Forget the substance. Donald Trump impatiently just wants the credit and the honors, attention and medals that come with it.
As analysis of a questionable Alaska summit emerged or the equivocations in the Washington gathering with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders on Ukraine’s futures, Trump was spending his time on social media sprays about “lightweights” who were demeaning his dealings with Vladimir Putin basically as a cave to the Russian leader.
Trump’s assurances to European allies to support a strong security front against more Russian aggression and to get Putin face to face with Zelenskyy lasted a day before insisting no U.S. troops be involved and hearing from Russia that no meeting is likely for a good, long time, allowing for more bombing of Ukraine’s civilian sectors, There was no sighting of Trump’s promised sanctions against Russia for delay.
What Trump wants first is recognition for success every day — and what he believes is a deserved, elusive Nobel Peace Prize — and if peace happens to break out in Europe or the Middle East, that’d be ok.
In DC, Trump wants acknowledgement that only he is bringing sightly, orderly streets, maybe just for a month, by bringing in hundreds of National Guardsmen, not an actual reduction in the causes for crime or homelessness. By taking over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Center honors, Trump is giving himself the medal of recognition that his actual work as a reality television star never earned. Trump threw himself a birthday military parade complete with authoritarian-style weapons rollout because no one else would.
OK, next to using his office for personal gain, Trump likes the honors and pageantry. I’m just waiting to hear that the real price of settling with Harvard is an honorary degree at the university’s graduation. It’s why Trump flattery — and contributions to a growing number of Trump funds or businesses — is a requirement for lawyers, business executives, media kingpins and diplomats trying just to do business with his government.
It’s just a major drag that Trump forces people, institutions, economies, traditions, sovereignty to fold to let him feel better. The list of countries, companies, consumers and voters who are taking it on the chin is lengthening by the day, though along with display of political power that others are granting him seems to emerge a cruel streak that comes with crushing others.
Six Deals in Six Months?
On Monday, Trump repeated claims full credit for “six peace deals in six months,” to reporters in front of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was making the point that Ukraine was supposed to be easy in his mind, but has emerged as a more entrenched, complicated knot than anticipated,
The record of peace broker deals is just a might less clear than Trump’s boasts would have it.
He claims to have stopped warring between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, for example, but Indian and Pakistani officials say they did that by having their top military people talk with each other. Trump says he stopped a generational war between Rwanda and the Republic of Congo, though that truce is considered shaky. Trump lists avoidance of war between Israel and Iran as a peace victory that he brought about, though the U.S. was among the combatants, dropping bombs on a sovereign Iran to stop nuclear weapons development and Israel promises to attack again if they see development starting anew.
Leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan did sign a peace agreement in early August at the White House, though again, there are worries about its stability amid pressures from Russia and Iran. Cambodia and Thailand agreed to an unconditional ceasefire in July to resolve a five-day cross-border conflict but there have been border skirmishes since.
A deal between Egypt and Ethiopia, who never attacked each other, arose during the first Trump term but never was signed. Likewise, Trump 1.0 was involved in a limited economic deal between Serbia and Kosovo, but tensions continue today.
But maybe Trump wants us to judge the quality of peace deals less t than the effort.
It still seems that it would be hard to argue that the central focus of the Trump era is one devoted to peace on Earth.
How Things Stand
Step back from the international spotlight focus on Trump who sees only a “return” of U.S. global power from his predecessor, and we see bombing and conflict continuing in Europe and Gaza, the threat of China retaliations building, a strengthening alliance of the so-called BRICS nations among Russia, Brazil, India and every country feeling anger at Trump. We see a dissembling alliance in Europe to stand without U.S. leadership, and restlessness among our Asian allies.
At home, we see the prospects of health care cuts, rising prices, housing and homelessness issues and a softening of job hires — all the opposite of Trump’s boasts — and a mean-spirited, almost random campaign to deport thousands, tens of thousands or millions of undocumented migrants who are letting farms go unharvested, factory jobs go idle and hiding, Meanwhile, Trump promotes the empty promise of big investments yet to come to lure or force manufacturers to return overseas jobs to a country that shuns manufacturing jobs.
Indeed, at the rate Trump is moving, all new jobs either will be for billionaire development speculators or for ever-more law enforcement officers or private prison operators willing to round up migrants, patrol for crime or homeless people, or house them to await deportation anywhere out of sight of Trump’s White House.
Strangely, Trump does not seem to recognize that he has polling numbers no better, or worse in some cases, than did Joe Biden. It just gets worse with manipulations by cooperative red state governors and legislatures to redistrict congressional lines or to ignore the idea that Trump is merely pushing spending requirements from his government to states and taxpayers unprepared for the changes.
In the end, if federal spending and certain taxes decline but state taxes increase, where’s the gain, except for Trump?
Are we measuring the results? Are we weighing the outcomes? Is this what just over half the country had in mind?
Maybe he should just make a list of desired medals, as The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni suggested this week, we give them to him, and ask for a working government again.
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