The world is changing so quickly it is impossible to keep up to date. As soon as an article like the one that follows is finished it’s outdated within a day or so. The world is in flux, a period of instability. And one person,the President of the USA, is a major accelerant of that process.
Trump’s insatiable thirst for universal admiration keeps on accelerating. His quest for personal recognition knows no bounds. The man’s narcissism is such he is never satisfied for very long with any victory. He seeks constant reassurance of his omnipotence.
Like a shark, he moves on seeking new areas in which to assert his dominance, his ‘greatness’ – and his self-confessed, intuitive ‘infallibility’.
Here is a man who believes the knowledge, experience, expertise, social values, morals and the desire to serve of others are mere incidentals that are easily and legitimately trumped by the wisdom of his own gut feelings.
Science means little to him, nor does history, medicine, macro- economics, data or rational thinking. He feels little need for such time wasting niceties except to cherry pick them to prop up stories that support his point of view – and attract his base.
Facts are irrelevant. If they don’t fit, Trump just changes them to suit his storytelling.
On the domestic front Trump asserts the 2020 election was rigged against him, that Putin didn’t and doesn’t interfere in US elections, that Canada (indeed most of the rest of the world) exploits the US, that his tariffs don’t cause inflation, that America’s leading universities are antisemitic, that Obama wasn’t born in America, that he (Trump) wasn’t close to Epstein. He raves that undocumented illegals are poisoning the blood of America, illegals are stealing American jobs etc. He fires those in powerful positions and replaces them with ‘loyal’ henchmen and women. Last month he fired the Labor Employment Statistician for failing to produce the data he wanted to ‘prove’ the economy was improving under his administration.
Trump complains about ‘fake news’ while being a major practitioner of this dark art. He lies when it’s to his advantage. Lying is so much a part of his modus operandi he’s reached the point where he probably believes his own fabrications.
On the international front Trump blames Zelensky for provoking Russia’s invasion, talks about benevolently restarting arms supplies to Ukraine, just as Biden did. In fact he cut off free arm supplies to Ukraine. Instead the US now sells arms to the Europeans who then give them Ukraine. He also pressured Ukraine to enter a 50-50 ‘profit’ deal for Ukrainian rare minerals. He’s more of a trader than statesman.
He pretends to be a humanitarian, but is allowing Netanyahu to occupy the whole of Palestine. He claims to respect other nations but suggests America might take over Canada (‘our 51st. State’), Panama and Iceland (‘they’d be better off’). He deports the undocumented to third world countries that he himself describes as shitholes.
Trump cares little for anyone without the wealth or power to advance his own aggrandisement. Trump loves money, glitz, power and being in the spotlight. Dollars first, people last.
While employing stand over tactics with America’s oldest and closest allies, ignoring the needs of the world’s needy and betraying his base of working-class Americans (by significantly cutting back on Medicare, Medicaid and welfare safety net programmes in his “big beautiful bill”) Trump has repeatedly failed to shirtfront the word’s authoritarian power players like China’s Xi, Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un et al. He exhibits a marked reluctance to take on members of the Big Boys Club, the club he craves to belong to and be respected by. Trump, for some psychological reason, seems mesmerised if not intimidated by their tough-guy authenticity.
Today (on the 16th of August) Trump welcomed Putin to Alaska for yet another summit. On the way to the summit Trump talked-tough, threatening Russia with dire consequences if Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire. Yet as soon as Trump met Putin he reverted to his strange fawning habit of paying deference to – and exhibiting warmth for – the war criminal he’d vowed to bring to heel.
Putin won the day, hands down. Trump left the tete-a-tete with nothing, threatening to vacate the role of world peacemaker if Zelensky refuses to cede territory (and the people who live there) to its invader.
Yet again Trump capitulated. Yet again he proved prepared to stand behind a violent bully boy silently watching the weak being beaten up in the hope of winning favour from one of his strongman idols. His TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) behaviour indicates a deep personal insecurity. That’s a major weakness in the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy. It’s a weakness that not only jeopardises American democracy but one that threatens democracies all around the world, including Australia.
While Trump is effectively destroying democracy by turning the US into a crony form of autocratic capitalism. The timid governments of Australia have gone the other way by doing little more than treading water for two decades, too paralysed to take effective action to address the very real and obvious problems confronting our Country.
Democracies are in decline both internally and externally. So when the warning bells toll remember they’re tolling for us as much as for anyone else.
As aways your comments on the artice which follows are welcome.