Donald Trump: Learning the Hard Way to Spell AI

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are not known to care much about the letters AI (as in artificial intelligence).

To the degree that Trump and his immediate ilk care about technology, it is just about cryptocurrencies and other shady, if not illicit tech-based tools to enrich themselves.

Two letters with a politically explosive meaning

What is slowly beginning to dawn on Trump’s campaign advisors, however, is that those two letters, the A and the I, will have an immense and immediate bearing on their own political fortunes.

Just be aware that those two letters are spelled out differently as far as the Republicans political fortunes are concerned. The A stands for affordability and the I for Iran.

These are the two determinants that will decide over the outcome of the November elections for the U.S. Congress.

The A: Not as in “artificial”, but in affordability

Trump and his political strategists have long been concerned about the A (as in affordability).  After all, despite the President’s continuous rhetorical efforts, he has not managed to make daily life more affordable in the eyes of most Americans. Quite the opposite.

Moreover, his unrelenting attempt to blame this development on Joe Biden makes him look ever more like a weenie, even in the eyes of a growing number of non-Democrats.

The I: Not as in “intelligence”, but in Iran

That Donald Trump, given the problematic situation with regard to the often elections-deciding issue of household economics, decided to get into his gamble with Iran is quite astonishing.

Why he may fancy himself as a transformative genius when it comes to changing the foreign policy landscape in key trouble spots around the globe, Trump at least momentarily abandoned any thought about the domestic economic consequences.

This is especially astonishing, as the price of gasoline is a key measure of political performance in the United States.  Just consider that the average American drives a distance that is four times longer each year than the average European.

When you yourself can’t be reelected anymore

Quite possibly, Donald Trump was thinking more about his place in the history books, and thus in the foreign policy domain, than about the political fortunes of Republican candidates all across the United States this fall.

Trump, of course, can’t be reelected, and thus apparently feels less constrained by electoral considerations. In addition, he cannot shed his feeling of omnipotence, whether in the sense of either being able to rig the results or change the electoral procedures for this fall.

He will blame it on the lack of wisdom of the American people

Trump’s carelessness may well result in a truly lame duck second half of his second term. But even that does not concern him greatly.  More likely than not, he will just blame it on the lack of wisdom of the American people not to grant a genius like him a free rein.

Ever the narcissist, he will feel resolutely secure in his irreversible sense that the American people ultimately did not appreciate – and therefore did not deserve – a genius like him.