Trump's latest poorly phrased tweet

Donald Trump's basic platform is a commonsensical one. He doesn't want us to get involved in endless wars of attrition in the Middle East. He wants better relations with Russia (which is what Hillary advocated early on as Secretary of State, though she's trying to demonize Trump for advocating the same right now). He wants to cut back on illegal immigration, and strenuously vet legal immigrants from countries with a history of terrorism. He wants to stop exporting American jobs abroad, and he wants American companies to stop reincorporating abroad.

These are all policies which would benefit the country, and in particular, the middle class.

The problem is not the message, but the messenger. Trump is the most tone deaf, vain, thin-skinned, insulting, inarticulate candidate imaginable. Witness his Tweet after NBA player Dwyane Wade's cousin was shot dead on the streets of Chicago recently:

"Just what I have been saying. African Americans will VOTE TRUMP!"

It's insensitive, ill-timed, and incoherent. If you take it literally, it means that Trump was predicting that Wade's cousin would be killed -- and that somehow because of the murder, blacks will vote for Trump. (Obviously, this isn't what he meant, but that's a tribute to his inarticulateness.)

Note that Trump didn't bother with any condolences, and instead just immediately seized on the murder to make political hay. Hours later, his camp released another Tweet, "My condolences to Dwyane Wade and his family, on the loss of Nykea Aldridge. They are in my thoughts and prayers." But this standard boilerplate was obviously just damage control after the first Tweet.

And making political hay so soon after a murder makes Trump as exploitative and shameless as Obama, who starts talking gun control within 24 hours of every mass shooting.

The Trump campaign Tweets on a regular basis. Some of the Tweets come from his staff, some from the candidate himself. You can almost always tell the two sets apart because the latter are usually awkwardly phrased and often boorish.

What Trump undoubtedly meant with his Tweet was that if you're a resident of the inner city, and you want to stop these senseless murders, you should vote for the candidate who favors law and order, not the one who favors the BLM movement. And, of course, he's right about that: the police kill far, far fewer blacks than are killed by other blacks. But, somehow, he couldn't manage to convey that.

It's almost as if Trump has a mild case of ADHD, with a touch of Tourette's.

A lot of people automatically assume Trump must be brilliant because he's a billionaire. But the truth is, he inherited a real estate empire (despite what he says) and moved into Manhattan real estate as he was coming of age, in just the right era, the 1970's, when real estate was set to skyrocket.

A number of people have analyzed Trump by saying that he's slyly Machiavellian, and he knows exactly how to tar his opponents so that they look like losers. And it's true that once you've called an opponent, say, "low energy," or "ugly," people tend to see them in that light. But this may be giving him too much credit: what comes out of his mouth are just the uninhibited insults of a narcissist. I've known other narcissists who were the same way, and they weren't necessarily smart.

Trump obviously hasn't done his homework on foreign policy, and seemingly has no intention of doing it. Half the time when someone asks him what he's going to do about a particular problem, he just talks about what a great job he's going to do solving it, without explaining how. And a lot of people have fallen for it, because he's Donald Trump, billionaire.

Trump isn't dumb. He has good instincts, and a realistic handle on what's ailing this country. But, it really doesn't take a genius to figure that out, and he just doesn't give off high IQ vibes.

I'm going to vote for him, and I recommend you do the same. But in the remote chance he gets elected, expect to spend the next four years defending your choice from constant, well-deserved attacks against his personality.  (The best defense: hey, I never liked the guy personally, but his policies are better for America than another four years of Obama would have been.)

Hopefully, you'll be right.