The power of his personal charisma
To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
“He thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told me. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”
No, he’d be doing much worse things.
The former president’s admiration for autocrats has been reported on before, but in comments by Trump recounted to me [Jim Sciutto] for my new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” out Tuesday, Kelly and others who served under Trump give new insight into why they warn that a man who consistently praises autocratic leaders opposed to US interests is ill-suited to lead the country in the Great Power clashes that could be coming, telling me they believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.
“He views himself as a big guy,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, told me. “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”
In other words he’s that terrible combination: power-hungry and profoundly stupid.
“Trump believed in the power of his personal charisma and diplomacy,” recalled Matthew Pottinger, his deputy national security adviser, who was deeply involved in Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim and Chinese President Xi. “He had almost unlimited faith in it. That was as true with Kim as it was with Xi — but also with allies too.”
What personal charisma would that be?
Diplomacy?
What diplomacy?
DJT is just such a BABY. He’s jealous of dictators. He wants to dictate. He wants his military parade. He wants his toys. He wants to break everything that isn’t his. He buys golf courses, so he can exclude people, and play a hoity toity game, but he’s no good at it, and he cheats. He cheats at everything, he lies about everything, as easily as he breathes. He’s a grabby little baby, just putting hands on anything that takes his momentary fancy. He has absolutely no morals at all. He knows about some moral rules, which he uses to club other people, but he has no guiding principles at all, only me, me, me, me. He is dangerous, and stupid. He is dangerous partly because he is so stupid. What a nightmare.
Exactly.
Sadly, a good 20% of the population ARE Deplorables for whom this personality is a good thing.
Now, I’m not saying I’m not scared as hell about what a Trump presidency full of prepared basically competent operatives could do, but the one bright spot is that I’m just not seeing the sort of “I’ll vote for Trump because it will be fun to have a clown for a president” social media posts that were ubiquitous in 2016. (2020 was a vote on Trump’s performance so the issue didn’t really arise). This time around people are aware that the man’s a genuine straight-down-the-line fascist and no amount of dime-store irony can disguise that fact. I’m also heartened that there are at least a few Republicans who retain their principles and are prepared to speak out. The End of History ended in 2001– it seems it just took US domestic politics two decades to catch up. This time it’s serious for good or ill.
I mean, Hitler did do some good things. (Cue quip about fascists’ getting the trains running on time.)
He is dangerous not so much because he is stupid, but more because people follow him or prop him up or use his idiocy to push an agenda. There are a lot of stupid people, lots of people saying things like the things he says, but he has people behind him. I am concerned that, if he disappears, the threat of those people does not.
Trump is stupid, intentionally ignorant, and just an incredibly mean and small minded man. And that’s praising him. He’s also got that kind of smart as a snake thing going in certain areas of judgement, which enables him to achieve things that most people will not, because they fundamentally want to do good, constructive things and don’t seek to manipulate and hurt the society they live in. In some ways he’s broken US (even World) politics. In other ways he’ll be a difficult act for anyone else to follow.
On Hitler, well he did make the trains run on time, autobahns, Europe’s first environmental protection laws*, and he was kind to dogs. Still not enough, so he can burn in metaphorical hell.
* Cue cries of “Environmentalists are just like Hitler.”
Francis @ 4 – Well yes this time around people are aware that the man’s a genuine straight-down-the-line fascist but THEY LIKE THAT.
Sackbut @ 6 – well of course it’s both. He wouldn’t be as dangerous as he is if he were just a slum landlord in Queens and unknown in the other boroughs, I realize that, but he’s not.
Yes, it’s the people willing to work with him who are going to be particularly dangerous. They’ve already self-selected as wanting to join Team Evil. They’ll be drawn like flies to shit. Trump is so easily manipulable, and with his cognitive decline, he will be easily led. The poisonous people around him will be able to get him to think that their plans and ideas were his to begin with. Trump will serve as figurehead, cover, and distraction. Trump’s loud, outrageous stupiidty will keep people from noticing the quiet, dangerous things being done in his name by those around him. If they themselves are not stupid, they will be prepared, and will avoid making the mistakes made by their predecessors. They’ll give Trump lots of profusely illustrated, large-print briefings with frequent mentions of his name. Behind the scenes, they’ll have free reign, if these toxic manipulators can put their own self-serving skullduggery on hold long enough to work together for common goals.
Oh, I’m only too aware that they like the fascism but of course it all comes down to how many ‘they’ are. Brian’s 20% of deplorables could be but doesn’t have to be enough. Remember, Hitler only gained power because far too many people convinced themselves that he “wasn’t really like that,” that the fascism was all bluster. And that’s happening now with Trump. It’s our responsibility to not let it happen.
@Nullius in Verba #5
TBF, Hitler did kill Hitler.
Well yes but only by the time he’d done as much damage to the country and the world as he was capable of doing. People getting excited about Kissinger dying at a hundred years old made the same mistake.
Francis, #4
Let’s not forget that despite his performance over the previous 4 years, and despite everybody knowing exactly who and what Trump is, in 2020 he received eleven million more votes than in 2016, and the only reason he lost was the record turnout by Democrat voters. The Republican electorate also turned out in record numbers that year, but I don’t think that anybody really expected such a high Democrat turnout, so the question has to be; will as many – or even more – Democrat voters turn out this year? If they want to win I believe they’ll have to exceed the 2020 turnout, because I’m almost certain that the Republicans will be expecting them to and will achieve an even higher turnout themselves this time.
Well, you’re right – turnout is key. I not sure though that it quite right to say that everyone knew who he was – should have, of course, but people cling to their delusions. In 2016 he was a clown, in 2020, an incompetent clown and an arsehole, now he’s a traitor, a fascist and wannabee dictator. That’s the message that needs to be pressed home to get the turnout. The “it can’t happen here” mindset is the enemy as much as Trump himself.
He wasn’t just a clown in 2016 though – far from it. Everyone I know was terrified when he won.
AoS – it’s DemocratIC voters and turnout. Republicans and Fox talking heads drop the IC because they know we hate it. Democratic is the adjective & Democrat is the noun.
I see pretty much everyone doing it now, even people on roughly the same “side” as Democrats. Wonder if it’s become a discredited trope at this point…
Well then pretty much everyone is illiterate, because Democrat is a noun, not an adjective.
Ophelia, #17 – I get that wrong every single time. I think I might have a mental default setting because of the Liberal Democrats over on this side of the pond.
A valid excuse M’lud.
I’m not sure if there’s even a semantic distinction between “Democrat voters” and “Democratic voters”, and in the absence of such a distinction, the adjectival form does seem preferable.
Technically, English nouns can often be modifiers to other nouns in the same way as adjectives. It’s just that this is done to convey different semantic content. My pet example is canon vs. canonical. The two sentences below are both syntactically valid:
1. That is a canonical argument.
2. That is a canon argument.
While both are permissible, they aren’t synonymous. A canonical argument is an argument that is part of a canon. A canon argument is an argument from or about a canon. Thus, one could even have a canonical canon argument.
“Republican” fills both roles, as do most party names. The Democratic Party gets in trouble by not having the members of the party called “Democratics”.
Ophelia @ 16
Well, of course you were – you were paying attention. But to the fools who were looking forward to a circus but with more things burning down he was a clown and wouldn’t it be funny to have him in charge.