His personal charisma
The funniest first paragraph I’ve read so far today:
Donald Trump is embarking on a week of diplomacy and preparation for his first foreign trip as president, aimed at demonstrating that his personal charisma can override longstanding global divisions and conflicts of interest with old allies.
His wut?
Trump doesn’t have charisma; he doesn’t even lack charisma; he has whatever the opposite of charisma is. He’s a force that sucks all the charisma out of the air for miles in every direction. He’s repellent.
Trump’s personality-driven approach seeks to reassert US pre-eminence in the world through consolidating bonds with foreign leaders, most notably autocrats, as long as they are aligned with the administration’s priorities of defeating Islamic State and al-Qaida while containing Iranian influence. Pressure to observe human rights has been explicitly relegated as a foreign policy mission.
The president’s critics argue, however, that abandoning such values damages long-term US aspirations to global leadership. They warn that Trump’s overweening confidence in his own persuasive powers is simply delusional and will not help resolve intractable global conflicts and the often contradictory aims of his own foreign policy objectives.
And even if he were right about his persuasive powers, what good are they if he has all the wrong goals? But he’s not right about them, so we don’t really need to contemplate that question.
[National Security Adviser HR McMaster] laid out the agenda for Trump’s trip, which starts with visits to the ancient capitals of Islam, Judaism and Christianity and culminates in Nato and G7 summits at the end of the following week, describing it in almost messianic terms.
“This trip is truly historic. No president has ever visited the homelands and holy sites of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths all on one trip,” McMaster said. “And what President Trump is seeking is to unite peoples of all faiths around a common vision of peace, progress, and prosperity.”
It will be like a visit from God, but more fun.
Trump’s week starts on Monday with a meeting in Washington with the Abu Dhabi crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, that is supposed to underline US backing for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). There is deep unease in the state department and the Pentagon about the UAE’s human rights record in its role as part of an Arab coalition against Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. But Trump is not expected to raise those concerns in his meeting with the sheikh.
Of course he’s not. What does he care about human rights? They don’t put money in his pocket.
Trump has already made clear he will not let Obama-era opposition to Erdoğan’s creeping authoritarianism become a hindrance in the bilateral relationship. He formally congratulatedthe Turkish president on winning a referendum amending the constitution to give him more power.
For its part, Turkey has also focused on cultivating a personal relationship with Trump. A meeting of Turkish and US business leaders starting next Sunday has been moved to the Trump hotel in Washington.
Putting a lot of money in Trump’s pocket. That’s the important thing.
The consistent message being conveyed in this week’s meetings, and then in the trips to Saudi Arabia and Israel over the weekend, is that US support for its traditional allies is personal and no longer has to be balanced by scruples about human rights or by the pursuit of detente with Iran.
“One of the main comparisons with Obama is that he seemed to be aloof. He didn’t take sides. His temperament was cerebral and over the fray,” said Natan Sachs, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
“Trump is the opposite. He is partisan. He is saying he is on their side. He is saying: ‘We are not the UN. We are not Sweden. We are the US and we are your ally.’”
We like authoritarians and dictators.
“Pressure to observe human rights” has been abandoned as a party of domestic policy too, after all: health care is get-it-if-you-can; voting rights are a matter of Republican fiat; the police are free to kill, maim, and arrest as they like; kittens help you if you’re interested in a union; clean air and water are commodities we’ll be paying for, since the government is out of the business of protecting their access otherwise; and even the health care you DO pay for is subject to approval by the American Taliban.
So yeah – if he didn’t cuddle up to dictators, it’d be hypocrisy. He’s got a vision of America in which rights are some sort of aberration, a distraction, something we’re done making stupid noises about.
If the fate of World Peace is riding on Trump’s charisma, should we be expecting the outbreak of global thermonuclear war by the end of his junket?
To you and me. To lots of people. But it’s undeniable that he also charms lots of people. His followers aren’t putting up with him for the sake of their agenda, despite finding him repellant: they genuinely think he’s smart, successful, patriotic, and other glittering things.
Superficial charm is actually a diagnostic trait of narcissistic personality disorder (and of sociopathy). People find them charming, right up until they’ve been screwed over. Many people come to recognize the narcissist as such only with difficulty and after a long time — if at all.
Nevertheless, trying to charm the Israelis and Palestinians into making friends is so beyond laughable that your point remains intact: the article you quote isn’t even wrong. It’s off on so many levels.
Avenger, I agree. Some people find snarling anger attractive (in the “right sort” of people). They are angry that other people, who don’t look like them, are claiming rights they believe are exclusive to right thinking people of the right color and gender, and Trump is also angry at those same people, and mocks them, calls them names, and otherwise makes his followers feel superior to the rest of us.
My whole family is hooked on this man. My ex’s family is hooked on this man. Most of my colleagues think he’s the best thing that’s happened to America since Andrew Jackson. They even find his inability to speak coherently charming…it shows he’s not pretentious, snobbish, elite, and educated. He’s one of them. People who make fun of Trump’s speech patterns are making fun of ordinary, patriotic Americans.
He has no charisma for anyone that reads this site, but for the people who think Milo Yiannapolous is an expert in feminism, he has the charisma of Santa Claus, Jesus, and John Wayne rolled into one. (Never mind that we would find that a horrifying combination – Santa Claus walking on water while wielding a six-shooter? Ouch – for some, it is the ideal).
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1538890229462766/?type=3&theater
I would laugh, except the outcomes are too awful to imagine. If he isn’t capable of realising there are some things he shouldn’t tell Russian visitors to the White House; gawd knows what ‘s going to happen when he’s out visiting the world.
It may be nearly impossible to imagine, but there seem to be enough people charmed by Trump’s charisma to keep him in power.
Alice Miller, in her book on toxic child-rearing ‘For Your Own Good,’ used Hitler (alas) as an example: he appeared absurd and comical to foreigners, and most educated Germans, but even those who went to his speeches to mock often came away converts. His ‘act’ managed to sweep away their intelligent judgement in a tide of sentiment and displaced fervor.