The pleasant passivity of this cognitively deficient person combined with a string of amazing strokes of luck and a failure of others to pay close attention to him result in his rise to unbelievable heights of success. A similar trope was used in 1994 Zemeckis film starring Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump. This time, the fundamental decency of Gump results in the salvation of Jenny Curran, played by Robin Wright.Simple-minded Chance (Peter Sellers), a gardener who has resided in the Washington, D.C., townhouse of his wealthy employer for his entire life and been educated only by television, is forced to vacate his home when his boss dies. While wandering the streets, he encounters business mogul Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), who assumes Chance to be a fellow upper-class gentleman. Soon Chance is ushered into high society, and his unaffected gardening wisdom makes him the talk of the town.
The development of the fortunate fool topos in the Gump character especially raises the question: what would happen if the fool were not a lovable, kindhearted person but instead a cruel bully who enjoyed an inexplicable lucky streak?
We are currently living that scenario in the President Trump reality show. No, for us it is not a show. For us it is our current political reality, but its star, Donald J. Trump has, as part of his mental framework, the inability to distinguish reality from television. The problem has become so pervasive that a large number of his followers are also incapable of doing so consistently. They see the Trump reality show as something that should not be taken to be gravely serious and dangerous by all those zombie NPC librulz who don't "get it." They laugh it off while others suffer. Only their own suffering to a degree that really leaves a mark is capable of waking them up to our collective plight.
Another aspect of the problem is that Trump may very well be plainly stupid. If he were dumb but innocuous, that might not be so bad. But he is a dumb guy who is at the same time a mean, cruel, bully, who takes what he wants and does what he wants without a thought about the consequences. The stupidity of Trump should have long been apparent, but it was perhaps hidden by its alignment with the cruelty of many like him. Does he really believe tariffs work? Did he really believe that Obama was born in Africa? Is he aware of how racist he is, or does he just land on hurting POCs more because it feels right to him somehow?
I am starting to think the guy is genuinely stupid. The recent interview with ABC anchor Terry Moran strongly suggests dumb is the answer. Trump held up a photoshopped picture of Abrego Garcia's hand in which someone had typed in the letters MS13 to provide an interpretation of the meaning of the tattoos on the hand. In the interview, Trump argues vehemently that the letters were actually tattooed on Abrego Garcia. He won't let go of it! Moran in various ways tries to show that the MS13 was not there (including referring to the later picture in El Salvador that shows no MS13 tattooed on his knuckles), but Trump passionately insists, REPEATEDLY, that those tattoos were there.
Think about what this travesty shows us about the horrific damage done by the stupidest president in history and his reckless or amoral helpers. Someone tries to convince the dullard Trump that Abrego Garcia is MS-13 by interpreting ambiguous tattoos as symbolizing MS13, and then photoshops the interpretation on a picture to give to Trump. This is the same kind of thinking that Christians and Mormons used to drive the Satanic panic of the 1980s. "Let's interpret these ambiguous signs in accordance with our already held beliefs and assumptions and then crusade against them!"
These are the people running our government and our country into a deep, deep ditch. Trump just knew the Central Park Five were guilty. No evidence required! He was very serious about the conspiracy theory that Obama was born in Africa. Now he is happy to run with a photoshopped image of Abrego Garcia's hand as showing the "actual" tattoos to read M S 1 3 because this delusion appears (to the dimwitted) to justify his actions! The evidence of his recklessness, his bigotry, his carelessness, his motivated reasoning . . . his STUPIDITY is manifest. Those evidences have always been there, but the Moran interview puts them in stark relief.
Clips of the tattoo discussion with Terry Moran:
https://youtu.be/am-Xs4Dug1o?si=_nliMZivi1mkhxq4
https://youtu.be/XCxNzFfX8Z8?si=ynmxTNkzbcm0gPxb
