Could a Bully Start World War III?
I received two comments, one each from two of my most beloved people in the this world, this weekend. The first was from my son Marc, who voiced concern that Trump might start WW III. The second was from my brother Leo, who observed that somebody should have broken Trump’s nose or knocked out his front teeth while he was still an undergraduate in college. “That would have straightened him out. That’s how you handle a bully.” Late this Sunday afternoon, I’ve been trying to reconcile these two comments. Here’s where I come out…and I hope to Christ I’m right.
Trump most certainly is a bully. Born on second base and led to believe he hit a double, he has been bullying people all his career. Piss him off and he sues you. If he blunders, he declares bankruptcy and leaves his creditors holding the empty bag. The going gets tough for Guiani, Trump gets going… in the other direction. “You’re fired,” was his favorite catch phrase when he was a TV start, and God knows he’s doubled down on it at the start of his second term.
He’s something of a one-trick pony. At 78 his aging brain confuses reality with reality TV, the place where he probably was happiest, since “The Apprentice” was grounded in and built upon bullying, the thing he’s best at. The other day, he discovered that the Oval Office isn’t the equivalent of his TV set of yore. “‘This is going to be great television, I’ll tell you that.’ Those may have been the truest words uttered by U.S. President Donald Trump in the course of a dramatic and completely undiplomatic meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump knows a thing or two about television. A former reality TV star, he charted his path to power with a keen awareness of how to retain people’s attention. The more shocking, the more outlandish, the more boorish, the more unprecedented—the more ratings would tick up.” Thus begins a story published on February 28th by Foreign Policy.
So the bullying didn’t work with a Ukrainian leader who has been bombed by Putin for the past three years. What next for the man I’ve taken to calling Donito Trumpolini in my social media posts? I don’t think Zlensky punched him hard enough in the nose to change Trumpo’s behavior. (Sorry, Leo.) Donido’s namesake —- with whom he bears an uncanny resemblance that has led me to reconsider reincarnation—- enjoyed his little wars (in Libya for instance), but by cozying up to Hitler, got himself embroiled in the big one. This was his undoing. Trump’s nuzzling of Putin bears an uncanny (and troubling) resemblance to the Mussolini/Hitler story, I admit.
That being said, I think the difference lies not so much with Trumpolini as with Putin. Putin doesn’t want a worldwide conflagration. Hitler grossly overestimated his own military acumen, while grossly underestimating Churchill’s tenacity and Stalin’s resilience. There’s no underestimating the results of a global war today. That’s why we haven’t had one in 80 years. MAD: mutually assured destruction. Putin’s a lot of bad things; nuts isn’t one of them. He is patiently rebuilding the late, great Russian empire. He’ll string the sycophantic Trumpo along until he’s gotten everything out of him he can.
Trumpo for his part will spin everything to make it seem like it’s for America’s best. He’ll massage the ratings. As Foreign Policy puts is, “Trump tracked [his ratings] obsessively. He was known to dial TV executives willing to take his calls, dishing on the numbers every morning. If the ratings hadn’t inched up, he would try something else. Rinse and repeat.”
Hey, I may be dead wrong (oops, bad word choice that). But I don’t see either Putin or Trumpo blundering into WW III. Yes, I know that the so-called Great Powers stumbled stupidly into WW I. That’s in no small part because they thought they were starting a four month, not a four year, war. They didn’t know what their weapons could do. Hitler, too, thought he’d kick ass, and Benito Baby figured he’d go along for the ride. Pure madness. Today the madness is in the weapons, not the leaders.
Or so I —-as every one of us should—- sincerely hope.
