Advice to Trump: Be Bored

Donald Trump is not the laid-back type.  He never seems to be bored.  Indeed, he never seems to sleep or let the slightest thing go, tweeting away about almost anything at an hour most of us are trying to get a little precious shut-eye. Nothing goes by without a comment from Donald.

Over a year ago,  I said he had  a signal-to-noise problem. Although that wasn’t a particularly original observation, it was certainly true.

I have some advice for Donald on how to solve this. For the good of your presidency, for the good of all of us, cultivate the fine art of boredom.

That doesn’t mean you have to stay in bed all day like Oblomov in the brilliant Russian novel of the same name.  Just yawn a bit and look the other way.

And speaking of Russians, the boredom can start right there, with this whole asinine Russia kerfuffle. Be bored with it.  Trust me, everyone is already seriously bored with it themselves, with the exception of some dimwits at CNN who insist on stupefying their own already diminished and stupefied audience until there is no one left.  Leave this one to the lawyers. They’re used to belaboring the trivial to death.  That’s what we pay them for.

And while you’re at it, be bored with mid-level celebrities. Hell, make that all celebrities. Trust me again: there’s no one more boring than that crew — A list, B list or C list. Who cares what Joe Scarborough or Rosie O’Donnell thinks?  Ask your “deplorables.”  I can assure you that they don’t. Ignore those celebs and they’ll vanish into thin air.

Object lesson: Megyn Kelly. She was once your nemesis but she’s so boring she’s going away all by herself without your saying a word. See what silence (and a little boredom) can do.

And finally — and I know others will think I’m crazy for saying so — be bored with healthcare… but don’t tell anybody or they’ll hate you for it. You were right in the first place.  It’s too complicated. And not just for you — for everybody.  Nobody understands it, not even that genius Dr. Charles Krauthammer.  He admitted as much on Tucker Carlson’s show, which, as a constant viewer, no doubt you saw yourself.  No one is ever going to figure out healthcare because there is no satisfactory answer. In other words, much as I regret to say it, be bored with it.  Move on.  Trust me a third time — people will still go to the doctor when they’re sick and even when they’re not.

Now this “boredom” doesn’t mean you have to do nothing.  Au contraire. There’s plenty to do for someone as energetic as you are.

First of all, there’s taxes. Unlike healthcare, everyone understands that. And as it happens, the Wall Street Journal just reported another record in the mountain of cash U.S. tech companies are keeping abroad to avoid the ridiculously high U.S. corporate tax rate.

Cash held by U.S. non-financial companies notched its largest increase, 9.2%, to set a fresh record of $1.84 trillion at the end of 2016, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service. Moody’s estimates that roughly 70% of total corporate cash, or a record $1.3 trillion, is held overseas.

A pretty penny, all waiting for someone to lower that rate and bring the booty back home.  And think what could be done with it.  Here’s a suggestion — make a deal with Apple, Microsoft, et al. If they invest some of their multiple foreign billions in our inner cities, they’ll get an even bigger tax break.

Speaking of breaks, that could break the back of the hideous Democratic Party identity politics our black populations have been living under for so many years. Do it. Now. Don’t look back.

But that’s only one place to go, if you’re looking forward and not backwards at all the envious swamp critters  nipping at your heels. By paying attention to them, you only give them impetus to nip more, take bigger bites until….

As I said, be bored instead.  And if you’re still angry and can’t really be bored, do the next best thing — act bored!

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media.  His latest book is I Know Best:  How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If  It Hasn’t Already. He tweets @rogerlsimon.