Early Romans Had Another Word For Trump’s Genius
I’m sure that by now you’ve heard or seen President Trump’s epic assertion that he is a “stable genius”. In a split second he vaulted himself into the rarified ranks of Einstein, Mozart and Leonardo, to name a few in a very special group of human beings who were too occupied with their remarkable work to think of themselves that way.
But wait. While genius has become a commonplace identity for an extraordinary mind, body or spirit, there’s another, less tidy, definition going all the way back to ancient Rome. For some, at least , genius could betray a person who was under the spell of demonic evil. Above the law. Hostile to others. In modern terms, sort of a wicked control freak.
Now we’re getting somewhere in understanding the maniac in the Oval Office.
If you happened to see the Meet the Press episode in which host Jake Tapper was forced to shut down his interview with a top Trump hit man, Steven Miller, as a waste of the viewer’s time, you could figure that Miller was only doing what he was told in the desperate defense of the stable genius, praising him for being a “self-made millionaire” without acknowledging that Trump’s father chipped in $1 million” to his young son out the door.
That, alone, set the tone of the interview – a triumphant genius vs. the “garbage” that Team Trump says is now showing up in Michael Wolff’s new book, “Fire and Fury’’ that is storming bookstores from coast to coast.
I’ve just read Luke Harding’s best-selling book “Collusion”, which is a detailed record of Trump’s long standing association with Russian oligarchs and Putin – there are names and dates- to satisfy the author’s conclusions. Long before he became president Trump was cleverly used by the Russian intelligence agency to lure innocent young individuals into the international circuit to grow into spies. The Russians figured that Trump, unaware of his naivete at the hands of their advanced spy network, and seduced by their praise, would be a major conduit because of his fame and fortune. He would be an enormous asset in expanding their mission.
Harding, who was the Guardian’s Moscow bureau chief for four years before he was ejected by the Kremlin, drew upon his many sources and journalistic shoe leather to stitch together his report. It details not only Trump’s comfy relationship with Putin’s wealthy forces but the inner workings of Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier.
Worth your time on a cold winter night.
As for the beleaguered president, do we need to be tweeted again that “throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being like, really smart. …I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…”
As for the “stable genius” part I’ve already settled on ‘”demonic evil” .
