Donald Duck’s Mickey Mouse White House

Verbatim…

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Mr. President who do you want to see running the Fed?

Quack

It is in my thinking, and I have a couple of other things in my thinking. People have no — most people have no idea how important that position is.  That position is actually — more — a lot of people get rid of the Fed. Take the Fed out.  That’s a very important position.  It’s also important psychotically.

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Who do you think would be suitable?

Well, I’ve — I have looked at it very, very strongly. And pretty much, we can do almost what they’re getting. I — I think he is a tremendous person. I don’t know Senator Murray. I hear very, very good things.

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If the top earners pay 80 percent of the taxes, why are you so afraid to cut taxes on the top earners?

Other people — well, it’s about me representing rich people. Very interesting to me Bob Kraft was down. He was very nice. He owns the Patriots. He gave me a Super Bowl ring a month ago. And he —

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What’s your view on Iran and Europe?

I told them, just keep making money. Don’t worry about it. We don’t need you on this. You just keep making money. When Iran buys things from Germany and from France and from the various — by billions of dollars, even us, they were going to buy Boeings. I don’t know what's going to happen with the deal.

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What have progress have you made against ISIS?

I have made more progress against ISIS in the last nine months than in the last eight years.

But Mr President, ISIS only started four or five years ago.

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Voice-over

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Confused, ignorant, dishonest. More than weird speech patterns. Psychotic?

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Trump as a Mad Max metaphor: Immortan Joe and the War Boys

A mere movie villain?

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Immortan Donald

George: Oh, that it were only so. But he’s not. He’s one of the Mad Max antiheroes like Immortan Joe. Trump's White House is a chaotically choreographed political satire. Unfortunately, in the real world.

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Bill: There’s also something ominous about the gum-chewing, bull-necked supporters who cheer him on. Like an army of Caucasian Kim Jong Un clones clinging to a string of broken promises. Like the War Boys in Mad Max. Their support is hardly waning. He lies outrageously. And he can because his supporters know little of politics or economics. Groupthink. Did you see this picture in The Economist? You are what you drive.

You are what you drive...

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George: And you become what you drive.

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Bill: Of course, none of them will look in the mirror and see themselves as most of the rest of the world views them.

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Voice-over

The Economist Special Report on America Divided might help Trump supporters feel like they are winning. But the choice of photographs profiling those supporters is a clever underlying subplot identifying “Just who ARE these people?”

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Scaramucci set up

Game of Thrones…

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Donald: What to do about Priebus?

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Ivan: You should bring in someone who will backstab him by leaking stuff on him.

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Donald: That’s what I’m saying. I have these brilliant ideas. Bring in someone to get rid of Priebus so I’m not seen to be the one doing the firing.

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Daily Telegraph

Ivan: Someone like Anthony Scaramucci.

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Donald: I’m saying someone like Anthony Scaramucci. Set him up to go pottymouth on Priebus and Bannon to a reporter. Shoots himself in the foot, big time. Then bring in someone else to fire him. Before he is even officially employed. I have these brilliant ideas.

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Voice-over

Did it happen this way? Was it a well-thought-out plot, or was it simply an absence of planning? As usual Donald takes the credit from wherever he can get it.

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Testing Trump’s Competence: Language and Cognition

As the linguist said to the psychologist…

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Linguist: His language skill has plummeted, he cannot stay on subject, or complete sentences, he repeats himself, he’s incoherent, he has simplistic vocabulary and tangled grammar.

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Psychologist: It could be stress, or anger, or fatigue.

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Linguist: Other leaders can cope, he can’t.

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A me... speak... problem?

Psychologist: Maybe he speaks this way to appeal to his supporters who also talk like that.

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Linguist: But he can’t adjust his unscripted speaking style to suit the listener. He only has one style. You talk at a rally, maybe you choose to go incoherently emotive. You face an intellectual adversary, you switch to cerebral suasion. He can’t do that anymore.

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Psychologist: Are you suggesting he is suffering from some cognitive disability? To determine that, you need to administer a psychological test to get data. He won’t submit to that.

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Linguist: To a linguist, the data is there. Just parsing his speech suggests a serious prognosis.

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Voice-over

Apparently he wasn’t always so linguistically disabled. In the 1980s and 1990s, he could give coherent interviews. Now, linguistic evidence suggests Trump is a severely linguistically and cognitively crippled leader. Political office demands coherent communication and crystal clear cognition. He doesn’t demonstrate this.

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Donald as Jabba the Hutt?

In the script writing department…

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Jabber, jabber...

Alec: Donald reminds me of Jabba the Hutt.

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Trevor: Who? Donald Duck?

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Alec: No, you know which Donald I mean.

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Trevor: Because he’s physically slug-like, or his lack of moral compass? And all the other stuff.

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Alec: There are similarities, I grant you, but are we going to stoop to his level of carricaturing opponents?

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Trevor: Well his political strategy is to keep on throwing horse manure at opponents and hope some of it sticks.

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Alec: It’s not strong enough for a dedicated article. Keep up the policy attacks and the legal angles.

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Trevor: Well, we still need the metaphors of psychological deviance, general ignorance and language impediment metaphors running as subtext.

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Voice-over

There are several approaches to challenging an incompetent leader. Mounting logical arguments against unsound policies should be paramount of course. But in these times this is not sufficient to combat a chronically untruthful and incoherent individual and his retainers. Media-generated metaphors harnessed to satire and humor are powerful, as Trevor Noah, Alec Baldwin, Stephen Colbert and Melissa McCarthy regularly show us. Keep it up!

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