Donald Trump doesn’t really have any values, except getting attention for himself.
The then reality-TV show host trolled then President Obama with a viciously relentless energy over golfing, and yet, just two weeks in, President Trump is not only on vacation, but golfing.
Sunday morning, President Trump and his motorcade departed his Mar-a-Lago club at 9:17 AM heading to the Trump International Golf Club.
NBC’s Bradd Jaffy gathered some of Trump’s raging about Obama’s golfing:
President Trump “has some meetings and may play a few holes of golf” today, White House aide says
(Quick reminder of previous Trump tweets) pic.twitter.com/39oc6U4PDc
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 5, 2017
It’s not just the golf. Trump also promised he would not take vacations as President. Think Progress kept track:
“I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off. … You don’t have time to take time off,” Trump adds. [The Hill, 6/23/15]
Trump wouldn’t dare shut New York down to see a play, he promised. But now his wife is living in New York and refusing to move to the White House, so it’s shut down every day.
I mean, the other night in New York, New York was shut down because Obama’s here to go to a Broadway play… I’d be there all the time working, working.
[CNN, 7/22/15]
As his own wife has chosen to stick it to the taxpayers and New York in general by refusing to move to the White House and do the job of FLOTUS, so she flew in separately to Mar-a-Lago, it’s worth recalling Trump’s own words about how much these trips cost:
So, I wouldn’t leave the White House very much because, you know, like little things like these little trips where they get on they cost you a fortune… I am worried about the cost. Why would you have two people flying to the same location a little time different. Why wouldn’t you both go.
[Baton Rouge, LA, 2/11/16]
This is the kind of hypocrisy that comes when the people hire a delusional, attention-desperate empty blowhard as president.
Trump demanded Obama’s birth certificate and college transcripts, but Trump won’t release either of his. Additionally, Trump won’t even release his tax returns or medical records, and there are plenty of actually legitimate reasons to be concerned about what Trump is hiding, especially after the news that he didn’t really divest himself of interest in his businesses at all.
What is it about President Obama that had conservatives frothing at the mouth when he went golfing?
Hmmm.
Could it be that this, the lack of a jacket in the Oval and the flag pin, were the most substantial criticisms they could come up with? Or is it that the idea of a black man enjoying the same privileges to which they feel entitled was deeply offensive to them.
I’m going to go with a mixture of the two, because in Trump’s first two weeks he laid waste to every conservative criticism of Obama and alleged value. Trump’s explosive expansion of executive powers alone, and the conservative willingness to enable and justify it because it serves their agenda, is most disheartening.
Donald Trump has exposed the modern day conservative movement as a sham hiding place for bigots and racists.
Just days after he got a Navy SEAL killed due to ignorance and lack of planning, Trump is off golfing. Normally this might not be such an issue, although incompetence on the level they exhibited over the SEAL raid should always be an issue, but conservatives nearly ran out of hot air hyperventilating about Benghazi for years. They’ve wasted untold millions of taxpayer dollars, while refusing to pay for more security at embassies, to try to pin the blame for the tragedy on Clinton and Obama, to no avail because facts.
Just two weeks in, Trump is actually at fault for the failed SEAL raid in Yemen, and now he’s off wasting more taxpayer money on a vacation, during which he is golfing.
It’s also worth noting that while Trump enacted a shock and awe campaign of executive action, he doesn’t actually work very long. The White House lids are called hours earlier than they were under Obama, who was often working late into the night after spending dinner with his family.
The hypocrisy is stunning, and it begs the question, what do conservatives actually stand for these days, other than a compulsion to deny Obama the powers of the presidency and hysterically criticize Obama over things they are perfectly fine with Trump doing.
This behavior isn’t indicative of values; rather it’s a gaping Machiavellian mask for a total lack of character and principle.