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Donald Trump at the G-7 summit in Quebec reminded me of the scene in "A Christmas Story" (the original movie, not the lousy musical remake) right before juvenile neighborhood terrorist Scut Farkus finally gets the crap beaten out of him by one of his victims as the other victim-kids look on in awe and disbelief and barely-contained schadenfreude.
The scowl on Donald's face and the arms folded defensively across his flabby chest was the public relations equivalent of German Chancellor Angela Merkel beating him to a pulp, as toady John Bolton just stood there helplessly, even his grotesque mustache unable to hide his idiotically gaping mouth.
Sadly, before he could get pummeled into a complete mess, Donald managed to scut out of Canada on his safe space, Air Force One, so he could nurse his psychic wounds and call neoliberal prime minister Justin Trudeau names from 35,000 feet up in the air, which made him very much taller and stronger than Trudeau. Trump was very mad because Justin rudely refused to accept his bullying graciously. The victims are all being very, very mean to him. They were even making fake smiley faces at him for the cameras.
“The European Union is brutal to the United States,” Trump blubber-tweeted. (bleated) “And they understand that. They know it. When I’m telling them, they’re smiling at me. You know, it’s like the gig is up.”
(I think he might have been suspecting that his own gig in the Oval Office may soon be up and that he could very well be dancing a jig all the way to the federal pen. Oh, I forgot: rich felons don't go to prison, they might pay a fine and retire permanently to their scores of properties until such time as the oligarchic imperium which spawned them pays them off, arranges for their comebacks, or both. Think of Ferdinand Marcos luxuriously exiled in Hawaii or Charlie Rose getting invited to that annual mogul retreat in Idaho.)
So anyway, Trump has touched down in Singapore for his meeting with Kim Jung Un, who is a lot shorter than him and therefore prime bullying fodder. Or so Trump seems to think. That even a couple of Trump's toadies admitted that he left the G-7 early and scuttled the whole joint agreement just so he could save face as he faced the North Korean dictator doesn't bode well for whatever propaganda value he thinks he can suck up in Asia.
Meanwhile, all that the establishment corporate media can do is moan and groan about the demise of the United States as the great Western power holding all its NATO client-states in thrall for the past seventy-odd years.
Trump's Republican party-cult and its Democratic toady offshoot will take decisive action against him if and only if the richest people and corporations on the planet start losing too much money from his trade war and other shenanigans. They will not take action against him for seizing children from their parents at the Mexican border, or for dropping bombs on civilians in Syria, or other things which adversely affect the relatively powerless people in this world.
As long as Wall Street continues to boom, the lords of capital will at least tacitly cheer on Trump's chaos, both controlled and uncontrolled. And if this chaos leads to more wars, all the better for their bottom lines and military investment portfolios. These people have private security guards, yachts, jets and even private islands to retreat to if things get more violent than they are already are.
Still, there's that positive aspect of Trump. He is hastening the demise of American Exceptionalism by making the whole world healthily creeped out and emboldened at the same time.
What sane person would not experience the adrenaline rush of fight/flight listening to Trump boast:
“How long will it take to figure out if they’re serious? … Maybe in the first minute. You know, the way they say you know if you’re going to like somebody in the first five seconds, you ever hear that one? I think very quickly I’ll know whether or not something good is going to happen. And if I think it won’t happen, I’m not going to waste my time. I don’t want to waste his time."So Kim, remembering that notorious Access Hollywood tape, had better guard his crotch right along with his real estate holdings and his offshore bank accounts and his marching slave girl cheerleaders.
Asked how he would read Kim so swiftly, Trump said: “My touch, my feel, that’s what I do.”
