As a rule, it’s tough for a president to screw up an Easter message, but early Sunday morning, Donald Trump apparently thought it’d be a good idea to publish a 185-word tirade airing a variety of grievances — it’s possible he confused Easter with Festivus — while condemning a series of perceived foes.
Indifferent to the point of the holiday, the Republican president whined about “Radical Left Lunatics,” “WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges,” and his 2020 election defeat, before turning his attention to his principal target.
Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America. He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
In his bizarre and error-filled missive published to his social media platform — which, again, was ostensibly about one of the most important Christian holidays on the calendar — Trump went on to refer to his Democratic predecessor as a “highly destructive Moron.”
One of the more common criticisms of Trump’s personality is his apparent narcissism. The president is the hero of all of his stories. Every event he describes focuses on developments as they relate to him. He is his own center of gravity — and if you doubt that, he’ll gladly tell you the stories about the big guys who called him “sir” and who cried as they told him it’s true.
But it’s not altogether true to say that Trump sees literally everything through a self-centric lens. There are plenty of other things he also sees through a Biden-centric lens.
The idea of “Biden Derangement Syndrome” never really caught on as a phenomenon during Biden’s term, but to the extent that the ailment exists, there’s reason to believe his successor has contracted a virulent strain, which has gone completely untreated.
Consider last week, for example.
Asked about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Trump responded by talking about Biden. Asked about trade tariffs, Trump responded by talking about Biden. During a late-night exchange aboard Air Force One, a reporter noted the late hour and Trump responded by talking about how Biden would be asleep. Soon after, while talking about his recent cognitive exam, he claimed that the first question he asked his physician was whether Biden took the same test.
At one point last week, Trump declared: “Jimmy Carter died a happy man. You know why? Because he wasn’t the worst president. Joe Biden was.” He wasn’t asked about Carter or Biden, but it was a thought the Republican wanted to share with the press anyway.
Last week was hardly unusual. A week earlier, the Republican spoke to congressional Republicans and asked whether they preferred “Sleepy Joe” or “Crooked Joe” as rhetorical lines of attack, as if this were an important consideration. The week before that, during remarks about trade tariffs, Trump made repeated references to Biden.
When the Signal chat scandal broke, Trump talked about Biden. When NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally returned to Earth, Trump talked about Biden. When lawmakers prepared to approve a budget resolution, Trump talked about Biden. When American hostages returned to the United States, Trump talked about Biden. When he delivered a national address to a joint session of Congress, Trump referenced Biden 16 times.
An analysis conducted by The New York Times found that during the first 50 days of Trump’s second term, he mentioned the name “Biden” an average of 6.32 times per day. The Times’ report added, “It is among his most frequently used terms (he said ‘Biden’ in more speeches than he had said ‘America,’ for example).” The Washington Post had a similar report a couple of weeks after Inauguration Day, noting, “He brought him up just after he was inaugurated. He ridiculed him while touring disaster sites in North Carolina, laughed about him in Las Vegas and pilloried him while delivering a virtual address to business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Joe Biden’s presidency ended two weeks ago. His photos no longer hang on the walls. His artwork choices in the Oval Office are gone. But inside the head of President Donald Trump, he is still very much top of mind.” Even during the 2024 election season, after Biden announced the end of his re-election campaign, Trump couldn’t bring himself to stop talking about him, despite the fact that the Democrat was no longer running. As for why in the world the incumbent continues to obsess over the retired Democrat, it might have something to do with the fact Biden was unpopular, and Trump might very well think he’ll look better in the eyes of the public when compared with his immediate predecessor. But I tend to think the explanation is more straightforward than that. Notwithstanding his forgotten Reform Party bid a quarter-century ago, Trump has run three national campaigns, and he won two of them. The third he lost, by a healthy margin, to Biden. And by all appearances, he’s still not over it.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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