Remember
that stupid thing Donald Trump did? Hard as it is to pick, here are the top 10
Donald Trump is a
dull, nasty and childish man — but his legacy of amazing idiocy will be long
remembered
DECEMBER
26, 2020 1:00PM (UTC)
We're tentatively starting to emerge from
the four year-long national nightmare of Donald Trump's presidency, but the
reckoning of what the nation endured will take years to really understand.
Trump was terrible in so many ways that it's hard to catalog them all: His
sociopathic lack of regard for others. His towering narcissism. His utter ease
with lying. His cruelty and sadism. The glee he took in cheating and stomping
on anything good and decent. His misogyny and racism. His love of encouraging
violence, only equaled by his personal cowardice.
But of all the repulsive character traits in a
man so wholly lacking in any redeemable qualities, perhaps the most
perplexing to his opponents was Trump's incredible stupidity. On one hand, it
was maddening that a man so painfully dumb, a man who clearly could barely read
— even on those rare occasions when he deigned to wear glasses
— still had the low cunning necessary to take over the Republican Party
and then the White House.
On the other hand, it was the one aspect of
Trump's personality that kept hope alive. Surely a man so stupid, his opponents
believed, will one day blunder so badly he can't be saved, even by his
most powerful sycophants. That has proved to be the case as Trump fumbles
his way through a failed coup, unable and unwilling to see that stealing the
election from Joe Biden is a lost cause.
Trump's unparalleled idiocy gave us a few
laughs along the way, which we sorely needed in those troubled times. With
that in mind, here's a list of the 10 most jaw-droppingly stupid moments
of Trump's White House tenure.
1) That time Trump suggested injecting
household cleaners into people's lungs to cure them of the coronavirus. Even for connoisseurs of Trumpian
idiocy, it was a shocker when, after hearing that bleach and Lysol can kill
the coronavirus on surfaces, got behind the podium in the White House briefing
room and declared, "I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a
minute, one minute. ... Is there a way we can do something like that by
injection inside, or almost a cleaning, because, you see, it gets in the lungs,
and it does a tremendous number on the lungs?"
He then pointed at his head, and said,
"I'm, like, a person who has a good you-know-what."
The situation was only made worse because this
nitwit said this during the daily coronavirus "press briefing,"
during that surreal period of the spring and early summer in which he
held forth daily, often for hours, presenting himself as not just a leader but
an expert. Never has a man believed he knew so much while knowing so
little.
2) That time he looked at a
solar eclipse without eye protection — after everyone was repeatedly told
not to look at the eclipse without eye protection.
It was at this moment that I realized that
Trump voters must like it that he's an stone cold idiot, if
only because they enjoy the way it triggers the liberals.
3) That time he couldn't admit he was wrong
when he tweeted that Hurricane Dorian was going to hit Alabama, and so he drew
on a weather map with a Sharpie to make it seem like he was right.
Again, what really elevates some of the best
dumbass-Trump moments is when his stupidity combines with his massive ego to
create a dunderhead singularity.
4) That time he threw paper towels at
people in Puerto Rico who had just endured Hurricane Maria.
Trump's ego plus Trump's stupidity is just
sublime. But when his stupidity combined with racism, the effect was often more
chilling than funny.
5) That time he asked members of the National
Security Council if they could nuke hurricanes rather than letting them hit the
U.S.
Hurricanes drew out Trump's fatuousness like a good cheese draws out the notes
in fine wine.
6) That time Trump was told to talk about
Frederick Douglass at a Black History Month event, clearly had no idea who that
was, and while trying to bullshit his way through the talk, implied that
Douglass was still alive.
"Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing
job and is being recognized more and more, I notice," Trump said, using the same strategy
that a sixth-grader who hasn't read the book might employ to
bluff through a book report. There was a piece of paper in front of
Trump that likely had more information about the author and abolitionist who
was born enslaved and died in 1895 as one of the most famous Americans,
but Trump, as ever too vain to wear his glasses in public, probably couldn't read it.
7) That time he suggested that his
much-desired border wall could just maybe be buttressed with alligator
moats.
This one was fondly remembered by the Salon staff as an iconic example of the way Trump's
racism amplifies his imbecility in an almost exponential fashion.
8) That time he asked Canada's prime
minister, Justin Trudeau, "Didn't you guys burn down the White
House?"
At this point one almost wants to give him
half-credit for remembering that the White House was burned down at one
point — by the British in the War of 1812. But then one remembers that Trump has
declared himself the protector and savior of American history, so much so that he's created the "1776
Commission" in a supposed effort to preserve what he considers the proper teaching of
history. All he means by that, of course, is teaching kids that the blatant
racism of the past was noble and just, and not so much actual facts, let
alone actual history.
9) That time Trump "liked" a tweet
praising Rihanna.
This is a deep cut, but a personal favorite of
mine, mostly because Ashley Feinberg at Slate did a detailed
exploration of this topic and demonstrated it was almost certainly
the result of stupidity, horniness and Trump's short and stubby fingers.
It started when Trump liked — and then unliked — a tweet by a woman named Heben Nigatu declaring, "Every new Rihanna interview makes me
grow stronger. We stan a work/life balance queen!!!"
As Feinberg noted, Rihanna's name was trending
on Twitter the night of the weird "like." If users clicked that
trending topic, they saw a photo of Rihanna lounging on a couch in a see-through
leotard. As "our
president is furiously, pathologically horny," Feinberg concludes,
he likely "clicked on this photo of Rihanna while making a series of
steamboat noises and sweating profusely," which led him to a list of
tweets mentioning Rihanna — including Nigatu's tweet. At which point his
fingers, which are too small to be controlled with any grace, likely slid
unconsciously over the "like" button.
As further evidence, Feinberg points out Trump
had, in the past, done the same to a sexy photo of Katy Perry.
10) When he called the Second Epistle to
the Corinthians "Two Corinthians."
This is another personal favorite, because, like many other of Trump's
dumber moments — such as when he tried to put money on a communion platter, or when he held a Bible as if he were afraid it might bite
him, or when he
seemed confused by the idea that he should ask God for forgiveness — it was a fun reminder that Trump's
professed Christianity is not just an act, but an act he can barely be
bothered to keep going. It's delicious because it's a twofer, not just exposing
Trump's stupidity, but the absolute shamelessness of the Christian right
leaders who backed him. (For those who may be unclear: This book of the Bible
is abbreviated as "2 Corinthians" but always called "Second
Corinthians.")
Every time Trump fumbled in this way, and the
Trump-friendly evangelists kept on acting like he was God's emissary on
earth, it was further evidence that most of these supposedly devout Christians
don't really care about faith or God or Jesus or any of that that stuff —
they care about power. As with their beloved president, dramatic
performance of public piety by so many right-wing Christian leaders is little
more than a dog-and-pony show put on to sucker the rubes.
So there's your top 10, with the caveat that it
was hard — perhaps impossible — to narrow down that number in a satisfying
manner, since Trump has done unbelievably stupid crap virtually every
single day for four years. But that's why the internet gods invented social
media and comment sections, so you can add your own to the list!