It’s been said that Donald Trump is to be taken seriously but not literally. It’s evident that he enters negotiations with a deliberately unreasonable pitch he knows will be knocked down.
This is in the hope that discussions are weighted in his favour, with his opposite having to start negotiations from a point that is so far away from what they want. The thinking goes that they’ll only be able to knock The Donald down a few pegs, the result being that the eventual agreement favours the US.
This method is vaunted by his most dedicated supporters as his key strength. Trump might not be what we classically think of as an intellectual, but his gut instinct is beyond compare. That’s the idea he’s sold on. It seems to be roughly correct.
But in this age, in which sides pit themselves against one another as though politics is a cross between a team sport and a war, those who praise this attribute of the President’s too rarely criticise him when he says something utterly vile.
It’s as though it will undermine his genius and risk the loss of that which he is fighting for if some obscure journalist decides to point out that he’s behaving disgracefully.
This is idiotic. Everybody who wanted Donald Trump to win the US election, as I did, should be disgusted with him branding Ukraine‘s Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator”.
“A dictator without elections, Zelensky better move fast or he is not going to have a country left,” he posted on Truth Social, referencing talks to end the war with Russia.
Every Trump supporter who thinks it’s okay to call a democratically elected politician a dictator, while conveniently not mentioning Vladimir Putin‘s grip on Russia, is just proving how stupid American politics have become.
It’s possible that Trump is unleashing that famous 5-D underwater upside-down chess his fans claim he’s constantly playing. That this is part of some masterplan that will get a better deal for innocent people in both Ukraine and Russia.
But it’s hard to see how this recent libel could be so important, so central to the game Trump is playing, that it was necessary to post it on social media.
Another pitfall of today’s stupid football-like approach to politics has undoubtedly been the boring fandom of Ukraine. When Putin started this war, and he did start it, you could be forgiven for thinking he’d attacked a utopia of tolerance and freedom.
It didn’t matter how many neo-Nazi badges the BBC accidentally included in images of uniformed Ukrainian soldiers. They, every single last one of them, were the good guys. Just as with Brexit, lockdown and the 2016 US election, there was a correct line to take on the Liberal-Left. To fail to take that line made you a monster.
So it’s understandable that people on the Right of American politics have their misgivings regarding the Ukraine war. What is not understandable, what is utterly indefensible, is this defamation of Zelensky.
Let’s just think about who this man is. He was an actor in a TV comedy about politics. He became President on an anti-war footing. His country was invaded and suddenly he had to step up.
Since that day, he’s been an utterly uncompromising voice for Ukraine while his people are being killed and his cities razed. It’s difficult to comprehend the level of courage that takes and the dignity with which he’s conducted himself is equally astounding.
This was all while Zelensky, who is Jewish and a native Russian speaker, was being told he led a Nazi regime that had in common with the actual National Socialists a hatred of Russians.
Can you picture any of Britain’s current crop of liberal luvvies who read words that somebody else has written performing this way? I can’t.
Rather than lumping Zelensky in with the Hitlers, Stalins and Maos of the historical landscape, Trump could have praised his bravery without restricting himself from criticism.
Instead he has demonised a man defending his country against a thug who controls his press, allows or encourages murder on British soil and who allies himself with our enemies, including, by the way, Iran, whose regime describes America as the Great Satan and Britain as the Little Satan.
I doubt The Donald has ever felt shame, but now would be a very good time to start.