Donald Trump’s Multi-Thread Approach

We’ve seen enough of Donald Trump to know his approach. He’s used them in business, interpersonal relations, and in politics. We know what to expect.

  1. Trump begins with lies, misinformation, and exaggeration to establish a position for himself. Facts, data, and history are all distorted or dismissed.
  2. After Trump repeats his position multiple times, Trump claims that only he can fix it, and talks about how great he is. He’ll often claim that he’s never wrong and that only he can see what’s going on. As part of this, he’ll frequently declare himself an expert, even often saying that he ‘probably knows more than anyone in the world’ about the subject. Anecdotes about others coming to him — often with tears in their eyes — will emerge. These thankful people shake his hand and tell him how great he is, that, “nobody else has ever done this before.”
  3. In the next stage, Trump makes dire predictions about how bad everything will be if he doesn’t get his way. Along the way, Trump now begins character assassination and name-calling of anyone who criticizes, questions, or opposes him. Others are dumb, stupid, horrible. They’re rapists, murderers, thugs. They come from shit-hole places.
  4. Trump will then stoke fears with angry tirades — commies, con jobs, hoaxes, woke! They’re taking advantage of you! They’re coming for you! They’re eating your pets, killing your babies, stealing your money, forcing their religion on you, taking your jobs!
  5. Distractions commence. Trump makes broad proclamations, announces a new project, a new trade agreement, new investments, new peace deals, new factories! He’s renaming something, he stopped another war, we’ve made so much money! Prices are going down, everyone is getting rich!
  6. Bribes, wheedling, and begging begin. Donald Trump offers money, often characterizing them as dividends. When the money can be found, the promise is fulfilled, such as the $1776 dividend to the military, where the funds were shifted from military housing. Or the more recent $90 Medicare dividend, where money was drawn from the Medicare improvement fund. More often than not, the money is never seen.

If you’ve been paying attention to US political news, you can see how Trump puts them together in his ‘weave’. Trump’s methodology creates a sort of chaos, like a toddler running through a dinner party.

Donald Trump doesn’t understand that many of We the People are as smart or smarter than him. Trump’s magical weave is nothing new to We the People who track what’s going on. His lies and broken promises were bound to catch up with him.

When his lies and cheating caught up with him in business, Donald Trump stiffed contractors and declared bankruptcy.

Trump can’t do those things in his current situation. Instead, he uses the Oval Office’s power to threaten, cajole, attack, and declare emergencies.

But more of We the People are onto his ‘weave’. They know that despite his claims, promises, and lies, prices are not going down, the war in Iran should never have been started and is not over, and that putting his name on more buildings does nothing to improve freedom, democracy, security, or affordability.

Trump’s weave is frayed and falling apart.

Vote Blue in November. It won’t ‘magically’ change things or automatically lower prices, as Trump likes to claim he will do, but it will help temper the whims and arrogance of the authoritarian now in office, Donald J Trump.

Friday’s Theme Music – Golden Years

Ashland, southern Oregon — Friday, July 20, 2026.

It’s 70 F under bright sunshine this morning. A high of 90 is expected. Papi has already out to sleep through the heat in a comfortable space.

The Mitch McConnell pool remains open. Is he or isn’t he alive? He hasn’t been seen in public since June 14. People kept insisting they spoke with him but never offer proof. I suspect some mad scientist is probably trying to reanimate McConnell, or tech bros developing an AI version of him.

I can see the new Roberts Court ruling: “AI are people, too.”

Reminds me of an old nursery rhyme. “Fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Republican. Be he live or be he dead, there’s not enough there to fit between my bread.”

My wife and I were talking last night about how things were before. It was mostly about our lives and bodies and their changes, but the conservation expanded in multiple directions.

One question that arose was, did we ever live in a golden age? Neither of us thought so. We used to work hard, budget money carefully, save. We were not extravagant people. Still aren’t. That kept us secure and safe. But we were young and healthy, with that glow that anything was possible.

We believed our society would keep moving forward and work closer together to solve what seems like insurmountable problems. Now, with Trump in the White House and most Republicans with their heads planted where the sun doesn’t shine, we have no faith that all the progress we thought had been made would continue.

For laughs, I reminded my wife that Trump said that we’re living in a golden age.

She mimed gagging, choking, and puking in response. Her follow up was, “Only if you’re wealthy. But every era is a golden age if you have enough money.”

No matter how well some might be doing now, as Trump attacks programs that aid the impoverished and needy, I can’t ever think of this period as a golden age or golden years. Since Trump began his second term, overall prices have not fallen. Real wages have declined and economic growth has not accelerated. Manufacturing employment continues to decline and the national debt keeps growing.

To distract us from noticing this, Trump attacks others. Right now, Trump is attacking Iran — again — after declaring that conflict over.

With his history — three marriages, cheating on his wives, numerous affairs, multiple business bankruptcies, the Epstein files, and a campaign strewn with broken promises — Trump can’t be trusted. How can I ever believe him when he says we’re in a golden age?

I don’t see the evidence for a golden age. My wife and I are in a golden age in the sense that we don’t organize our lives around our employment schedules. That sort of freedom is golden, if you’re financially secure. That’s a big caveat in the US. As for the rest of life, this is not a golden age.

Which takes me to the music. Today we have David Bowie singing “Golden Years” in the morning mental music stream. Came out in 1975.

For me the lines which matter from this song are,

“Run for the shadows, run for the shadows

“Run for the shadows in these golden years.”

Yes, run for the shadows.

Golden years are supposed to be a time of prosperity, happiness, and satisfaction. We seem to have some distance to that goal right now.

My hope for you is you have a golden day — one of prosperity, happiness, and satisfaction.

Cheers

Wenzdaz Wandering Political Thoughts 2

We are so polarized in the United States in the second decade of the 2000s.

Yeah, that’s not news.

Last election for the POTUS in 2024, we had those on the right screaming about President Biden’s sleeping. They declared him feeble. ‘They’, egged on by Donald Trump and JD Vance, raged about President Biden’s enfeebled state. In their eyes, he was too old, too tired. And who should replace that enfeebled, tired president, the one called Sleepy Joe by Donald J Trump?

Why Donald J. Trump, of course! A year younger but so much more energetic, they declared. Despite his haggard appearance. Despite the photos of him sleeping at his trial in 2024.

Trump is what we need, they cried. Despite his felony convictions. Despite his business failures. He tells it like it is! Despite his well-documented lies. Despite his hatred, and his use of slurs against people, especially women and the handicapped. Despite his three marriages and payments to a woman for sex.

They thought Trump would lower prices through tariffs. Reduce inflation! Bring back jobs! Increase the prestige, success, and conditions in the United States.

The rest of us thought this weird. Trump had already been POTUS. He’d not accomplished anything he promised. His biggest broken promises were not building the wall that Mexico would pay for. He’d been twice impeached. He instigated insurrection against the United States and tried to overturn the election results when he lost.

Trump didn’t replace the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, he mocked it — as he promised. Trump never even rolled out a concept in four years plus.

Trump said he would ‘never golf’ or ‘take vacation’ because he’d be too busy working for the nation. Trump has since golfed more than any POTUS. He’s golfed about 25% of his time in office in 2025.

And Trump, Trump, is the only POTUS to have the government shutdown three times. His third government shutdown, the Trump Epstein Shutdown of 2025, is the longest on record.

Now Trump has established new records. Through Trump’s orders, 80 people, strangers to the United States, as we rarely know their names, or their records, or any evidence against them, have been murdered in international waters, a violation of U.S. and international law.

Through Trump, U.S. citizens are being turned against one another through his deployment of unneeded national guard and military units. He offers flimsy excuses and reasons, declaring that the places where he’s deploying them are burning, when there is no evidence at all of these things happening.

Through Trump, tourism and travel to the United States is cratering. Through Trump, prices are rising and affordability is falling.

Trump makes money on being POTUS. He pushes products with his name on them, like his Bible, his gold shoes, his gold cell phone. He’s destroying the White House, having it torn down, over the objections of We the People.

And weirdly, weirdly, through all of this, some part of the United States population declares that Trump represents the best of us.

The rest of us recoil in horror. We think Trump represents the worst of us.

Trump’s greed is not the best of the United States. His failed businesses are not the best of the United States. His lies, womanizing, and cheating are not the best of the United States. His lawlessness and childish mocking of other people are not the best of the United States. His ranting on Truth Social is not the best of the United States. His wanton disappearing people based on the color of their skin or their accents, without any due process, is not the best of the United States. His killing of citizens from other nations without due process is not the best of the United States. His persecution of political opponents is not the best of the United States. Nor is his greed, avarice, and shallow thinking the best of the United States.

Twisted and polarized. This is what we are. The real question for us is, where do we go from here, in 2025, as we near the end of just the first year of Trump’s second term?

Many of us are holding our breath as 2026 approaches. Because we do not know what Trump will do next. And given his lawlessness and the way he’s breaking our nation, chances are, whatever he does, it will not be good for anyone except Donald J. Trump.

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