EMBARRASSING

The world is laughing at the President of the United States.  Literally, laughing.

In the months preceding his Trump Tower announcement for the presidency, Donald Trump bemoaned what he viewed as the diminished role of America on the world stage.  Trump believed that the world no longer took America at her word.  That our country was no longer feared nor respected in the halls of world power.  Donald Trump believed that the America’s tarnished image was the result of indecisive, feckless  leadership;  more interested in promoting conciliatory co-operation than brandishing America’s strength and power.  In August of 2014 Trump tweeted: “We need a president who isn’t a laughing stock to the entire world.”

In his second address to the UN General Assembly, Trump decided to demonstrate to the world how “his” strong economic policies at home had resulted in the return of America’s strength abroad.  What better way than to trot out the tried and true litany of his personal accomplishments as president that had brought thunderous cheers across America.

And so Trump began his remarks to UN world leaders with his best line…the all too familiar boast:  “In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any other administration in the history of our country.”

At Trump rallies all across America this line always brought raucous cheers from the Trumpian sycophants and worshipers who jammed themselves into his events.  But this was not an audience of obsequious toadies who swallowed every Trump word whole and asked for more.  This was a gathering of the most powerful people in the world.  A crowd that viewed themselves as Trump’s equal if not his superior.  They did not cheer his self-promoting proclamation.  They did not applaud his bombast.

They laughed!

The leaders of the world literally laughed out loud at the President of the United States.

Embarrassed, a red faced Trump could only smile and shrug at the awkwardness of the moment.  “Not the reaction I was expecting.” He said.

To be clear…Trump wasn’t trying to be funny.  This was vintage Trump being Trump.  Boastful, bombastic and as narcissistic as any human can be.

Yet, they laughed.

Undaunted, Trump went on to deliver his remarks; a dark oration of threats and demands on his audience interspersed with a  litany of self-promoting accomplishments both real and imagined.  It was as convoluted and it was off-putting.

His audience wasn’t listening.  They were still chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

In the early days of the Trump presidency aides tell us that Trump gathered his staff and informed them that they would: “treat each and every day as an episode in a reality tv show where Trump vanquished his enemies.”

What was once a reality show has become a comedy.