Alexander Hamilton looks into the future and sees President 45 and 47.

[generalbetrayus]

Well, except for the "possessed of considerable talents" part.

[Ocelot II]

1. He nailed it.

Somewhere on some incorporeal plane he's muttering to himself, Dammit, I told them this could happen.

[cyndensco]

2. Spot on, except for the part

possessed of considerable talents.

[Harker]

3. Considerable gall, maybe.

[Texin]

4. Oh, I don't know. It takes a scathingly astute person to read the hearts and minds of bigots and be able

to manipulate them and develop them into his cult members.

We've all met and known bigots , and probably had them within our own families, but until he gave them permission to be and act out on their own ugliness, no one until 45/47 had been able to rise to the presidency. There have been many like him before, but no one ever became POTUS. There was George Wallace the racist and Charles Lindbergh the Nazi, but they didn't live in the period in America that 45/47 found himself in, in which it was rich with opportunities to exploit the shallow minds of those enamored by the cult of personalities like the Kardashians (famous for being famous) and their ilk. And even trump, who had achieved notoriety for his putative real estate "empire", never quite attained much status outside of NYC until he went on television and supposedly played the part of a flamboyant and savvy corporate mogul to the slack-jawed viewers who believed what they saw on a scripted television series. It says more about the American population at large than it could ever say about the man himself. He caught the American zeitgeist of the times and managed to get himself into the WH (whether it was legitimate or not). TWICE. That does seem to suggest a 'considerable talent'.

[madinmaryland]

6. A considerable talent at grifting and lying.

[cyndensco]

7. Mea Culpe.

I think of talents as positives.

Y'all are right - he is very talented when it comes to most evils.

[Warpy]

5. King Toadstool does have some talents

He's always been able to get large sums of money out of men who knew better.

He's always been able to love bomb potential assets the way only a narcissist can.

Back in the day, he wasn't a dumb guy. He was a businessman and he knew how to do business and how to give people the business. He was pretty much ignorant of everything else but he didn't have to be a Renaissance man, he only needed to keep building shit that didn't fall down. He could get that much done. Now he's totally out of his depth and it shows, even without early dementia.

If this teaches us anything, it's that businessmen make shitty presidents. We've had them before and they've been shitty before. Maybe he's shitty enough to drive that lesson home.

(Oh, and you want to see dumb,quiz me on pro sports. Or pop stars under 30. Or romance novels. Trust me, I am dumb as a stump)

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