Connect with us

NEWS

Tired of winning yet? You’re not alone

Published

on



These should be President Trump’s best days in office. The tax bill that marked his first (and only) real legislative achievement has grown more popular in recent weeks. His blowhard rhetoric toward North Korea appears to have yielded a rare diplomatic opening. He’s revived a couple of his most resonant campaign themes, slapping tariffs on China and threatening to send soldiers to patrol the southern border.

And yet, Trump’s approval ratings seem barely to have budged. According to a series of polls in the last few weeks (leaving aside a single conservative-leaning outlier), four in 10 Americans, give or take, are happy with his presidency.

How can this be?

Trump loyalists will point out that his ratings are several points higher than his all-time low, and that no less revered a president than Ronald Reagan was in the same ballpark at this time in his presidency. But Reagan was battling a prolonged recession; Trump should be riding a wave of recovery.

No, a Trump Malaise descends on the country, and it can only be about one thing, as the president himself surely understands. After all, he warned us it would happen, and now his prophecy has come to pass.

We’re tired of winning already.

We laughed at the oracle when he made this prediction. But we didn’t really hear him.

When Trump first started appearing on our television screens as a candidate, sometimes for hours at a time without paying a dollar for the privilege or being interrupted by any pesky interviewers, America was beset by pessimism.

For decades, we had watched as automation and the rise of foreign manufacturers decimated our industries and hollowed out whole communities. We had seen America’s preeminent role as a superpower shaken by rivals with nuclear ambitions and by zealots living in caves.

“Win the future” had been one of President Obama’s hundred slogans — for about 10 minutes, anyway. The truth was we were fighting the future to a draw, at best, and everybody knew it.

And then along came Trump, like a real-life Music Man with a truckload of fetching red hats. If he became president, Trump said, America would all of a sudden start winning again. Our rural areas and small cities would bounce back. Our borders would be safe. Our government would work for everyone.

There was just one catch. We’d win so much, Trump said, that we’d eventually grow tired of winning. He knew what he was talking about. Because Trump had been winning all his life.

He was born a winner, with a dad who made a small fortune in real estate. He gambled that fortune on big-city skyscrapers and faux-classic casinos and exclusive golf courses the color of money, and he won again and again, if you don’t count a couple of nettlesome bankruptcies and a huge payout to victims of his scam university. (And, you know, the frozen steaks.)

So Trump understood how empty winning can be. How you think it’s going to soothe all your demons and wipe away all your cares, how you assume that once your team finally wins the championship you will wake up every morning with a smile on your face, but in the end it just leads to a void of disappointment and self-doubt.

And here we are.

Trump’s been pretty much the president he said he would be, even before he seized control of his own administration a few weeks ago and started replacing milquetoast policymakers with like-minded TV celebrities.

He’s told the Europeans and other allies who relied on our leadership for the last century to go figure things out for themselves.

He’s done his damnedest to discredit the entire idea of America as a nation of immigrants who share common values.

He’s responded to the Russian czar’s threat to nuke Florida by congratulating him on his hard-fought fake-election win and suggesting he visit Washington.

Thanks to Trump’s tax cuts and military buildup, we’re now rocketing toward an economic calamity in which just servicing the interest on our spiraling debt, coupled with our other obligations, will push interest rates higher and crowd out almost everything else the federal government does.

Oh, I know what you’re saying: This doesn’t sound like winning at all. But that’s only because you misunderstood what Trump was trying to say.

Trump doesn’t define winning the way you and I do. It’s not about giving back or improving people’s lives; as I’ve written before, Trump has never done that anywhere, unless you count remodeling a skating rink.

Winning, in Trump’s mind, wasn’t about us. It was about him.

It’s about ratings and primacy. Trump wants more than anything to exist outside of himself, to occupy your screens and your emotions. He always has.

Losing, to Trump, is receding from center stage. Winning is finding one way after another to keep us riveted to the show.

So Trump is absolutely delivering on his promise. He’s winning and winning and winning. Every day, it seems, he taps some new well of audacity, willing himself to become the overarching story of our time.

Even the reimagining of an old TV sitcom becomes a national conversation not because of anything that happens on the show itself, but because of what its star says about Trump, in the script and in real life. They should call it “Roseanne in Trumpland.”

Another win for the president.

And yes, we’re winning, too. Because like it or not, America has become the world’s Donald Trump. We’re shameless, unpredictable, outrageous. We’re a never-ending spectacle from which no one can look away. We’re the topic of all conversation, too.

We horrify and fascinate, and then we get up the next morning and somehow figure out how to do it again.

And we haven’t yet seen just how crazy and sordid this whole Russia investigation might become, dragging the country into yet another prolonged legal drama with unbelievable ratings, amazing, like you’ve never seen.

Of course Trump’s idea of winning feels deflating to most of us. It’s exhausting. It’s disorienting. It’s like putting your face up to an industrial fan every hour of the day.

It seeps into our dreams — all this dissembling and smallness and provocation bursting onto our TV crawls and iPhone screens — and when we wake up, we’re not an inch closer to giving our kids the America we promised them.

But you can’t really blame the president. He told us right from the start that we’d get tired of the whole noisy routine.

We were just too busy gawking to listen.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!


NEWS

German military to sell tons of toilet paper

Published

on



The Bundeswehr decided to jettison inventory that does not fit new dispensers

The German military is auctioning off nearly 10,000 rolls of toilet paper that do not fit new dispensers at Bundeswehr facilities, local media reported on Monday.

According to a posting on the Vebeg online auction platform, which was picked up by the German TV network RTL, the Bundeswehr is offering a total of 12 pallets of toilet paper stored in 360 boxes that has a transport weight of over 3 tons.

While it is unclear when exactly the ad was posted, the auction is scheduled to last until May 31. The winning bidder will be able to pick up the toilet paper, which was produced by the Sweden-based company Tork, at the military barracks in the city of Wesel, not far from Munster in the northwestern part of the country.

Potential buyers will need to register with the military department where the inventory is being stored before coming to the premises to pick it up or view it, the ad reads.

Germany faces toilet paper shortage

The German military told RTL that the sale was due to having switched the toilet paper dispensers at Bundeswehr sanitary facilities to pieces made by a different company.

“However, the toilet paper from the first company cannot be used in a universal hygiene dispenser,” a Bundeswehr spokesman told the outlet.

According to RTL, the German military has also put printer toners, desks, and laptops up for sale.

The state of the Bundeswehr stocks of weaponry and other equipment and amenities has been an issue of concern in Germany. In March, Eva Hogl, who serves as the country’s parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, claimed that the Bundeswehr “has too little of everything and it has had even less since February 24, 2022,” referring to when Russia started its military campaign in Ukraine. Since then, Berlin has provided massive military and economic support to Kiev.

She noted that the German army also lacked “functioning toilets, clean showers… indoor sports facilities, troop kitchens… and last but not least, wireless internet.”

Hogl also pointed out that the government had failed to spend any of the money from a €100 billion ($108 billion) special defense fund created last year in light of the Ukraine conflict.

You can share this story on social media:

PLEASANT MUSIC FOR YOUR CAFE, BAR, RESTAURANT, SWEET SHOP, HOME

SUITABLE MUSIC FOR YOGA LOVERS

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!


Continue Reading

NEWS

First female Saudi astronaut heads to space

Published

on



The Falcon 9 has successfully blasted off on a private mission carrying Saudi and American astronauts to the ISS

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, on a mission from the Houston-based company Axiom Space. It also carried the first Saudi woman to travel to the cosmos.

The mission, dubbed Ax-2, is Axiom’s second private mission bound for the International Space Station. The company utilized SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom, to carry the crew and the Falcon 9 to deliver it from Earth’s atmosphere.

Shortly after liftoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket successfully performed a boost-back burn to SpaceX’s Landing Zone-1 and touched down safely about seven minutes and 45 seconds after launch.

The Dragon then detached from the Falcon 9’s upper stage some 12 minutes after liftoff and headed to the ISS to perform a docking scheduled for Monday.

Aboard Freedom are the first two Saudi Arabian nationals to travel to the ISS, including stem cell researcher Rayyanah Barnawi – the first Saudi woman ever to enter space. Joining the Ax-2 as mission pilot is businessman John Shofner, who paid out of his own pocket for the trip.

First blockbuster filmed in space premieres in theaters

Leading the mission is commander Peggy Whitson – a former NASA astronaut who has spent 665 days in space throughout her career, more than any other American or any other woman, and was also the first woman to serve as commander aboard the ISS. She currently works as Axiom’s director of human spaceflight.

The four-person crew is expected to spend eight days aboard the ISS, living and working alongside the seven astronauts currently residing there. They will also conduct independent research, including into how people that have not undergone rigorous training will react when first introduced to microgravity.

Axiom has announced plans to further develop commercialized spaceflight and even launch its own free floating private space station by the end of the decade. The first module of this future station is expected to be sent up to the ISS next year, with another three pieces to follow by the end of 2027.

You can share this story on social media:

PLEASANT MUSIC FOR YOUR CAFE, BAR, RESTAURANT, SWEET SHOP, HOME

SUITABLE MUSIC FOR YOGA LOVERS

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!


Continue Reading

NEWS

Kenya supports creation of pan-African court

Published

on



The move may prompt more African nations to ratify the Malabo Protocol, a political analyst told TSFT

Kenyan President William Ruto says his country will ratify the 2014 Malabo Protocol by September in a move towards making the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) an official legislative organ of the African Union (AU).

The Malabo Protocol seeks to convert the PAP into a full-fledged legislative body, which would hold jurisdiction over international and transnational organized crimes; in other words, creating an African international crimes court.

The protocol must be approved by at least 28 countries before it can enter into force. However, only 15 of the 22 signatories to the protocol in 2014 have ratified it, making Kenya the 16th.

Ken Bosire, a Kenyan political analyst, told RT that Nairobi’s decision to give the PAP legislative power is a “positive move” that could inspire other African leaders to follow suit. “The new president of Kenya seems to have some kind of persuasive sway among leaders of the region,” he added.

You can share this story on social media:

PLEASANT MUSIC FOR YOUR CAFE, BAR, RESTAURANT, SWEET SHOP, HOME

SUITABLE MUSIC FOR YOGA LOVERS

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!


Continue Reading

FINANCE

POLITICS

OPINION

LIFE

Trending