this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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According to the lore, Fred Trump, while in the grips of Alzheimer's, insisted on still going to work every day. And the people that surrounded him, in order to let him keep feeling powerful while minimizing the amount of damage he could do to their business dealings, would have him sit in an executive office all day signing papers.

With that backdrop, I got to thinking. I know the administration has been planning on using a steady stream of EOs to keep overwhelming the news cycle. But I think the people surrounding Trump also realize he's completely toast at this point and they're deploying the Fred Trump strategy of keeping him busy signing "very important papers."

That was all. Just some random shower thoughts that were probably too political for the showerthoughts community.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

He's exercising (or attempting to exercise) much more executive power than prior Presidents. Even if he has dementia (and I doubt he does) then whoever gives him papers to sign clearly has no intent to minimize the amount of damage he could do.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

It makes sense if you assume that "damage" refers to damage to the fascist takeover of America. Trump can do bullshit cultural war stuff while the competent fascists undermine American democracy.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I bet he didn't even sign his own executive orders.
Remember about 3 weeks ago that Trump was claiming all of Biden's pardons were invalid because of use of an autopen?
I'm pretty sure that was just projection because Trump hasn't been signing his own executive orders, and since I'm already speculating, I'm going to bet he didn't write or read them either.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Even though it’s usually true that with the GOP “every accusation is a confession”, I doubt it’s true here. Did he write the EOs? Definitely not. Did he read them? Almost assuredly no. He definitely signs them, though. He’s a narcissist with a big sharpie. He loves that shit. Probably his favorite part of the job.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

There's a clip I'm too tired to find right now but someone puts an EO on the desk in front of him and he says "oooh, what's this one?", like it's a slice of birthday cake he's trying, and he's already signing before anyone even starts to tell him what it is.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

In his 2nd term, Nancy gave Ronald Reagan jellybeans so they could dub the voiceovers in the oval office. So, they've done it before!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I agree with your ultimate assessment, but Trump doesn't sound noticeably worse or more forgetful than he did 4 or 8 years ago, so I think it's less dementia or whatever and more just 'don't let him touch anything important because he will break it, co-opt it, or otherwise fuck it up.'