Upon learning that Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, were murdered, President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, immediately reacted by posting on Truth Social.
Needless to say, the Reiner’s murder had nothing to do with Trump. It had nothing to do with TDS. It had nothing to do with driving “people CRAZY” with his “raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump,” curiously written in the third person. But the impetuous Trump couldn’t wait until there was more information and, instead, leapt to the assumption that Reiner’s murder was all about him.
Aside from the hardest core Trump apologists, this reaction was condemned as being too vile, too disgraceful, even for Trump. Even so, supporters like Christopher Rufo offered a rationalization to circumvent the problem of Trump’s impulsive narcissism.
Trump’s Rob Reiner tweet is awful, but this tic is baked into his personality and no amount of media outrage will change it, so most of the intellectuals on the Right will simply ignore it and focus on policy, which is a sensible course of action. This is the Dao of Trumpism.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) December 15, 2025
To trivialize a president’s public statement as a mere “tic” is quite a stretch, but Rufo’s point, that “the Right will simply ignore it” is likely correct. Even those who thought Trump’s impulsive reaction awful, or worse than awful, won’t abandon him and will find some way to compartmentalize whatever drove him to write such a vile and narcissistic screed and distinguish it from the “policy.” to the extent Trump has any actual policy.
What this fails to consider, however, is that this is the guy with his finger on the button, whether it’s the button to bomb boats on the high seas, now up to 95 murders, or impose tariffs against nations that fail to be sufficiently obsequious or don’t treat his buddies the way he would like.
Now that it’s become brutally clear that Trump has no control over his worst impulses, and no one in the White House willing to talk him off the ledge when his gut reaction is to shoot protesters in the legs, can he still be trusted to exercise the increasingly awesome power of the office?
It would be one thing if Trump put thought into his decisions, good or bad as they may be. Sure, you might disagree with what he does, but he was elected president and the nature of democracy is that the will of the people be effectuated, good and hard as Mencken said. But what about purely impulsive actions and reactions, the ones into which no thought, no reason, are put? While the MAGA faithful may respond, “I voted for this,” the vast majority of Americans did not elect a president to do whatever insanely idiotic nonsense pops into his head in the middle of the night without information, deliberation or forethought.
Trump’s reaction to the murders of Rob and Michelle Reiner was absolutely disgusting, but beyond that, reflect his complete lack of impulse control. Trump isn’t just some rando spewing whatever hatred pops into his head, but the President of the United States with the power to destroy, demolish, harm and even kill. Can these powers be left in the hands of someone who cannot control his worst impulses?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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There is no Dao of Trumpism. As my late mother remarked back in 2019, “there is something very wrong with this man.”
So, if I understand you correctly, you don’t think His Fraudulency is doing an A++++ job? You’re clearly suffering from TDS.
Fortunately, there’s a solution in the works. RFK’s FDA will soon announce a drug that both cures TDS and reverses the effects of Narcan.
Just saw this MoJo pc headlined “Rob Reiner Was a Mensch, in Death, He Showed Us Trump’s a Schmuck” and, given it’s Tuesday, decided to share;
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/12/rob-reiner-michelle-death-donald-trump/
Colossians 4:6
“Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
At this point, anyone who hasn’t noticed that Trump is a dick isn’t paying attention. Yet another “Look what a dick Trump is!!!” post doesn’t add anything of value.
The real problem with Trump is that in the ways that matter, he is exactly like every other president. He works for his donors. If they want a war, he starts a war. If they want taxpayer dollars to go to a foreign country, they go there. If they want to import workers to lower wages for Americans, those workers come in.
People voted for Trump because he promised to be different, and it has become obvious that he isn’t.
The real tragedy of Trump lies in his broken promises. If he would end the stupid wars, and stop starting new ones, kick out the illegals, kill the H1B program, and fire 90% of government employees, nobody would care about the stupid things that he says.
I disagree strongly with the premise of your comment although I assume it’s in good faith. However, if he’s so much like all the other corrupt politicians (I think he’s orders of magnitude worse) why does criticism of this one strike a nerve? And I don’t think “stupid” is adequate to the vileness of his rhetoric—I think it’s right to ask whether someone who can utter this crap can or should be trusted with, as Scott notes, increasingly huge powers.
I agree that this comment was utterly vile, but it’s nothing new. People who voted for Trump thought that they were getting someone who routinely said vile things (grab her by the pussy, etc.) but who would stop doing vile things like starting pointless wars, flooding our country with legal and illegal immigrants, and murdering American citizens. The fact that he continues to say vile (and stupid) things is unremarkable. The real problem is that he is enacting the policies that he vowed to fight against.
In a bitterly ironic twist, President Archie Bunker’s actions fail to transcend his utterances. RIP to Mr. and Mrs. Meathead. Good luck to you, sir.
Does this Rufo claim to be an intellectual of the right? If so, he needs to go back and study Daoism harder rather than bastardizing its central term in a vulgar and mundane manner. There’s no harmony here, it’s plain quid pro quo. Benefits in Rufo’s eyes outweigh the costs. He could have just said “tough nuggies, losers,” and left it at that.
That and he’s surrendering good ground to a demented demagogue and his successors no matter their affiliation. If media outrage doesn’t do it, how about outrage from intellectuals to pierce the cloud of sycophancy? Is it worth it to speak up even if you fail?
Setting someone saying something wrong on the internet aside, I will repeat this ad nauseum: POTUS has, without any exaggeration necessary, the power to destroy the world through nuclear holocaust. Whether it would happen and how if the order is given is very important to me. Either way would have drastic consequences.
The founders could have never imagined the apocalyptical dread forces at the command of POTUS, let alone a world where multiple states can wreak similar havoc. Congress instead of checking that power has wilted. SCOTUS instead of checking the ever expanding power is accelerating it. POTUS is plainly disturbed and is eroding the independence of those institutions that would stop an illegal use of force.
In that blinding and evaporating light, it is of the highest priority that the president is a mentally stable individual who will allow himself to be checked and advised especially when making such an extreme decision as launching ICBMs. Forgive my fascination with eschatology, it comes with taking rationales to their ends. I’m not arguing from a base cost-benefit analysis, I’m going even baser with unadorned self-preservation. What’s the doomsday clock at now? As stupid as that is, let’s advance it closer to midnight.
We need more checks on the office, not fewer. Looking at you, SCOTUS. Damn your slavish devotion to originalism. In sum, I say this is an existential threat and has been since at least Truman. Any one of them could have snapped. Then what?
Yes, I do suffer from TDS. Truman Derangement Syndrome. That haberdasher had no business laying sole claim to the nuclear codes.
Scott, the easy answer is he has no business being president. If he has all authority of the office, he is the definition of a “clear and present danger.”
The harder issue is one I can’t begin to unravel: why is no one in government willing to address the danger?
Think of it a slightly different way Trump is the least worst option offered up to the American people by all the elites and other smart people. They could not find anyone else who appealed to a larger slice of the voters.
The problem lies with all the people, in all parties and political wings, who think they know how to pick leaders to run the country, and the system they have created to make it happen. They have driven away everyone who might have been better, because they don’t want to deal with the process,
Oh, and the answer to the question is “yes”.
Focusing on the question raised, it’s impossible to ignore or discount Trump’s inability to act impulsively, and a nation security and future cannot be left in such untrustworthy, undeliberative hands.