Many Americans were horrified this morning.
Some were left speechless upon finally seeing the day-after devastation that Hurricane Michael had wrought on the Florida panhandle: buildings flattened like pancakes in the street as if smashed by some gigantic rubber-mallet, trees uprooted like Tinker-Toys, leaving entire communities shell-shocked, isolated, and stunned by the monstrous fury of the storm.
Others were horrified at seeing the NYSE markets experience their second consecutive day of extreme trading volatility - as of the time of this writing, the DOW is down around 300 points, following yesterday's 800 point free-fall - the markets taking a cue from the disturbing pronouncements of the President earlier this morning regarding the Federal Reserve.
But then, there was Kanye West's televised appearance with the President in the Oval Office.
A deranged performance
In spite of these pressing, real-world concerns to most Americans, President Trump found more than enough time to hold a lengthy press-spray with famous pop-star, Kanye West.
Seated facing each other at an utterly empty Resolute Desk, the President listened to the much-beloved rapper hold forth in a freewheeling rant, covering topics as diverse as quantum physics, West's memories of his childhood, global economics, West's own issues with mental health, education, issues regarding race, financial success, and many other topics.
There was no discernible central topic, nor did the President attempt to engage the pop star on any specific point.
A central agenda or purpose behind the 20 minute-long confab was also not made clear.
In spite of this, a full complement of news cameras (crowded into every conceivable square foot of floor space) snapped pictures constantly throughout.
"If we don't look good..."
By the time Mr. West produced a cellphone image of an experimental "hydrogen powered" airplane he referred to as the "IPlane One," showing the image on the screen to the President while stating that it should be the replacement for Air Force One (quoting a tagline from an old TV commercial as he did so), it became clear to most Americans that the meeting had gone off the rails.
The President's demeanor (a combination of stoic, taciturn, stoicism commingled with a thin veneer of patient disinterest) did not waiver throughout. It was only until the ordeal mercifully came to its nonsensical conclusion that the bewildered chief executive lauded the speech as being "quite impressive."
Mr. West then took questions from the assembled press, expounding discursively along tangential lines of logic which bore no resemblance to coherent human thought.
Misguided MAGA outreach
President Trump's "MAGA Agenda" is widely unpopular among the African American community - mainly for its barely concealed overtones of racism, and its near-overt endorsement of White Supremacy in the wake of the Charlottesville incident last year. Thus, in spite of the amazingly deranged quality that predominated Mr. West's performance in the West Wing today, one can only assume that President Trump decided that it was worth ignoring the natural disaster that had befallen the country, along with the sundry negative press associated with the stock market's plunge, in order to do some celebrity outreach to minority constituents.
Was it horrifying? Nonsensical? Deeply insane?
Yes: it was all of those things (and more), but, with the mid-term elections looming, if we have learned one thing about this President, it's that he will go to whatever depths he needs to in order to shore up his tenuous grip on power.
