More about America’s ratings-conscious president
By 
Every so often I’ll see someone ask whether provoking Trump is a good idea.
They note (with 100% accuracy) that when he believes he is being challenged he lashes out. And if that doesn’t work he ups the ante. And now he’s got an army of savage rodents who’ll attack anyone he points them at.
This is all true, but it often leads to a false conclusion: That minimizing the number of times he’s challenged will minimize the frequency and extent (and damage) of his tantrumps. Basically, America should become a massive game of Don’t Wake Daddy. But instead of going back to the start of the game if they wake him, the participants will get 50 million tons of chemical waste in their waterways, a crashed global economy or several land wars.
This conclusion stems from a failure to understand that is not possible to avoid challenging someone like Trump. I know everyone likes to say he ticks all of the boxes on the narcissistic personality type checklist. However, the real problem is he ticks all of the boxes on the abusive thug checklist and he is about to become President of the United States.
This isn’t a sleeping daddy who will continue to sleep provided everyone keeps quiet. This is an asshole who is wide awake and waiting until he’s ready go off on someone, again. This type of person is constantly fondling old grievances and looking for new ones because it fuels the anger and that’s all part of the fun. And since it is not possible for anyone but the abuser to know what will make him angry until after the fact, there’s no way to predict, much less prevent, the abuser from striking again. Now, take that type of person and replace a family or a neighborhood with the entire planet and wondering if it is possible to avoid provoking him becomes patently ridiculous. Hey China, don’t make him angry. Germany, cut that out! Governor Brown, you’re making President TRump very angry. You protestors are asking for it!
What then does this mean to his victims or potential victims (in this case pretty much the entire planet)? The pessimistic version of the answer is we’re probably fucked, because barring a great deal of intervention, perhaps in the form of the bars of a jail cell, he’s not going to stop. His actions are 100% driven by what he wants to do and what he wants to do is fuck with people.
But that also means that the blame for what he does falls only on his fly-away floss covered head. It is on one else’s fault. No one should spend half a second worrying that this or that thing will cause Trump to do some dumb or horrible thing because if it isn’t this or that, it will be the other thing. And I think there’s a bit of much needed mental breathing room in knowing this.
