The rudest man on earth
So in addition to everything else Trump behaves like a boor toward Angela Merkel.
https://youtu.be/cAaMfl-Dn98
Photographers ask “Handshake? Handshake?” Merkel says sotta voce to The Boor: “You want to handshake?” He ignores her and continues to scowl in the direction of the cameras.
You always think you can’t loathe him more, and then he makes you loathe him more.
A commenter on FB suggested that he was afraid her hands would be larger. I know he is a germaphobe, but he shook hands (awkwardly) with Trudeau and Abe. Maybe he is a secret Muslim and cannot shake a woman’s hand.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1474142662604190/?type=3&permPage=1
Julia, he held hands with May. Maybe he just realizes that he is no match for Angela Merkel, that in spite of all his bluster, she is smarter than he is, she is stronger than he is, and she doesn’t worship him.
Why he grabbed May’s hand (or shook hands with Abe and Trudeau) when they are also smarter than he is (a category that nearly the entire human population falls into, and certainly most of the world leaders) is unclear. Maybe the negative press from that made him realize that he couldn’t hold Merkel’s hand without looking foolish, so he refused to even acknowledge her hand.
He’s a strange character. Strange, and malignant.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1474204825931307/?type=3&theater
This is why I’m not a diplomat. I’d just hold out my hand and if he didn’t shake it say “come on Donald, stop being a sulk”.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1474224979262625/?type=3&theater
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1474237219261401/?type=3&theater
Good point that it’s not the woman leader thing specifically, as he was willing to hold hands with May. Merkel must have made the mistake of attempting to interact with him as if he were an adult.
In Trump’s world, there’s probably no point to shaking hand while sitting down. I mean, the main goal of a handshake is to pull your
opponentopposite towards you roughly, throwing them off-balance, to assert your dominance over them, isn’t it? You just can’t do that when both people are sitting down, so why bother?This is probably stretching it, but…
My first reaction upon hearing about this and comparing it to his behavior with May, was that May does perform femininity. She makes herself conventionally attractive (visible makeup, skirts, heels, figure defining clothing etc.), which probably marks her as a “safe” and “approachable” woman to men like Trump, perhaps even a “proper, real” woman. Merkel, however, does not. So in my opinion it wouldn’t be unreasonable to suggest that a woman like Merkel reads to a man like Trump more as a threat and as inherently antagonistic. May comes off as someone he can flirt with. Merkel as someone who would laugh at his flirting. Why would you want to shake hands with someone like that, when that approach is pretty much all your view of women amounts to? (See also his icky comments about his daughter.)
It begins to seem to me it’s indulging him excessively even to speculate what the hell is even his problem.
It’s the trouble with assholes. They suck up time, attention, energy. By being broken and awful, they put demands on the rest of us. And in the case of this exhibit, they _feed_ on attention, and I begin deeply to resent giving him what he wants.
I know as a practical matter we kinda need to know what’s going on in the office he now regrettably holds. But geez but I have better things to do than waste neurons on this useless clown. What the hell is his problem exactly? Probably most of what people are gamely guessing, I guess. But I think, to save time and stress, I’m just gonna file it under to hell with the guy, when’s he leaving?