(This is a revised version of a column I wrote seven years ago. I’m recognizing my birthday companions today.)

By Bob Gaydos

    As a news story, Donald Trump pretending to be president got old for me very fast. Same story, different details every day. For 10 years now.

    A few years back, I wondered how people who still got paid to have opinions dealt with it. Maureen Dowd answered my question. I read her column in The New York Times that carried the headline, “Crazy Is As Crazy Does.” Yes, it was about Trump. It was still in his first term. 

     She began by describing her waking thoughts as another morning arrived. About the talents of an actress and an actor she admired and their TV shows. About a book she had apparently just read or was reading. And then, abruptly, reality set in: “Once I’m completely awake, a gravitational pull takes hold and I am once more bedeviled by our preposterous president,” she wrote.

         “I flip on the TV and gird for the endless stream of vitriol coming from the White House, bracing for another day of overflowing, overlapping, overwrought news stories about Trump. I’m sapped before I arise. …

        “My head hurts, puzzling over whether Trump is just a big blowhard … or a sinister genius …”

         Me too, I sighed. Glad to know I’m not alone. 

         I’m also not alone in my belief in synchronicity.

         Coincidence? I’m with Carl Jung on that. The Swiss psychologist who gave us the word defined synchronicity as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.”

     As in, what are the chances that, after setting aside Dowd’s column and being shamed into participating in a decluttering exercise at home, I would “stumble upon” a slim book I’d never heard of that instantly uncluttered my mind on how to explain what in the world was going on in Donald Trump’s mind.

     It’s “Bullshit.”

     Literally.

     Some explanation is necessary.

     The house decluttering was precipitated by a prevailing notion that I had collected too much stuff (an occupational hazard, I believe) and some of it had to go, but we would find a safe resting place for the stuff that was worth keeping. One of the safe places was a lovely, old cabinet in which other stuff was resting. Old tapes, photos and books. Among the books was the aforementioned slim volume.

      I read the title: “On Bullshit.”

      The decluttering came to a momentary halt. Was this a joke? As it turns out, no. Oh, there is humor in this 67-page essay, but the author, Harry G. Frankfurt, it also turns out, was a distinguished philosopher, professor emeritus at Princeton University, which published the book. This was serious. In fact, the book was a New York Times best-seller in 2005 and Frankfurt discussed it on YouTube, which tells you something about my attention to literary news.

       But the point, and I’m finally getting to it, is that after months of trying to out-pundit everyone else writing about Trump and continuing to wonder why he does what he does, Frankfurt laid it out in a way that anyone, except maybe Trump, can understand — the man is a bullshit artist.

       It dawned on me as I read Frankfurt’s explanation of the difference between liars — which Trump has been crowned champion of all time by those who keep score — and bullshitters. (If the language offends you, I apologize, but Frankfurt says “humbug” is not the same. Also, the times have changed and I’ve been labeled an enemy of the people for treating the truth with respect.)

      As Frankfurt explains, the difference between liars and bullshitters is that liars are acquainted with the truth. They have to be to maintain their lies. There is a discipline involved. Bullshitters don’t care. They make stuff up as they go along, saying whatever seems necessary to them at the time to appear to know what’s going on. It isn’t a matter so much of bullshit being false, Frankfort says, as of it being phony. It’s meant to convey an impression. It’s like bluffing. And too much of it can carry over into a general laxity about how things really are.

        As Frankfurt writes, “The bullshitter is faking things.” It’s not a matter of concealing the truth, because sometimes the bullshitter will speak the truth. It is a matter of concealing “what he is up to.” And, Frankfort says, those who are good at it seem to have no trouble attracting gullible believers. Boy isn’t that the truth. 

       Frankfort mentions patriotic politicians who, on the Fourth of July, give grand speeches extolling all the wonderful things this country represents, not that those things are false or lies or B.S., but because the speaker wants others to believe he believes in them and is a true patriot. Again, sadly, history has shown this to be true. We can expect more of this on Flag Day, June 14, which happens to be Trump’s birthday. He’s celebrating with a UFC boxing exhibition on the White House lawn because what could be more American. Same old story, different details.

       One last word on synchronicity. Professor Frankfort, who died in 2023, just happened to share the same birth date with me: May 29. His book, an unexpected gift, rests in a drawer in my bed stand, lest I forget.