The following is primarily just my personal commentary. (Granted I am exceptional in the use of logic and lateral thinking, but nevertheless…).
Donald Trump. You know who that is. In the past week, I think he has outdone himself (and that’s saying a LOT) in terms of chaotic communication, on so many topics, and most often somehow outlandish statements, declarations and pronouncements. I’ve wondered what’s up with him. I have roughly hypothesized various possibilities of explanation.
He’s taking some prescription that makes or keeps him alert, or some sort of smart pill, maybe. or
He is going into a mild hyper manic state precipitated by or related to his narcissistic personality disorder (in reaction to increasingly impending threats to his narcissism) or
His management style has reached the limits of its functionality. Iow, He has used up his repertoire of manipulation in general and his style of personnel mgt now has only loyal obsequious persons in charge of everything, yet they aren’t really in charge, because they have to respond to Trump’s chaos at any given moment. And things will become ever more complicated in the administration, because so much of what he has done is turning to or has turned to shite. (And he is not able to learn from mistakes, so all he has is to repeat some altered or intensified version of his shtick.) or
Something is going on that we don’t know about (or don’t realize it is of significance) is freaking Trump out, and his chaos is a way of distracting from it, or he is just acting out the anxiety that he has about it.
Maybe this is just another false alarm that Trump is losing it. Or maybe he has it together enough to handle decompensating some more.
OTOH, FWIW, the Mooch (aka Scaramouche) is tooling around spreading his word that Trump is definitely losing it.
One good thing about Trumpkochka is that he is teaching me self-control. Every time I see his face on television, I have this very strong urge to slap him. But he’s just an image on a screen, so I have to rein in the impulse. I thank him for that.
Trump’s negotiating style was displayed in all it’s defective glory, this past weekend. He was threatening more tariffs on China, tweet ordering all US businesses to consider ending all business with China, saying that we would be better off altogether without China, and then late last night - switcharoo - he is saying the nicest possible things about China and its leader, and reporting that China had called and wanted to resume negotiations. (I don’t think it has been confirmed that China really did call. But the Stock market seems to have been saved from another big fall for today, anyway, by Trump’s seeming reversal in attitude.) Trump also said that his style of negotiating is just what he does (i.e., that’s the way it is and that’s the way its gonna be), and that it has worked well for him in making money in the past.
We have seen the pattern, before. He makes things seem as awful as possible for the other side, however he can, then he switches up and is hyperbolic in how wonderful they are, and also claims his success in the negotiation. This sort of manipulative dishonesty combined with poorly formed objectives is not likely to work with China. China is not Denmark, to be bullied at will. China can just do tit for tat and hold out to see whether Trump wins the 2020 election. American farmers will continue to be screwed. The world economy and our own will eventually suffer along with China. But I think that China will show the world how to deal with a manipulative, lying, bully in trade negotiating because their time horizon is longer than ours tends to be. Dealing with a chaotic, dishonest, manipulative character like Trump, is not sustainable.
When it comes to justifying his ill conceived trade war with China, Trump is consistently a whiny little bitch (as Bill Maher would say). He blames every President before him for not dealing with the China problem. The reality is, however, is that the Obama admin had TPP in the works, all set up for Trump. With the US in TPP, we could have had a multilateral and effective pressure on China to get in line re: not stealing technologies and other valuable assets from other countries. But Trump pulled out of TPP, as he has with other important deals and initiatives. Trump said it would be so easy to win a trade deal with China. But in case anyone hasn’t figured it out yet, he is a grifter and a stinking liar.
I almost missed this one: A few days ago Trump claimed that the India leader asked him to act as a mediator in the Kashmir dispute for India and Pakistan. His rate of just telling flat out lies addressed to the whole world seems to be increasing.
