And thus begins another day where we as a nation throw up our hands in the face of overwhelming evidence that the president is completely insane. Sure, the Secretary of Energy—the man in charge of safeguarding the United States nuclear arsenal—got conned by a Boomer-bait Instagram scam. (Folks, your post on a social media platform is not some sort of binding contract with the company running that platform just because you say so. You signed your life away long ago when you agreed to the terms of service.) But the real action is on the Tweet Machine, where the big man himself is going absolutely intergalactic about...everything.

There was a brief injection of normal behavior last night, where El Jefe congratulated his son and daughter-in-law on the birth of their child. Unfortunately, that was sandwiched by total lunacy. Earlier in the evening, the President of the United States was tweeting clips from Fox News—including a segment from Lou Dobbs, the fashy Benjamin Button, who offered his views on The Fake Left-Wing Media and The Radical Dems. It apparently no longer merits a discussion that the world's most powerful man is in a full-on Symbiosis of Stupid with a right-wing propaganda channel that, in a quintessentially American way, is a private entity serving as State TV in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

And then there was this.

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time........The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!



This is nuts, right down to the ellipses, which seem to have been getting longer and longer ever since he learned how to do tweet threads. The president has canceled a diplomatic trip because the country he was gonna do diplomacy at would not sell him a piece of said country. Or so he says.

The president says a lot of things. Alex Wong Getty Images

Some are speculating that this could have something to do with former President Obama's trip to Denmark, scheduled for a few weeks after Trump's. While Obama has his critics, it's almost certain he'll be received warmly by the Danish public as an "emotionally stable human being" who "doesn't show his ass in front of the world on the daily"—a throwback to happier times, when every second of every day wasn't dominated by presidential horrors big and small. The current chief—or his staff—will remember the reception he got in London back in June, and expect something similar in a place that's far more sane even than Britain. (The Brits, after all, have found their own fool.) The contrast with Obama would not be pretty, and neither would Trump's response. He might invade Greenland then and there.

But then it was time for another flavor of batshit.

“Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world...and the Jewish people in Israel love him........like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God...But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for..........all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow! @newsmax @foxandfriends @OANN

Again, with the ellipses. In case you're wondering, Wayne Allyn Root is a conspiracy theorist who has trafficked completely evidence-free stories about Obama's birthplace, Seth Rich, the Las Vegas shooting, and Charlottesville. He is nuts. So it's no wonder he called Donald Trump "the King of Israel," or suggested the Jewish people—who do not believe in a Second Coming—think Trump is the Second Coming. Who cares! Just say anything.

No, the truly incredible thing is that the President of the United States blasted this wacked-out nonsense to his 60 million-plus followers. Well, it's incredible if you think his goal is to convince American Jews to vote for him, just like he appeared to yesterday as he seemed to wander into the same dual-loyalty tropes that caused conservatives to freak the fuck out at Ilhan Omar a little while back.

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“I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” It isn’t the first time that Trump has invoked the anti-Semitic jargon of dual loyalty. This is unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/IDLPoudlQw — Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) August 20, 2019

Of course, Trump previously referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as "your prime minister" while addressing a group of Jewish Republicans, so none of this is new. But accusing any Jewish people who vote for Democrats—so, between 70 and 80 percent of American Jews—of "disloyalty" is historically dangerous, and it's not likely to win any of their votes. It's almost like he's not trying to win their votes, but to send a message to some other constituency about where he's at.

Still, though, he had time for a casual incitement against four sitting congresswomen using a weaponized claim of anti-Semitism.

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Rep Tlaib wants to cut off aid to Israel. This is the new face the of Democrat Party? Read the AOC PLUS 3 statements on their hatred of Jews and Israel. Check out Rep. Omar (the great people of Minnesota won’t stand for this). — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019

The cynicism on show here is truly gobsmacking. The idea that, after Charlottesville alone, anyone takes Trump's anti-Semitism policing seriously is absurd. But right after he essentially called himself the "King of Israel"? It's fucking loco. And it's here where we might again state for the record that criticizing the policies of the Israeli government is not anti-Semitic.

Then the president went after the Federal Reserve, an attack on an arm of the government that is meant to make policy independently from the White House, and an action that under any other president would cause huge outcry. Now, it barely merits a mention. Then came another attack on the central bank. "....WHERE IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE?" And in between, there was a Presidential Take on cars:

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My proposal to the politically correct Automobile Companies would lower the average price of a car to consumers by more than $3000, while at the same time making the cars substantially safer. Engines would run smoother. Very little impact on the environment! Foolish executives! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019

Here, the president is suggesting that car manufacturers are bowing before Political Correctness because many are choosing to abide by California's stricter car emissions standards. They've chosen the state over Trump, who's seeking to roll back the Obama administration's standards enacted in 2012, which ought to cut down on pollution and carbon emissions. In reality, according to The New York Times, the four companies—and, it appears, Mercedes-Benz could soon be a fifth—are siding with California because they fear the U.S. car market will be split in two, where some states have stricter standards and others abide by Trump's lax federal ones. They want to nip that in the bud.

But even if they were really doing this for environmental reasons, that would not be "political correctness," it would be "trying to preserve the planet as a habitat for human civilization as we know it." You know, liberal shit. Because, contrary to the president's characterization that all this has "very little impact on the environment!", the Obama administration's vehicle pollution standards are, in the Times' estimation, "the single largest policy enacted by the United States to reduce planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions."

No reason to worry about any of that, though. Just say whatever. When you're King of Israel, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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