To anticipate the decisions and actions of Donald Trump you have to set aside many things you value most and likely take for granted. Do you respect treaties and friendships? Forget it. Do you value straightforward, honest answers to questions instead of slippery deceptions and outright lies? How naive! Do you think the ultimate purpose of a nation is to benefit all its citizens? You rube!
Only when we blinker ourselves with lizard-like focus on self-interest, insatiable greed, billionaire cronyism, and bloated egoism will we begin to gain an approximate understanding of the unprecedented national vandalism that is being perpetrated in the USA from the Oval Office. I say ‘approximate’ because, for most of us a perspective from the bawling scowling vantage of what has become America’s lowest office is unimaginable—we simply cannot become depraved and psychopathic enough to appreciate how bad the worst of humanity can be.
Let’s consider a couple of examples: Trump’s bluster and bullying about Ukraine; And his success in getting Canadians to boo the American National Anthem at sporting events.
Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine within days of coming into office. He never said how, and his virulent supporters didn’t care to ask. Even his opponents didn’t press him very hard on that one, but I don’t think everyone is surprised that his first step is a tête-à-tête with his good friend Vladimir Putin that excludes everyone else, representatives from Ukraine not excepted.
We have to ask ourselves: What is Trump really hoping to achieve with this stratagem, which has the leaders of Europe in a flap? What is the ultimate gameplan from a lizard’s-eye point of view—a prospect so unsettling that no one is daring to articulate it pubically lest it come true?
Could he be signalling his pal Putin with an under-the-table offer to divide North America and Europe into separate spheres of influence? Does he know from the outset that the terms of any possible agreement negotiated between the US and Russia will almost certainly be unacceptable to Ukraine, and will be rejected by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which in turn would allow the US to end its support for Ukraine?
Or better yet, that a deal could be forced on Ukraine, which would allow Trump to crow and the US to stand down, get out, and leave it up to Putin to decide when the time might be right to break the truce and invade again?
Not saying that’s a fact, but I think it should be on the whiteboard as a strong possibility as world leaders consider their responses to MAGA Round 2—as in Make America Gangsterland Again—especially the part about divvying the world up into spheres of influence. Just wondering when China might be invited to take over its Asian sphere of influence.
If you think this isn’t a plausible scenario, have a read of this CBC analysis: Trump’s talk about Canada parrots Putin’s claims on Ukraine.
Then there’s the chorus of booing whenever the American National Anthem is played at any arena on Canadian soil. That’s music to Trump’s ears. It means he’s got us just where he wants us—drowning out a song every red-blooded American has been taught to reverence since kindergarten, a desecration committed on network TV, no less. What better way to inflame the patriotic fervour of his most loyal supporters, and give them a cudgel to pummel any traitor who would dare defend such sacrilege or the nation that committed it?
Never mind that Trump has repeatedly denigrated our own nation and its Prime Minister, or that he has welcomed Canada to become the 51st state with jests worthy of a clown and threats revealing his true nature as a gangster. Forget the fact that some of his more virulent thugs are calling for the immediate ‘violent’ invasion of Canada and its takeover as a ‘territory,’ not a state. All that pales in significance compared to the booing of ‘the land of the free’ and ‘the home of the brave’ at a hockey game.
Again, the wizard of sleaze has us in a lose-lose bind: Express our anger and disgust, and give him more ammunition to pummel us with, preparing the ground for some type of final aggression; or keep our yaps shut and be characterized as a nation of wimps, easily overrun and not worthy of statehood at any level.
Trump’s version of ‘freedom’ means the right of the powerful to dictatorial control over the rest of us. It’s the oligarchs’ and fascists’ destiny—the right of the fittest—to take over the earth, and they’re not going to wait around to inherit it. They are banking on the pervasive surveillance, propagandizing, and control mechanisms of the digital era to keep them from the fate of their fascist predecessors.
Will history prove them right? Or will the rest of the world—including at least half the citizens of the US—prove them wrong?
Our American friends are too shell-shocked with the wrecking ball makeover of their own homeland under the rule of Trump and Elon Musk to protest loudly against a wholly unjustified assault on a neighbour and former ally. That’s part of Trump’s master plan—hurricane politics. The civilized world should be preparing for the worst and, at the same time, reaching out to those in America who want to restore decency and integrity to the White House.
The Good Book says: Know thine enemy. For most of us, it’s impossible to plumb the depths of Trump’s truly psychopathic mind or the extent of his unrestrained power. But we have to imagine the unimaginable to prepare ourselves for what’s to come.