Trump and Trash Talk.

There is always a sense of curiosity within us for the extreme in human behavior. Its like watching the bizarre behavior of people on the Jerry Springer show, or staring at images of the war dead in photos, or simply wondering how far can trash talk go. In the schematic patterns of expectations when it comes to trash talk, rightly or wrongly, there is a mental image of the trash talker. It may sound like verbal (or racial) profiling but one does not expect some personalities to trash talk.

Imagine the Pope, or Nelson Mandela, or the Queen of England trash talking! It is so out of field that our mind would simply reject the possibility. In the same profile we would assume the President of the United States would simply not trash talk; it cannot be comprehended by the brain. But then Donald Trump has radically changed that. When he used the words 'son of a bitch' in talking about NFL players he did two important things; One, he brought trash talk into the Oval office, not like Lyndon Johnson who used explicative words in meetings, but Trump did it through the power of mass media. Secondly, President Trump killed the dignity and decorum that comes with the office of the President of the United States.

Look more deeply into the words of this man, not what he claims the 'fake media' say, and in his own words you get an unadulterated insight into a man who truly believes that if he shot someone in Times Square his diehard supporters would not waver from him. When speaking to many of his supporters I am struck by the vehement idolatry they hold for him, his abuse is brushed aside as 'a man who speaks his mind', his racial innuendoes are ignored (some from his base admire him for that), his now legendary ridiculing of people who he once praised in the most flowery prose is seen as draining the swamp, even though he selected these people.

Donald Trump has not bent the rules of decorum and decency he has simply raped them. And those who ignore his misogyny and disrespect for people are equal participants in the rape of what values we expect from the White House. He has called people to have 'low IQ', 'shameful', a 'flunky' and best of all said Steve Bannon, his one time strategist and a man he praised was 'sloppy Steve' and a 'leaker'. I doubt there is anyone who has left the Trump camp and been treated with dignity after leaving office.

Trumps trash talk is not entirely domestic. He has called the Prime Minister of Canada 'very dishonest and weak', picked a twitter spate with the Mayor of London, ridiculed the entire leadership of the countries of the European Union and then very strangely after calling the dictator of North Korea a 'rocket man' praised him as being very honest and trustworthy?  In all these tirades and temper tantrums Trump has never once said a word against the person of President Putin of Russia.

His supporters love this 'style' of the man who will 'Make America Great Again'. This is not style my Trumpettes this is a mental illness to not know what the highest office in the US demands of a person in terms of manners, decorum and behavior. Whether he will make America great again is still open to question but he surely has taken the office of the President of United States of America and tarnished with the sort of trash talk that makes one cringe.  He has taken his critics to be disloyal to the country, a trait dictators show, and proved Hilary Clinton right that he has a 'thin skin' and a 'twitter temper' could lead him to launch a nuclear strike. Okay the nuclear strike part may be an exaggeration but there is no denying that he conducts his domestic and foreign policy through the mirror of what he personally feels aggrieved by. In his world, and that of this supporters, you dislike Trump then you must be a traitor to the US!

What is alarming is that while we can grin at this trash talk and simply say 'Oh well that is Trump', we have to deep down admit that with each slur, each personal attack by this President he is tearing down one brick of the institutions that make democracies great. As of this writing he has tweeted 38,500 times; that is 38,500 bricks of democracy have been torn out of the edifice of a free press, an independent judiciary, and the over sight of Congress on the Executive branch of government. Not long ago in history there was a dictator in Europe who was also tearing down the walls of the institutions of his country and a whole nation watched in silence as his supporters cheered the man who was going to make Germany great again. A World War and the path of horror later it took 6 million people of that country to die for the misplaced ideals of that man to wake up from a drunken stupor and bear the collective responsibility of one man's madness.

While I am not suggesting that Trump is going to be a Hitler, but I have no doubt in my mind there are some things he wants which are disturbing. Trump wants a muzzled press, a subservient Congress and a compliant Judiciary; a world where he can decide who to 'lock up', who to expel, and which journalist to get air time. So my friends this is not trash talk, this is symptomatic of something much more disturbing and you have the choice; sit back eat your popcorn and enjoy the show, or stand up and start putting those 38,500 bricks back again where they belong.

The World According to Trump.

For a rating obsessed person it is not surprising that Donald J Trump spends more time on Twitter than he does in the Oval office. Between Twitter and his rally speeches there is a world that has been sliced out of the world of reality that is the world that our dear President of the United States lives in. It is a world in which, in the words of former President Bush; 'you are either with us or against us'. However, POTUS 45 has added another dimension to it; 'you may be with us but when I decide you are not with us then everything associated between us is erased from my memory.' Remember Paul Manafort, he was only a small runabout in his campaign, and Michael Flynn, he only knew he was a general and they spoke perhaps twice, once about the great election success and the second time about a good golf swing!

One of the important things in Trump's world to possess is 'selective amnesia'. People think he lies, no he does not lie, he just switches on the selective amnesia function in his brain and that allows him to spin out whatever tale he wants to on any particular day. This tale, in his world, is not connected to anything he may has said earlier and that is his final word. This ensures there is no cross reference to what he may have said a few hours, days, weeks, months or even years earlier. Like months back he said there were no contacts between his campaign and the Russians. Then Paul Manafort got entangled in the Russian web, and it was revealed that Donald Jr met with Russians in the Trump Tower. Mr Trump then said it was a meeting about adoptions. Now, using his selective amnesia function he says sure they met with the Russians but whats wrong with collecting dirt on your political opponent?

Liars usually lie in the spoken word only, because unless its recorded, its your word against theirs. Now either Mr Trump thinks that somehow Tweets just erase themselves or he truly believes if he tweets 100 times a day people will never find the tweets they want to check, one will never know. But Mr Trump lies through tweets and leaves a gigantic record of his lies for people to pick on and then calls them fake news.

In a collective fit of mass hypnosis his base of supporters buy into this selective amnesia story and perhaps I have just give them a justification to say 'no Trump does not lie, he just has selective amnesia'. Its like some new mental condition that is a perfect alibi for a person who lies. The avalanche of lies that this President has espoused since taking office is embarrassing for the purists who see the occupant of the Oval office as someone who may bend the truth once in a while, even stack up facts in a convenient ruse to justify a policy, but to outright lie, even with TV cameras recording the events is a shock to say the least.

According to President Trump when he visited the UK he did not keeping the Queen waiting rather he was there 15 minutes early and waiting for her. Amazing that he did not see the video of Her Majesty standing alone even glancing at her watch as the Donald lumbered up 12 minutes late. What is amazing that when President Trump said this lie (or moment of selective amnesia) he was at a political rally and once could see the faces of the people behind him nodding in hypnotic agreement with this amnesia ridden man.

Things have not been going well for Mr Trump, the Russian probe is getting too close for comfort and if reports are to be believed Donald Jr may get incriminated into a nasty situation where he may have to speak out about the private number he dialed and who he spoke to. If indeed it was his father than the consequences of this will be like a wrecking ball hitting the Trump Tower.

In the world according to Trump there are some interesting options for him to respond to that situation. He could simply deny it and say his son was lying; after all like father like son. A second course of action could be he could invoke selective amnesia and say he never remembers the call from his son, or even more drastic, though not improbable, he could say 'which son? Do I have a son name Donald Jr? Why would I have son and give him my name because there can be only one Donald and that is me!'

One interesting thing to note is when Trump appoints someone for a position around him the superlatives of praise are mind boggling. The person is 'a very fine person', or 'one cannot find anyone better' etc etc. As the person departs the ever caring Potus does not even acknowledge the persons departure, and often the person learns through Twitter he gone; Tillerson was a case in point. Is this was it just being ungrateful or another bout of amnesia; 'Tillerson, who Tillerson, don't know the man!'

Historians will one day struggle to understand the mind of this President. He has amnesia about who his allies are, a delusion that he is the best negotiator in the world forgetting that negotiating what bathroom fitting go into the Trump Tower is galaxies removed from negotiating with Putin or the European leaders. His negotiating skills are about the same level as a teenager trying to get into a night club on a busy night. But seriously historians will wonder why would he pay money to a porn star to keep shut and then have amnesia ala Bill Clinton style, and say he did not have anything to do with Stormy Daniels. Writers will struggle to understand why this man started a trade war where his own base, the farmers and workers who voted for him, will lose jobs and be driven to poverty? They will be lost for words as to why he would believe Putin and his cohorts more than his own intelligence agencies? This is a list so long that historians and political watchers will not have amnesia over, but sadly the man in the White House does have amnesia about it. Should we just drop this amnesia crap and simply call it what it is; plain simple lying!

North Korea: Brinkmanship that could go wrong.

When studying for my Masters in International Relations one of the cases studies we worked on was the Cuban Missile Crisis. It remains a masterful studying of managing brinkmanship and the art of the graduated response. Kennedy and Khrushchev in that crisis were a blink away from nuclear war and yet we realize that throughout the crisis a process of graduated response and measured strategic analysis was used. From Oct 15th 1962, when the Soviet missiles were spotted in Cuba till Oct 22 1962, when Kennedy made his famous speech asking the Soviets to back down, numerous meetings were held with the NSC and an EXXCOMM was set up and Congressional leaders were consulted on each of the steps.

One of the options that the US Joint Chief of Staff recommended and supported was an all out invasion, something even key Congressional leaders supported, Kennedy decided to use a series of graduated responses from a blockade to diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Indeed, key US allies were briefed on the morning of the 22nd of October BEFORE Kennedy made his speech and side by side back door diplomatic channels were opened to the Soviets to resolve the crisis. By October 28th 1962 the crisis had been defused and the world stepped back from what would have been a major outbreak of war.

Today we a different form of brinkmanship in the stand off between USA and North Korea. It might be more realistic to say its a show down between President Trump and the Korean despot Kim Jong Un, the latter being in his mid thirties with a panache for missiles and nuclear warheads. Unlike Kennedy in 1962, President Trump has taken to twitter and makes speeches about 'fire and fury' and hopes his rhetoric will be enough to get an equally irrational Kim Jong Un to back down. While there is not denying that any military conflict between North Korea and USA may well result in the total destruction of Kim Jong Un's regime and sadly also his nation. However, as one sided as it may be the fact that Kim Jong Un only needs to make sure that one, yes only one, missile armed with a nuclear warhead lands somewhere close to USA or one of its allies.

Analysts, military and non military, keep telling us that North Koreans would not be foolish enough to take such a risk which would destroy their country. First of all its not the North Koreans taking the risk, its Kim Jong Un, and frankly does he care if a million people are killed when he knows he himself will be taken out? Second, as the twitter tirade continues there is no guarantee that Kim Jong Un may well be taking these tweets more seriously than they are and lacking a sense of humor may just feel any one of them is enough of a hint that the US will strike first. Kim Jong Un knows well that if the US has first strike then his ability to have an effective counter strike will be severely curtailed and may be not even possible.

The danger therefore is that Trump, without even meaning it, may well start the hostilities, and perhaps in that process fulfill his wish to be a war-time President. Factoring China's response into this equation of possibilities creates a puzzle that will take far longer than the 20 odd minutes to have missiles land on some hapless people somewhere in the world. While Rex Tillerson is certainly trying to bring in a modicum of diplomacy to the table, it seems that he is fighting an uphill battle. One is not sure of the NSC and Congress has been consulted on the state of affairs.

The flip side is that the ground work for a diplomatic solution does not seem to be visible. What does one negotiate with? Offer Kim Jong Un there will no regime change if he agrees to give up missiles and nuclear warheads? Well that was the promise to Gaddaffi of Libya and he agreed to the deal only to be ousted soon after. Kim for sure will not give up his war toys, so some middle ground needs to be sought out and he is brash enough not to really be concerned about how much his people suffer under sanctions. In a sense Kim Jong Un is like a suicide bomber he has nothing to lose and therefore there is nothing that can be offered to him in a negotiation.