Letter From an American in São Paulo

Part 3 of 4

Thanks for checking out Part 3 of my op-ed. A few comments about this installment:

I’ve often wondered whether Brazilians who are not proficient in English can appreciate the extent to which the United States is profoundly and irredeemably fucked. The extent to which we have become a failed nation. I say this because, can non-English speakers realize how scary it is for us Americans to hear our president talk?

It’s not the content of Trump’s speech that is the issue, although the "thoughts" he struggles to convey are invariably quite alarming. Brazilians can always find out what Trump is saying, or trying to say, through their domestic news media. No, it is how Trump speaks that is the scary thing. It’s his incoherent rambling, the non sequiturs, the whining and self-pity, the inability to fit words into sentences, his irrelevant digressions, and his mind-numbing, repetitive anecdotes and obsessions.

Don’t you need to be somewhat proficient in English in order to realize how crazed and abnormal this verbal diarrhea is? To understand that never, since our nation was founded 250 years ago, has there been a president so incapable of speaking English in a normal, articulate manner? Can non-English speakers viscerally realize one of the most stunning truths of our era? That the so-called “leader of the free world” is unbelievably, jaw-droppingly stupid! An idiot manchild!

So this is what I was thinking when I wrote this part of my opinion piece. I wondered whether I might induce Folha to print some of Trump’s verbatim public remarks – translated accurately into colloquial Portuguese. Such a transcript would necessarily be a bit nonsensical and incoherent. But still, if I succeeded, I would be performing a valuable public service. Brazilians would be able to experience the pain, embarrassment and horror that so many Americans feel every day we listen to the news!

Now to be clear, when you consider our president in isolation – absent the real-world consequences – he is not a scary man. If anything, Trump’s idiocy makes him seem comical. He is more cartoonish than any cartoon could be. He is a clown, a buffoon, a carnival barker.

What’s scary is that Americans re-elected him for a second four-year term. And here’s the really crazy part. It isn’t surprising that Trump won despite having been proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be a traitor, a rapist, and a felon. No, what’s shocking is that he was elected despite being so in-your-face stupid! And that – along with the evidence he is mentally ill – Trump’s unfitness for public office should be obvious to any sentient adult, regardless of ideology or personal politics.

Donald Trump is not the cause of America’s decline and failure; he’s merely a symptom.

PART 3

Experience America’s Agony; Just Listen to This Idiot!

Let me share some other related, disturbing things I’ve been seeing on television. Recently, the most corrupt president in U.S. history was in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he was using Americans’ taxpayer dollars to open his newest golf course. In addition to presiding over the ribbon-cutting ceremony, he attended to some other business during the five-day trip. At another one of his Scottish luxury golf resorts, in Turnberry, Trump met with the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, to negotiate a tariff agreement. Before the meeting, they conducted a joint press event in the resort’s ballroom.

For us Americans, it’s always an excruciating and embarrassing experience to watch our president interact with adults. And especially with adults who lead other countries. Trump used the event to make the European press corps aware of the urgent and weighty concerns that occupy his thoughts.

Trump: (Welcoming the Madam President) “You know, we just built this ballroom, and we’re building a great ballroom at the White House. The White House has wanted a ballroom for 150 years, but they never had a real estate person. You know, nobody, no president, knew how to build a ballroom. But this just opened, you know, relatively short time ago. And it’s been quite the success. And, uh, I think I was just saying I could take this one, drop it right down there, and it would be beautiful. This is exactly what they’ve wanted. But it’s an honor to have you at the new ballroom at Turnbury, and thank you very much.”

Almost right away, a reporter asks, “Should Israel be doing more to allow food into Gaza?” Trump erupts in anger. He prefers to talk about other things.

Trump: “Well, you know, we gave sixty million dollars two weeks ago, and nobody even acknowledged it. For food. And it’s terrible! You know, you really at least want to have somebody say, ‘Thank you.’ No other country gave anything. We gave sixty million dollars two weeks ago for food, for Gaza, and nobody acknowledged it. Nobody talks about it. And it makes you feel a little bad when you do that, and you know you have other countries not giving anything. None of the European countries, by the way, gave. Nobody gave but us. And nobody said, ‘Gee, thank you very much.’ And it would be nice to have, at least, a thank you. And I took a lot of heat! You know, when I do that a lot of people aren’t happy about that because they say, ‘Well, why are we doing it, and nobody else?’ But I think we had a humanitarian reason for doing it.”

A reporter then follows up, asking Trump how he feels when he sees images of starving children. Trump avoids saying whether he feels any emotions when he sees children starving. However, he does smugly note that these types of images only serve to confirm his belief that, “that whole place is a mess.” Then, Trump pivots to the things he enjoys talking about – things like how all the leaders of Europe are jealous that he gets to parade around the world accompanied by such a sexy, choice piece of . . . country.

Trump: “And I think in many respects, we probably have the most successful, and I say it every time. Every leader, when I went to NATO the other day, every leader said, ‘You have the hottest country in the world!’ We are, we have, the hottest country in the world. We’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars. Uh, we have the highest stock market we’ve ever had. We have the best numbers we’ve ever had. But we have hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our, our country. And I think it’s, uh, the hottest. And by the way, one year ago our country was dead. We had a dead country. Because of an incompetent president and incompetent Democrats. All they know how to do is talk and think about conspiracy theories and nonsense. If they’d waste their time talking about America being great again, it would be so much nicer, so much easier, be very successful. But we were a dead country and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

During all this time, Ms. von der Leyen cannot get a word in edgewise. And for that she is very grateful. She knows that everything this idiot says is lies and bullshit. For example, the amount of food and humanitarian aid the European Union and its member states have provided Gaza dwarfs what the U.S. has given. In January 2025, the European Commission announced a €120 million humanitarian aid package, bringing the EU’s total aid to Gaza to over €450 million since 2023. Since Israel partially eased its blockade of Gaza, in mid-May 2025, European countries that have conducted food airdrops include Spain, Germany, France and Belgium.

Also, the U.S. did not recently provide $60 million in funding! It authorized $30 million, which was matched by an additional $30 million from Israel. And these funds cannot be accurately described as supporting food aid. Rather, they support the operations of GHF, which is part of the deliberately designed architecture of genocide.

But Ms. von der Leyen wisely opts not to correct or interact with Trump. Doing so would risk provoking a man who has the impulse control of a toddler. Rather, she just sits back and maintains a stoic facial expression that masks her feelings of contempt and incredulity.

When this press event began, it was looking as though European nations were going to end up being slapped with a 15% tariff rate. (And that indeed is the outcome.) Of course, this is utter insanity. It will harm the economies of all involved. In the U.S., it will drive up inflation and worsen our staggering rates of income and wealth inequality. But still, for a while there, it was looking like Europe might face a tariff rate as high as 30%. Crazily enough, then, an outcome of 15% would widely be regarded as a win.

So just stay calm. Continue to praise and flatter the manchild. Above all, don’t get him angry!

OK readers, let’s get back to the press event. Now Trump brings up an irrelevant topic that nobody has even mentioned. For no reason whatsoever, he launches into an extended tirade about . . . windmills!

Trump: “We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States. They’re killing us. They’re killing the beauty of our scenery, our, our valleys, our beautiful plains. And I’m not talking about airplanes. I’m talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas in the United States. And you look up and you see windmills all over the place. It’s a, it’s a horrible thing. It’s the most expensive form of energy. It’s no good! They’re made in China, almost all of them. Uh, when they start to rust and rot in eight years, uh, you can’t really turn them off, you can’t bury them. They won’t let you bury the propellers, you know, the props, because they’re a certain type of fiber that doesn’t go well with the land. That’s what they say. The environmentalists say you can’t bury them because the fiber doesn’t go well with the land. In other words, if you bury it, it will harm our soil. The whole thing is a con job. It’s very expensive. . . I mean, today I’m playing the best (golf) course, I think, in the world – Turnberg. Even though I own it, it’s probably the best course in the world, right? And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills, like, right at the end of the 18th (hole). I say, ‘Isn’t that a shame. What a shame.’”

(Believe it or not, I have greatly abridged this portion of Trump’s remarks. For example, I’m leaving out the parts about how windmills are driving whales crazy. You’re welcome.)

The following day, Trump meets with the Prime Minister of England, Keir Starmer. Along with the Prime Minister’s wife, Victoria, they stand outside the golf clubhouse and take questions from the press. A reporter asks Trump if he agrees with Netanyahu’s assessment that there is no starvation in Gaza. Trump listlessly replies, “I don’t know. Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry.” At this point, Prime Minister Starmer jumps in and says, with considerably more emotion, “It’s an absolute catastrophe.” He adds, “People in Britain are revolted at seeing what they’re seeing on their screens.”

Now please understand, this is a big moment for the United States. Trump is not a very complicated or articulate guy, so we’ve gotten accustomed to interpreting that hamster wheel that creaks around inside his head. He’s thinking, “Wow, Keir, that’s some pretty strong language you’re using there. Wait. . . is it possible Americans also feel revolted to see starving children? Maybe I should act like I care more about this.” And indeed, the American media treats Trump’s comments as if they are a major breakthrough. Trump has disagreed with his good friend, Bibi Netanyahu! Disagreed with the indicted war criminal who nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize! Trump is not disturbed by the real life catastrophe his policies have helped create. But thanks to the way images of starvation are playing out on television, the President of the United States has just experienced an epiphany: “Those children look very hungry.”

I think people in Brazil must wonder – How can it be that the President of the United States doesn’t give a shit that children are starving? Why is Trump unmoved by images of mothers who are so malnourished they cannot breastfeed their babies? Or of starving parents who carry the bodies of their dead children while they trek to GHF food distribution sites?

I think I know why. It’s the same reason that Trump’s best friend for 15 years, Jeffrey Epstein, was able to rape and sexually abuse hundreds of girls who were 14, 15 and 16 years-old. Was able to destroy their lives without the slightest tinge of remorse. The President of the United States is mentally ill and morally bankrupt. Like Epstein, Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath. He suffers from personality disorders that can be readily diagnosed by mental health professionals.

Many elected leaders and journalists are aware of this calamitous situation, but it is rarely acknowledged or discussed by the American public. Sociopaths believe they are entitled to whatever they desire, whether it be legal or not. They are incapable of the basic human emotion of empathy. In the case of Trump, his sociopathy was most conspicuous during the first term of his presidency – during the pandemic. Not once did he show even the slightest bit of sadness over the fact that COVID-19 was killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. The only emotion he could express was outrage that this goddamn disease was taking so much attention away from him. That it was rudely trying to damage his legacy!

In November 2020, when Biden just barely defeated Trump to win the presidency, the pandemic had begun to wind down. I have always thought that if Trump had only just faked it – just tried to pretend he gave a damn – he may well have won that second, consecutive term as president.

(To be continued, and concluded, in Part 4)