Donald Trump professes his innocence, gives himself an A+ and rates himself as one of, if not, the greatest president ever. He has been impeached, is awaiting trial in the Senate and many of his people have already served their prison sentences, are awaiting sentencing, are in jail or are under indictment. Let’s explore.

Trump claims he is totally clean yet he is surrounded by dirty people; since he is very much the boss that is a difficult circle to square.

While, ala other autocrats dating back to at least the 1930’s, any unfavorable news report he labels as, “Fake news,” scandals appear with incredible frequency. In order to think Trump is as innocent as a newborn you have to believe the, “Fake news,” line 100% of the time it is uttered.

As in every campaign you will hear almost every candidate, regardless of Party, say something along the lines of, “the American voters are smart.” Don’t for a minute think they believe that! This is the country that bought the pet rock and elected George W. Bush along with (we think) Donald Trump. Can you characterize any of that as smart? What politicians bank on is the prejudice and inattentiveness of the American electorate not its intelligence or ability to do critical thinking.

How many times has Trump praised someone only to say he hardly (or doesn’t) know them when the (expletive deleted) hits the fan? I know it has become an old joke but I’m waiting for the day he says he hardly knows Donald Trump, Jr., (though he’ll probably brag that he remembers having sex with Ivana a few times.)

Trump claims victory in defeat. That is something he learned from his main mentors: his late attorney Roy Cohn and his late father Fred. He has done so his entire adult life and continues to this day. Kim Jung-un took Trump to the cleaners and Trump made it sound like he solved the issues on the Korean peninsula.

It is like the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Trump is “naked”, can’t admit it and characterizes anyone who calls him out as a loser. To cite another fable (the Greek myth, Daedalus) Trump, like Icarus, “flew too close to the sun” when he became president. Now he has the major league of media following his every move, not the Page Six gossip writers. The lies that make good copy in a gossip column get dissected and investigated by the elite of journalism who, fortunately for Trump, with rare exception don’t work for right wing media.

The Trump playbook is to when necessary simply replace lies with new ones or recycle old ones. I think we were well informed of that during the first weekend of his presidency when mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase, “Alternative facts,” as if they were something genuine as opposed to lies.

Trump has a future in television if HBO ever decides to resurrect The Sopranos.  With James Gandolfini dead someone will have to play the role of the crime family’s boss, Tony Soprano. Who better than Trump? Plus we know Trump loves playing a role on TV. Today it is a well-known fact that you have to pay tribute to Don Trump if you want favors out of this administration. Stay at the Trump Hotel in DC, have your event at a Trump property, donate to Trump or (especially in the case of a foreign country) finance a Trump family project. Trump is practicing the ultimate in crony capitalism where he rewards those who are compliant and punishes those who are principled picking winners and losers in the process.

If you believe all of Trump’s and his sycophants’ lies I bet you took great pride in Santa enjoying the cookies you left him and the gratitude of his reindeer for the snack. You are also playing right into his strategy of disrespecting your intelligence. Trump doesn’t think his voters are smart; in fact he is exploiting their lack of intelligence and ability to separate fact from fiction.

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