I just read a Washington Post article on Trump’s visit to France, and his foul mood with almost everyone. One of the comments on the article came from someone identifying themself as “Just me 2015”. They referred to a sentence within the article:
Trump told aides he thought he looked “terrible” and blamed his chief of staff’s office, and Fuentes in particular, for not counseling him that skipping the cemetery visit would be a public-relations nightmare.
To which Just me 2015 commented:
Wait a minute… President TV-Ratings-Genius didn’t realize that skipping out on the ceremony he’d come to attend, the ceremony honoring fallen soldiers from WWI, and blaming it on rain grounding a military-grade helicopter, was going to look bad? I’m shocked! /s
That comment neatly summarises Trumps abilities, not only in public relations, but in practically every endeavor he undertakes.
Another Spectrum 
15 Nov, 2018 at 12:53 pm
You mean, INabilities.
15 Nov, 2018 at 12:54 pm
In Trump’s twisted mind, nothing is ever his fault.
16 Nov, 2018 at 3:12 am
But what does ALL this say about his base. Trump is abominable, but what explains 40% of this vicious malovent ignorant base. How did this many people get this way? Have they been hiding quiet for 20 years? And we think of us and his base, but we forget the large percentage of people who just don’t care either way one little bit. The “nones” of politics.
18 Nov, 2018 at 11:20 pm
I’m not American and I don’t live in America. All I can say as an outside observer is that America is a hotbed of extremes. It seems that there’s so many people who have an “if you’re not with us, then you’re against us” attitude, whereas here you’re more likely to hear “if you’re not with us, how can we bring you on board?”. Again, a personal observation. Americans haven’t learnt the art of compromise. It seems to be all or nothing.
The above are very much generalisations. Perhaps another way of saying it is that Americans are idealists, although there is no agreement on what the ideals should be. Us Kiwis are pragmatists, so we seek out consensus. Perhaps that’s why we don’t have the level of discord that the US does.
19 Nov, 2018 at 2:03 am
You are so correct. And I really don’t know why as we all came from generations long ago that we’re immigrant and fleeing religious persecution and desiring freedom.
Maybe too much focus on individualism and slavery really set a stage that still bleeds into the future. At one time the Irish and the Italians were hated long ago too. Religion here for some reason took a more fire and brimstone tone as well. And the love of money and stuff is the number one last time for many.
A great book that goes into a lot of this is Fantasyland : How America went Haywire by Kurt Andersen is a fantastic read.
19 Nov, 2018 at 6:30 am
That desire for religious freedom was coupled with another aspect: religious fervour. When you think about it, it makes sense. If you had little interest or passion in your religion, then that would not be a motive to leave Europe. And certainly a significant number of American settlers were seeking somewhere to be free to practice their form of religion without persecution. That passion/fervour remains to this day.
On the other hand, when settlement occurred in Aotearo New Zealand more than two hundred years after American settlement, the religious issues in Europe had been mostly sorted. Our settlers were escaping something else: an oppressive and unkind society brought about be the very rapid growth in industrialisation. Our settlers were seeking a more fair and kind society, and that is still an important aspect of the Kiwi mindset. That’s why we’ve had free secular education since the start of this nation, were the first country to give women the vote, the first cradle to grave welfare state, and the only country to have a universal, no faults, accident compensation scheme.
16 Nov, 2018 at 12:16 pm
He couldn’t use it to stir up hatred or make money, so he wasn’t interested.