Unhinged and unpredictable

The article That Big, Beautiful Summit in Alaska by Patrick Lawrence (Scheer Post), although informative, ascribes much more consistency and reasoning to ‘Trump and his administration’s actions than the situation warrants. For example, much is made of Trump’s statement that he wants to end the war in Ukraine.

“No Western leader, if you have not noticed, has ever called for an end to the war. None among them has ever mentioned a peace accord for the simple reason the Western powers do not want peace with Russia. It is with this statement, then, that Trump signaled his determination to chart new territory.”

Sure, he might have said it. But will it happen? Highly unlikely. Trump says a lot on a long day. (From the original in Swiss-German: Trump seit viel, wann de Tag lang isch or in German: Trump sagt viel, wann der Tag lang ist..)

“To say Trump aligned with Putin, or got played or otherwise capitulated, is another way, a simpleton’s or cynic’s way, of denying or veiling reality. In my read, Trump listened to Putin’s case and has concluded, Yes, he is right. This is the ultimate reality long at issue and long unsayable. Trump has done no less and no more than speak this truth at last. The rest is rubbish.”

This is an incredibly charitable and hopeful—and, most likely, hopelessly optimistic—interpretation of Trump’s actions. The man is completely unpredictable. There is no through-line to his so-called reasoning. He seems to do whatever pops into his head at any time, often contradicting himself and his espoused principles, aims, and goals in one paragraph, and then seeming to enjoy spewing a stream of bullshit that purports to reconcile everything into a coherent worldview.

As one of history’s greatest con-men, perhaps he’s enjoying skating ever-closer to the line of completely unbelievable fabulation, trying to determine just how far he can go into utter unreality before his entire castle of lies collapses. He hasn’t found it yet. The more he lies, the more he declares that reality is wrong, the more people kowtow to him. He’s saying what they want to hear. The elites of other countries are in deep trouble and have no idea how to extricate themselves with their fortunes intact. Trump offers a way; follow him to a glorious future.

“Let us all look past the mountain ranges of propaganda, cognitive warfare, perception management and what have you and say what Trump is now saying: It is time to acknowledge forthrightly that Putin is right about the war and its causes, about the Biden regime’s purposeful provocations, about the larger questions of which it is merely a subset and about how most sensibly to negotiate a lasting settlement in the borderlands between Europe and Russia”

Trump's Nobel Peace PrizeThat is what we hope that Trump might be fooled into thinking he wants, if he can be convinced that this is a thing that will make him look good to people whose approval he desperately seeks. Or, good God, if it might get him a Nobel prize, in what would be a bribe more useful than having bestowed the prize on Kissinger or Obama.