I think it’s fair to say that Donald Trump didn’t have a great reception at the United Nations on Tuesday. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that Donald Trump is a laughingstock, and have that be literal, but it was certainly true when he spoke to world leaders this week. And it came at the expense of one of the biggest lies that Trump has been trying to sell to Americans, but a lie that he could never reasonably expect to sell to people on the outside: that he’s making all the right decisions on the global stage, and that we’re respected as a result. He actually said “In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” It was a statement met with audible chuckles from the everyone in the room. When he tried to sell it by adding “So true,” those chuckles turned into outright laughter. By his own admission off the cuff, it wasn’t the response he was expecting. But why? I know he tries to tell everyone in the US that he’s just doing fantastic, but he can’t tell the people he’s actively antagonizing that he commands their respect. It’s like the opposite of gaslighting. It’s like anti-gaslighting. But if there is one thing I know, it’s that Trump does NOT tolerate embarrassment. He does not abide it, sees situations that cause it as signs of weakness, and frankly doesn’t know what to do when faced with it. So in the wake of the leaders of the world literally laughing in the face of his lies…well I don’t imagine we’ve heard the end of it.
I have to say, Donald Trump shows just how quickly a hot streak can end. He as riding pretty high on the end ride of his North Korea summit. Regardless of the criticisms you could throw his way regarding how he handled it, the fact is that it seems like, for the time being, tensions have been de-escalated. That is a positive development. Couple that with his already improving approval numbers, which regardless of your opinion on it, is undoubtedly true, and Trump is sitting kind of pretty at the start of the summer. Then his treatment of asylum seekers and families at the border comes to light, the separation of families at the border, the literal cages children are being kept in, the concentration camp comparisons, the blatant lies about who is at fault for this process, saying he hates it and is blameless while simultaneously defending it’s necessity….it’s been a real fiasco. Now he’s withdrawing the US from the United Nations Human Rights council, citing Israel’s treatment, but the sheer irony of that in the face of how we’re treating immigrants…Listen, I can’t give you approval ratings numbers, but spoiler alert, several polls have shown consistently that the MAJORITY of people are pretty damn nonplussed about this whole separation of families thing. The guy is very much playing a one step forward, 2 steps back kind of game.
I’ll give Trump this: he’s certainly good at keeping people guessing what he’s really thinking. One second, you are just certain he’s sitting in Putin’s pocket, the next he’s throwing around tough boy talk and shooting missiles and imposing more strenuous sanctions, then the next day he’s saying “naw, just kidding, no sanctions.” If I was more conspiracy theory minded, I feel like I could connect some dots here, but I’m not, and I won’t. But I’m certainly feeling the whiplash from his flip flops.
Mind the Exit 