was run the numbers. (Trump is fond of numbers. His speech was drowning in numbers, dozens of them, most of which entailed bragging about glorious financial achievements he made up.) But unlike Trump, numbers don’t lie:

Number of times Trump used the word “I,” “my,” or “me” — 284

Number of times Carney used the word “I,” “my” or “me” — 6

Number of times Trump used the word “Iceland” — 4

Number of times Carney used the word “Iceland” — 0, because he’s not an imbecile who kept confusing the two countries. They are very different countries. It is like confusing apples with pianos.

But numbers don’t tell even 1.364³ percent of the story.

The big media takeaway from Davos was that Trump promised he wouldn’t attempt to take Greenland by force, an idea that seemed unthinkable — inutterable — until Trump himself first uttered it just a week or so ago. Then, as is his wont, at the last minute, he Taco’ed.

Still, this announcement was generally interpreted as something of an achievement, even though at its center it involves a flimsy Trumpian “promise,” a Mary Poppins pie-crust promise. The promise, however, was preceded by a bizarre Trumpian history lesson to the gathered international dignitaries. Trump noted that in World War II the United States defended Greenland from the Nazis, and then opined that we were stupid to then “give it back.” Just as we were stupid, I suppose, to give France back to the French after D Day. Imagine how rich we would be now if we owned France! And Trump could fancy-up Versailles!

In short, be glad you didn’t watch that speech. Trump’s unearned braggadocio, that monstrous ego that is as distended as his belly, were on display for the world to see, as was his blatant racism, his lust for vengeance, his infantility, his neediness, his cattiness, his whininess, his Mafia-style menacing demeanor, his cavalier willingness to lie, and his breathtaking ignorance of history, economics, geopolitics, or the art and protocols of statesmanship. Also, he looked and acted exhausted to the point of babbling incoherence. That photograph at the top of this column is not AI-enhanced — it was taken shortly after he landed in Switzerland.

To me, that is the story of Davos. Trump took an international stage and insulted not America, but Americans. He was showing, in effect, that this is what you get when buck-toothed, gullible, selfish Yankees are given the vote. His preening presence props up the old European stereotype of the vulgar American, the crass, loud, insular, self-absorbed, acquisitive American, the Philistine unschooled in social graces.

Are we that?

Maybe we are that, now?

I’m not going to review all of the absurd and inaccurate things our president lectured the assembled statesmen and women about; you’ve likely read about them. I’ll just dip a little into it.

For openers, here are the two men’s openers:

The Canadian Prime Minister: “Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

“On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

“The power of the less power starts with honesty.”

The American President:

“Under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation, meaning low growth and high inflation, a recipe for misery, failure and decline. But now, after just one year of my policies, we are witnessing the exact opposite, virtually no inflation, and extraordinarily high economic growth – growth like, I believe, you’ll see very shortly, our country has never seen before, perhaps no country has ever seen before.

“People are doing very well. They’re very happy with me.”

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The Canadian Prime Minister quoted Vaclav Havel and Thucydides. The American President quoted only himself. He did it 17 times.

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Trump’s racism and xenophobia were on excruciating display. He expressed a grudging admiration for Somalis, because he’d thought they were “low IQ” but disovered to his delight, in Minneapolis, that they were smart enough to be successful con men! The cameras did not pan the faces of the delegates, but I’m guessing they looked something like this

Trump’s thunderous ignorance rose unpleasantly over the room. It was miasmic. He kept pinching off lies. This was my favorite:

“Because of my landslide election victory, the United States avoided the catastrophic energy collapse which befell every European nation that pursued the Green New Scam – perhaps the greatest hoax in history. ”

“China makes almost all of the windmills, and yet, I haven’t been able to find any wind farms in China. (emphasis mine) Did you ever think of that? That’s a good way of looking at it. They’re smart. China’s very smart. They make them. They sell them for a fortune. They sell them to the stupid people that buy them, but they don’t use them themselves.”

Editor’s Note: China has vastly more wind farms than any other country. China has 40 percent of all wind farms on the planet.

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We’ll end here with Trump’s go-to move — the one that can most be relied on. It’s projection. He projects onto his adversaries the very qualities he knows are his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It is the rubber-glue kindergarten taunt. Here’s how Trump summed things up at Davos:

“Joe Biden and his allies destroyed our economy and gave us perhaps the worst inflation in American history. … What they did to this country should never, ever be forgotten. It’s early, but he has to be rated as the worst president we’ve ever had by far.”

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Here’s today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:

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Okay. Brace for the snowstorm, people. Stock up on goods but please wait till after 4 p.m. today. I’ll be there earlier, and don’t want to have to endure long lines.

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