Trump Psychology
Trump Psychology
Recent events support the following conjecture: the whole thing arises from the fact that Trump thinks (correctly) that European leaders dislike and despise him, while be believes, falsely, that the dictators of the world like and admire him. He also envies Zelensky’s ability to draw standing ovations. The only reason he stays in NATO is that if he leaves, he won’t be able to exert power over and punish those leaders. He would instantly hook up with Putin and Kim (and other tyrants) if they declared him their idol. Then they could manipulate him at will. We may therefore expect these outcomes to happen. It is the same pattern we observe in domestic politics. He will not lose support at home if this prediction is correct.
His siding with Putin over Ukraine effectively means that he has pulled the U.S. out of NATO. I don’t see how he can any longer exert power over its member countries.
I’m not sure I’m following you. If he remains a member de jure doesn’t he still have some power?
If he has pulled the U.S. out of NATO de facto, then I don’t see an incentive for other member nations to pay attention to him. I am ignorant of what de jure powers amount to.
I don’t know how the NATO power structure works, but I would have thought if you are still officially a member you have voting rights, a right to attend meetings, and whatever else belongs to membership. But this seems quite beside the point of what I was saying. My point was that his motivation for staying in is only that he can exert power over other leaders.
At his philosophy blog, Brian Leiter has a post titled “NATO is dead,” in which he quotes Andrew Sullivan with approval. I mention this in case anyone is interested, not to make a point.
You’re right that this time around Trump is being Trump- a few points: first, there will be crisis after criss; second, his rather chilling power grab will vie with the fruits of his dithering and reckless incompetence; finally, while die hard Trump fanatics might stick with him to the bitter end, while maybe the Christian nationalists will probably not abandon him, people who care about the economy, ie the oligarhcs might turn on him. He made a deal with both factions: I’ll give you an America as a Christian fortress and destory the government, in return for absolute power. Even if the Congress impeached and removed him from office, he would never comply and he has his thugs and cronies installed in the high places. Could there result a coup? Again what wins out Trump’s chaos gone too far or Trump the accomplished criminal mastermind? Chto delet tovarish? Nada.
In fact all his actions that are so incompetent and damaging are th e same acts that give him ultimate power- his lust for power is inseperable from his utter incompetence.
You’d have to make a case for that assertion before I’d consider it, and also explain how you seemingly equate incompetence with damaging.
First the majority of his cabinet are incompetent, so no one will block him from his damaging policies. Take the DOGE chainsaw of eliminating government waste: it is boosting Trump’s power while denuding government; plus they are very cluumsy about it. Take the tarrifs; a bold gesture of excessive authority, yet it already has brought turmoil to the stock market. The new chief of staff is a bit unhinged and Kennedy is unprepared for a pandemic and seems paranoid about basic medical science. We can go on: his alliance with Russia against Ukraine an dour allies’ part of his power grab announcing he’s the new power in Washington yet very damaging diplomatically and for the economy. Why do you doubt that his lust for power is not interwtined with his incompetence? Can you name any counter examples?
The whole Trump situation is fascinating. In doing what he has done, he has exerted America’s power while at the same time diminishing its future influence as Europe and Uk will now be increasing their own defence spending and will make an attempt to shore up Ukraine to some degree.
Yes the European leaders mostly can’t stand him, but they are now in a position of looking weak to their own electorates if they pander to him. We can discuss whether the US should ever have had so much influence, but the end result will be a rebalancing.
At first it seems that rebalancing would be what Trump wants in the long term (if he thinks past the end of the week), but Europe trying to take up slack now is undermining his Ukraine squeeze strategy. They are pretending to listen to him about upping spending, but actually defying him by attempting to support Ukraine with that expenditure. Although it’s true that Ukraine doesn’t have that many cards, they do have a slight hold on Trump in that he made himself a hostage to fortune with his “24 hours” claim, there is some self imposed pressure to look like the big man and sort this all out – the longer it drags on now – the weaker he will look. The other card (and possibly the Ace of hearts of it all) is that Trump so dearly wants a Nobel peace prize, but we can doubt very much he’s going to get it for being Putin’s useful idiot. We can imagine that the Ukrainians will cave at some point, but it is a little surprising that they have not yet – though I’m pretty sure it’s because no-one has any faith in Trump’s motives so they mistrust him on any future arrangements.
To pick up on what Henry said, it’s not that America has left NATO, it’s more that they have undermined it, possibly fatally – I doubt any NATO member would now believe that the US would come to their defence (though they were perhaps foolish to have ever believed it – Putin certainly doesn’t).
I think it might even be good for NATO if Trump officially leaves it. Then Europe can do sensible things without having to consult the US.
The invitation from King Charles should be withdrawn.
Yes, but all the weapon systems used by NATO are American made to a degree aren’t they?
Some but not all.
That’s a fair summation of the situation to date. My thoughts are with the Ukrainian citizens and the soldiers of both sides of this disastrous Putin-initiated carnage. Commentators on BBC’s Newsnight last night were as nervous as kittens discussing the latest disastrous White House act: the withdrawal of US intelligence from Kyiv. Trump has finally shattered any residual vestige of trust and goodwill that may have existed between Europe and the US. In relation with the UK specifically, ‘special’ went some time ago to be replaced with a more realistic tenuous.
Totally true and liable to get worse. Not sharing intelligence is sheer evil, not even justified by the cost. Trump is trying to make Ukraine lose.