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Trump’s Vindictiveness Is His Greatest Asset … and Vice
Recently I read a great book about autism, Steve Silberman’s NeuroTribes. The book got me thinking about autism in an entirely different light. It has been always been around, and just represents one part of the spectrum of neurological diversity. Autistic individuals have been at the forefront of discoveries scientific and technological. They were able to achieve what they did because of their autism, not despite it. Autism cannot be cured; it is not a disease. It represents a different part of the human experience.
I’ve been thinking a great deal about this with regard to the President’s statements in Helsinki yesterday. Please note: I am by no means saying the President is autistic. I do not believe he is and that is not the purpose of this analogy. I am merely referring to how I’ve thought about President Trump for the last year. As my friend Ben Shapiro says, Good Trump and Bad Trump. But according to this NeuroTribes theory, there is no such thing as Good Trump and Bad Trump; they are one and the same. You cannot have Good Trump without the Bad, and vice versa. Bad Trump is what makes Good Trump, and Good Trump is made by Bad Trump.
What are some of the Good Trump moments, according to conservatives? The top three best moments for Trump were: His decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, his decision to pull out of the Iran deal, and his decision to appoint conservative judges. On the first two points, his foreign policy decisions were made mostly not just on sound policy, but because he was told expressly not to do it by the foreign policy establishment and the media. He was told it would explode in bloodshed, that he was being rash. He was, in his mind, all but dared to do it (as he was by McKay Coppins and Seth Meyers about running for President). When neither Iran or the Jerusalem deal exploded, Trump became emboldened. He was done being pushed around and being called a foreign policy neophyte.
The source of Trump’s greatest headaches domestically has been the media hysteria over Russian collusion. All eyes were on Helsinki, with CNN even going so far as to send anchor Jake Tapper to cover the story. And in meeting with Putin, was Trump thinking of how he could best stick it to those on the Left pushing the collusion narrative? By siding with Putin, he publicly gave the middle finger to those in the United States promoting the idea of Russian collusion. That was a feature, not a bug. It’s far more likely Trump went into the meeting wanting to upset his domestic foes; and cared little for what his statements meant geopolitically (perhaps also because he doesn’t understand the complex history and issues at hand). He also didn’t care that he wasn’t just giving the finger to those pushing the collusion narrative; he was giving it to the American people.
On the Iran deal and the Jerusalem embassy, Trump’s power was his eagerness to give that finger to those warning him against the decisions. That sense of vindictiveness and utter lack of caring is Trump’s secret weapon when he’s doing the right thing against the tide; but it’s also his greatest weakness and vice, as we saw this week in Helsinki. He chose his own vendetta instead of acting in the best interests of the American people.
Published in General, Politics
I agree with your rationale on this subject. It seems that before most any event, Trump is lambasted and scorned by the Establishment (media, politicians and other “experts”), then when the predicted catastrophe doesn’t occur the Establishment never admits they were wrong but simply moves on to the next “crisis.”
I am not a Trump admirer, and voted for him only reluctantly as being better than the alternative. I don’t approve of his personal character or conduct, but have been pretty well pleased by his actual policy actions.
Someone somewhere has pointed out that if Trump pushed the Russian collusion thing with Putin, he is implicitly acknowledging his presidency is illegitimate.
If our intelligence was on our side, they would have held the indictments off until today.
If this were true, then it would be incredibly easy for some people to manipulate Trump into doing whatever they want, just by telling him “No. You can’t.” There’s got to be some check on his behavior that keeps him from being totally manipulated in this way all the time. Ivanka maybe? And does it work the other way? Can we get him to stop piling tariffs onto tariffs and smothering our trade by telling him he can do it?
Everyone on the left is pushing the Trump Presidency as illegitimate. They did the same thing to Dubya, saying the Supreme Court handed him the office.
Barbra Streisand to the left, and their Deep State operatives.
Both Bush and Trump won fair and square, as did Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Trump was right to criticize our intelligence community. They are (like the FBI, DOJ, etc.) trying to derail Trump and get him out of office. Trump has not only ruffled their feathers, he’s upset the apple cart and dumped the partisan debris on their heads.
Forget ICE. Maybe we should abolish the FBI and DOJ . . .
Well stated, @bethanymandel. I think he’s fond of that middle finger, and his immense ego is seriously weak in some areas. I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt of his doing things beyond our ken that fit into a larger plan, but I think he just plain blew it this time. The drama continues . . .
Because they mean nothing. Credible threats and promises behind closed doors and aircraft carriers in the water have geopolitical meaning. What goes on in a press conference doesn’t.
I’m not saying Trump is playing 11-dimensional chess or that he isn’t excruciatingly bad at press conferences. I’m saying that drawing an equivalence between concrete actions and windy words is missing the point.
I am pissed off too, but do not confuse outrage for vindictiveness. Before Trump was sworn in, the Director of the FBI and Director of the CIA lied to Trump about the dossier (didn’t not mention it was Hillary fabrication) and then leaked briefing to the press to foment a soft coup. That is literally treason and our streak of 100% peaceful transition between presidents has been broken. Yes, I am pissed. Now Brennan and Comey have called for a hard coup in their tweets. WTF!?!?
I am a lot like what Bethany is saying – I still have not read Atlas shrugged because my sister said it was a good book that I should read.
Contrarian, but not destructively so.
As I got older, I was far more capable of withstanding peer pressure and chose to do what I thought was right over being a people pleaser.
What is odd about your description of Trump is that it sort of flies in the face of Trump the narcissist.
It takes a lot of confidence and conviction to stand by your decisions while everyone else is screaming at you. I do not see the screamers as evidence that Trump is doing something wrong. Isn’t there a fallacy there?
And his judge picks, done purely on recommendation, also does not uphold your thesis. He does accept input. I think he is right to shun the feedback of people who view him as a destructive force while choosing to surround himself, not with yes-men, but people who see how much good he could do. He’s far like to listen to them than John Brennan.
There are very few mental illnesses that cannot be described as being “part of the spectrum of neurological diversity”.
The question is, how far towards the edge does the subject fall on the spectrum. The further towards the edge, the less functional the person will be.
I liked Ben’s friend Andrew Klavan’s line that when Klavan became a conservative that he suddenly discovered that the only people in his novels who spoke the truth were the villains. The classic example of something like this is the Jack Nicholson’s trial scene in A Few Good Men.
Trump does have the ability to speak the truth at times when other Western politicians cower. That’s usually a trait associated with deeply religious people or those who have served in the military, but so many politicians have dwelled in the most polite environments for so long that a blue-collar New York personality guy can appear to be a space alien.
Trump did not “side” with Putin. You’re being brainwashed.
The so-called intelligence community can be wrong about specific things, and if they are going to push this flimsy narrative through their media outlets by planting questions that are either/or based and then proclaim Trump to be siding with Putin when he doesn’t play the game, they are revealing how obvious they are. This is brazen and desperate. Feeble minded people are the targets. There are a lot of them, but not quite enough.
I’m concerned about the deification of the ‘Intelligence Community.’ People are talking about them as if they were independent branches of government; actually, the constitutional separation of powers refers to the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches; the intelligence agencies are merely functions managed by the Executive under legislation and funding provided by the Legislative branch.
I was going to reply on this post but then I remembered that Bethany doesn’t usually pay any attention to what people write so what would the point be?
Please note: I am by no means saying the President is autistic
Oh please.
No need to. I have it on good authority that her posts speak for themselves.
I concur with this statement wholeheartedly.
And so do I.
Good one!
Yay another passive-aggressive editor around here.
Hi
Greetings and good evening
Want to clarify my presence: I try to stop back at posts I’ve written a few times to read the comments; I like a lot of comments. I like to go back and forth a bit. A few folks are remembering a post I wrote a few months ago, where the comments exploded. I was getting a lot of messages in the middle of the day; a time I’m not able to get into commenting. I also don’t have hours of a day, especially a Friday, to be arguing with folks. Hope that clarifies it. Please feel free to tag me in a comment if you think I’ve missed it.
February 11, 2018 at 3:11 PM (Comment #139)…and my temper tantrum has gone on long enough. It is done.
Several Trump supporters have said to watch what President Trump does and not get hung up on what he says. This is probably good advice, because Donald Trump’s apparent disposition on a given topic changes quite a bit. Is Kim Jung Un a figure to be mocked as “Little Rocket Man” or someone to be praised for the brutality he has visited on his subjects? Depends on the week. Rather than trying to figure out what Trump really thinks of Kim (or Putin, or a dozen other people/countries/things) it’s probably better to relax and see what actually policies are crafted.
You might want to consider other factors as well. Trump mocked Kim when he was blustering. Then he was threatened verbally and by military deployments ( remember?) . Them Kim cried “uncle”. Then there was something to talk about. Insults were no longer necessary or useful.
I don’t think anyone praised him for brutality.
By the way, there are only two things you can do to a brutal dictator if you don’t talk – or personally insult him ( which is just international virtue signaling) to the point where productive talks are impossible, let them keep playing games and everything continues forever, or attack.
Which do you recommend with Kim and Putin?
Bush and Obama just postured the whole time ( Bush gets a partial pass as he was already busy with two wars).
From this article:
I would say that sounds like praise. As I said, we may as well relax and see what happens. Trying to predict what our president will say next is a spin of the roulette wheel, but I’m hopeful that the actions of the administration will work out.
Some people are doing quite well at predicting actions by the president.
If you can’t do it, just acknowledge you don’t understand him and move on.
I stand corrected.
Also, I apologize for what I wrote, and am pleased to be wrong.
So hi, yourself.
I don’t disagree with your good/bad Trump idea. He is often reactive and occasionally vindictive and petulant.
Still, it seems too pat to assume that the decisions he makes are about flipping the bird to this person or that faction.
I’m watching an excellent documentary about Admiral Hyman Rickover, creator of the nuclear Navy. There are interesting similarities between Rickover and Trump. Both willing to stand up against conventional belief. Both not very well accepted by the bureaucratic structures in which they operate. Both can be pretty harsh, though probably Rickover harsher than Trump.
It would have been unlikely that a courtly and gentlemanly officer from an establishment background…say, George Bush the Elder…could have nuclearized the Navy in less than a decade, if that.
OTOH, Rickover did have the ability to create his own highly effective and fiercely loyal organization. Trump must have done that to at least some extent in business; it’s not clear that he can do the same in the government environment.
Trump’s combativeness comes out of his formative years, and the fact that he and his dad Fred were never considered to be part of the elite builders in New York. Dad simply put up apartments for the rabble out in Brooklyn and Queens, and when they attempted to move into the Manhattan real estate market in the mid-1970s by getting the contract to develop the Javits Center (yes, the same property where Hillary had her election night ‘victory’ party in 2016), they were rejected by the city’s leadership, even though Fred had been a longtime supporter of Abe Beame and the Brooklyn Democratic Party machine.
Trump had to force his way into the Manhattan real estate market with the Grand Hyatt project in 1977, where he took an aging hotel no one wanted, cloaked it in a gaudy exterior and rode the concurrent effort of Jackie Kennedy to save neighboring Grand Central Terminal from destruction into some great PR, in a year when everything else seemed to be falling apart in New York City. He then became Rupert Murdoch’s Page 1 voice, saying things about the corruption and incompetence of NYC politicians that Murdoch was saying on the editorial page of his newly-purchased New York Post, and it worked because people from the outer boroughs — New York City’s flyover country — thought Trump was speaking for them.
So Trump came to his current job with a 40-year history of his behavior, and with the mindset that if 50.1 percent of the public was on his side, he didn’t care if the remaining 49.9 percent hated him.