Trump's cult of ignorance undermines policy at home

What’s so terrifying is that the Great Leader rejects any advice from the knowledgeable, even though he clearly doesn’t know what he is doing — about tariffs, an aggressive Russia, or winning the technological race between America and China

- 

Watching a video of President Donald Trump's Cabinet members lavishly praising him a week ago reminded me of the effusive earnestness of former Soviet politburo members toward their communist party chairman.

Our government appears to be in the grip of a similar Cult of Personality, in which everyone must extol the Great Leader — and none dares criticise any decision, no matter how dumb. You might also say the White House is enmeshed in a Cult of Ignorance. This particular round of Cabinet praise was for another of Trump's ill-informed tariff moves, which are tanking a healthy US economy and driving it towards a recession.

The same level of presidential ignorance has propelled a global trade war. And it lies behind Trump's attacks on America’s most valuable resources at home—including higher education, scientific research, and security institutions. It is also making America more vulnerable to enemy attack. What’s so terrifying is that the Great Leader rejects any advice from the knowledgeable, even though he clearly doesn't know what he is doing — about tariffs, an aggressive Russia, or winning the technological race between America and China. Those who could inform him are either fired or not welcome in his administration to begin with. The level of self-harm being wreaked on the country by the know-nothing in the Oval Office is already so dire that I believe it will boomerang, when it begins to bite ordinary Americans so hard that even Trump supporters have to realise he is a con man. And when a few non-brain-dead GOP senators can no longer stand the damage he is inflicting on the United States.