Trump is Never Wrong

Donald Trump is never wrong about anything.

"Not so", you say. "No one really believes they are always right about everything, not really." 

So let me tell you a story.

When I was a young lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio, desperately trying to start a solo law practice in the middle of a nasty recession, I forked over what seemed at the time like a small fortune for a ticket to attend a charity fundraiser in hopes of meeting some rich people I might get as clients. I had plenty of poor clients, but the problem with poor clients is, they don't have money to pay the rent let alone pay lawyers' fees.

I was seated next to a prosperous-looking young man in his thirties. I didn't think of it at the time, but I now realize that he was probably also a lawyer who had come looking to find rich clients. Maybe everyone there was, or at least everyone at our table. They probably seated all the upstarts together. Well, the money went to some presumably worthwhile good purpose, at least, or maybe not.

Though it was a very elegant affair in all outward aspects--expensive silverware and table linens, floral arrangements, even candelabra--the meal itself was quite plain, pot roast, if I remember correctly. I do remember that my first taste of it was a little startling, because it was heavily salted. The probably-a-lawyer-on-the-make-like-me, without tasting it, reached for the large crystal salt shaker. I discretely warned him, "it's already salted." 

He glared angrily at me. He didn't say a word, but made a great show of shaking a huge amount of salt over everything on his plate, an amount that would have made it all but inedible even if it hadn't already had too much salt. Then, to spite me further, he proceeded to eat it, professing great enjoyment.

I puzzled about this for a while, then realized that, rather than taking my remark as a well-intentioned caution, he took it as a criticism--a personal attack on his dining competence. 

It's one thing to tell someone that they have made a mistake in the past. I almost never do that, because it's useless information, unless you think it will help them avoid the same mistake in the future. (It won't.) But to warn someone who is about to make a mistake, and have them take extreme offense, and proceed with the mistake with exaggerated gusto, persisting out of spite even after it has become painfully obvious that they have in fact made the very mistake you warned of--what is that? It's immaturity. It's what teenagers do.

This is Donald Trump. An overgrown teenager. If he becomes President, it's not just his own dinner he will spoil every time he acts up in defense of his infallibility. He'll be Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, and it won't be long before he sends them off on some wild goose chase to spite whoever has deigned to contradict him. 

And when that happens, we'll all get indigestion.