12 May 2017

Priming the Pump

Philip Bump at The Washington Post published an interesting article yesterday (link here) with the title "Trump says he invented an 84-year-old phrase. But, why?"

He opens his piece with an excerpt from a new Donald Trump interview released yesterday by The Economist where the President claims he just invented the phrase "prime the pump" a few days earlier.

That, of course, is complete horseshit.

The phrase has been in existence about two hundred years, since the early nineteenth century. The phrase's usage in government investment expenditures -- the context in which Trump was using it -- has been common since at least 1933.

This was all verified by the professionals at Merriam-Webster, publishers of popular dictionaries.

Bump combed through the archives and found that, contrary to Trump's claim that he just invented and started using "prime the pump" this week, that he has used the phrase multiple times before in published interviews, going back to last year.

He then questions why Trump would make such an obvious and bizarre claim about himself.

He runs through the various possibilities. "This is the eternal undercurrent of the Trump era: Does he actually mean what he says? Is he riffing? Is he joking? Is he serious? Is he exaggerating? Is he lying? President Trump’s conversations and statements and braggadocio all live in the same nebulous cloud encompassing all of those possibilities, a Schrodinger’s box in which the cat has no fixed state until you look inside -- and even then you’re likely to be told that the very dead cat you’re holding is, in fact, alive."

There are a two additional possibilities that Bump does not touch on in his piece: (1) senility or (2) mental illness. Both would explain why someone would make such surreal claims. And someone can have both at the same time.

Which is truly frightening, when you think about it: the President might be both senile and mentally ill.

Yet another reason why Trump can never be believed about his promises to the LGBT community: he says things he doesn't mean and never even remembers later that he said them.

Which are also common behaviors for people who have senility or mental illness. Or both.

2 comments:

  1. Curiously, when you're looking to have a job the employer usually ask for you to have a paper of good health from your doctor.

    Here, and according to lot of USA psychiatrists, Trumpty Dumpty is considered to have some «mental illness».

    Well, that is VERY, VERY dangerous in regard of the huge power(s) that this «clown» can be using now and in the future.

    His last action to fire Comey and the way he is explaining it is enough to consider that he is NOT taking those decision with a normal healthy brain.
    He likes and dislikes someone on a blink of an eye: behaviour of a bipolar man.(?)

    When will he be removed from office before the worst can happen?

    Already, he's putting the whole planet's safety at stake not to mention USA's credibility and American people's security and health.

    More he opens his «mouth» and «tweets», more he shows how imbecile he is.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:18

    Trump's word is dross.
    -Scott

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