"Detached from reality" -- Bill O'Neill Commentary

“He was becoming detached from reality.”

Then-Attorney General William Barr’s assessment last week of Donald Trump on

the Day of Insurrection struck me. For several reasons:

 Trump had never dealt in or with any reality that most of the rest of us

know. There was no sudden detachment on January 6, 2021.

 Trump’s “reality” is a confluence of his narcissism, lies, deceit, insults,

bullying, hypocrisy, misogyny, and congenital bad behavior.

The Wall Street Journal story headline of June 14 read: “Advisers Told Trump He

Lost the Election.” But it was the sub-head to that story that said it all: “Barr told

Jan. 6 panel that former president seemed uninterested in the facts.”

Uninterested in the . . . facts. Facts?

Facts and truths – the sacred axis of a working democracy – have never been

useful or convenient to Trump. That’s why, over four years, he altered reality a

stunning 30,573 times. “Fake” and “hoax” – the antidote to facts and reality --

became his favorite four-letter words, amid a vocabulary that barely touches 75

words.

After eight years of Barack Obama, face it: Our government was not functioning

particularly well when the anti-politician Trump curried the favor of celebrity

seekers fed up with politicians upon the 2016 election. What he came to ensure

over the next four years – as a Party of One, disguised as the leader of the GOP --

is that bipartisanship in politics would be ruined, maybe forever.

There was ample cause why early on he became described as “unhinged.” And

remember Trump’s niece Mary L. Trump authoring “Too Much and Never Enough:

How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man”? And various doctors

and others bringing forth the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental

Disorders to account for Trump’s psychological profile and aberrant behavior?

Maybe the only thing Trump “knows” less than facts is honor. Here’s a person

who discarded or was abandoned by more Cabinet appointees (from Rex Tillerson

to Elaine Chao) than any President in history. His coup d'état was putting his

faithful-to-a-fault lapdog Vice President Mike Pence on the run for his life that

ignominious day of January 6.

Trump the Trauma was using his own social media channel this week to disparage

the “Unselect” House Committee investigating his crimes against his country. He

was back to his unhinged best, refuting reality and resetting “facts.” Making sure

his cult of followers have enough Jim Jones lemonade for these hot days of summer.

The Republic could be burning, the Capitol could be desecrated . . . but the

fiddler fiddles on.