I didn't leave Trump, he left me
...and I am not alone with the feeling
I know only two narcissists. I know many people who are rather full of themselves, but only two, whom I would label narcissist. I still don’t know how to handle them, which is my biggest problem: the fact that I have to. They can be entertaining and amusing, but often just boring and tiring. They are not bad people, I do not want to break my relationship with them, so I just placate them. I let them do their pompous, self-important posturing trying to keep my smile inside. I see their narcissism as a character flaw. You may know some too, and handle them the same way. We can do that, because they are mostly harmless. To cause real harm, you need real power. Like the one wielded by the president of the United States.
The way I feel about Donald Trump is very similar to the way I feel about my friends. The positives outweighed the negatives. If I were American, I would have voted for him in all three elections.
The problem with narcissism is its power to corrupt. Narcissists in power always end up with sycophants instead of advisors. Narcissists always end up being manipulated by the worst of their surrounding, by those who suck up to them the most shamelessly.
I sympathized with Donald Trump when he was subjected to endless harassment by the political establishment; I expressed my hopes when he was running in 2024; I voiced my disappointment just a few months ago, but now I am at the point of losing every last bit of the hopes I placed in him. He is being swallowed by the swamp and chewed up by his own hubris.
My disappointment at this point is already bordering contempt.
The unpredictability, the untrustworthiness, the bullying, the clinging to the belief in America’s innate and unchallengeable superiority; the complete lack of understanding of what’s going on in the world is getting pathetic.
The war (and no peace)
The most important element of my hopes was a simple statement Trump repeated several times during his campaign in 2024. He said that he will end the war in Ukraine on the first day after swearing in. I believed him, because I knew that he had the power to do it.
All he had to do is to disengage completely. Not a penny more. That is all that would have been needed to end the war. Telling the Ukrainians to “STOP IT!” “Talk to the Russians, or you are on your own. There is no NATO or EU for you.”
Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States and the commander in chief of its armed forces. He had the power to stop it, but he decided not to do it. He kept on supporting and even escalating the conflict. He kept on giving money and weapons; lying to the Russians; bullying and threatening the whole world with tariffs and sanctions.
None of which worked! Russia is stronger than ever, while the US is losing power, influence, the dominance of the dollar, but most of all: the respect of the rest of the world. Nobody is taking America seriously anymore.
Just a few days ago, the Trump administration leaked, then stood by a 28 point peace-plan. A plan so dilettante, so incompetent that it is turning into a major international embarrassment. As if it was written by some investment guys instead of diplomats…
You can read an annotated version of it here. It is truly an embarrassment.
Tariffs, sanctions, regulations and subsidies
Economic policies either help or hinder economic activities.
Mostly hinder, as government interventions are always negative sum games.
Tariffs, (“…the most beautiful word in the dictionary”) are just a national sales tax collected at the border. In the end, tariffs are always paid by the consumer.
Sanctions are just restrictions on trade creating a degree of scarcity and therefore higher prices.
Regulations are the heaviest cost on the production of anything. In North America, it is (arguably) the most expensive component of real estate prices.
Subsidies are a distortion of the most important tool of the market, the price signals.
They are the flip side of tariffs, making products appear cheaper at the taxpayers’ expense. The benefits are usually focused on a small group while the costs are borne by all taxpayers.
All of these policy tools of governments are rationalized with appeals to fictional benefits; national, environmental, societal or economic interest, but that they are universally harmful.
This is basic economics, the one you must absorb before the 101 courses. Yet, Donald Trump does not seem to understand it, not honest about it or captured by the interests they serve. Of which there are many. I understand that it is not easy, but that is why we need the hero that Donald Trump is not.
Picking on the illegals, the criminals, the woke, the ideological extremists and deposing tinpot dictators is the easy part. Addressing the real issues and their underlying causes are not. See What’s to be done? for the details.
I reached the point where I no longer believe that Donald Trump has what it takes to right the sinking ship of the American economy. Like a good narcissist, he is far too seriously preoccupied with his own image and popularity.
America could lead the West into a better future, but NOT with the caprice of Donald Trump at the helm.
The US and its economy in the world
As I pointed out in the post linked above:
America’s greatness should NOT be predicated on dominance,
but on the respect of the rest of the world
The US must find its place in the new multipolar world order. It cannot bully its way to greatness.
Contrary to his self-promoting spiel, Trump is not a peace-maker.
I must say again, I understand what he is up against. The various lobbies and special interests have their very existence riding on the system as it is. It is not possible to save the host and the parasites at the same time.
Want to Make America Healthy Again? You cannot do that without hurting big food, big agro-, big pharma, and the reform of healthcare, and the reinvention of medical education, licensing, research, publications and patent laws.
You cannot save America from destructive ideologies without radically changing education from kindergarten to post-doctoral studies.
America cannot find its place in the emerging multipolar world order without hurting the existing global institutions of international governance. The United States is trapped in its own success. As the Global Hegemon, with the US dollar as the reserve currency and its role in maintaining global institutions (UN, WHO, NATO, IMF, World Bank, etc.) it is captured by the interest of these organizations, while it is also beholden to the even greater special interest of scores of multinational companies dependent on these institutions.
These corporations are heavily dependent on the power of the United States to protect their interests in places like……. Ukraine.
“In 2021, the law on the sale of land came into force in Ukraine. As the Australian National Review neatly reported, “companies from the United States have used the new legislation to make massive investments in the country.”
Now Cargill, Monsanto, and Dupont (investors – Vanguard, Blackrock, and Blackstone) own 40% of Ukraine’s arable land. For permission to sell land, Ukraine received a $17 billion loan from the IMF, and offices of all three corporations were opened in Kyiv.
GMA-Monsanto Corporation directly and through several intermediary companies already 2022 owned 78% of the land fund of the Sumy region, 56% of Chernihiv, 59% of Kherson, and 47% of Mykolaiv region, She also has 34% of the land in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions pledged.” (source)
If Ukraine is lost to the West, these investments could quite easily turn into write-offs. Russia, or even a neutral Ukraine with a new government could easily claim those lands back. The Russians would just write it off as compensation for the seized Russian assets.
I am not saying that it is easy, but I am saying that Trump is not up to the task and the handling of the consequences. The multinationals investment firms placed a bet on America and now blame Trump for losing their bet. And they are powerful enough to buy the next election.
Considering all this, you have to tell me: Can Trump save America?
More from this stack
More from Substack
The Witkoff-Dmitriev peace plan annotated
References
Who owns the lands of Ukraine for 2024 - TA NEA
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Trump gave us Operation Warp Speed. Recently he got another covid booster and an mRNA based flu shot. He signed a 70 billion dollar deal with Pfizer. Soon after saying we should cut defense spending in half, and saying that Russia and China should consider doing the same, he raised defense spending by hundreds of billions. Almost everything DOGE recommended has been swept under the carpet. Aside from immigration most of the good done by this administration is being done by Kennedy and Tulsi. They are only in the administration because they brought their voters with them. If Trump backed them up they could have accomplished much more, but he ignores them. The only thing “good” about him being president is that he is not intentionally trying to destroy us. I think we would have at least a fifty percent chance of getting a better president by just picking anyone at random. Those in congress that he denigrates, Massie, Paul, MTG, Tulsi, Kennedy or Vance would be much better.
The main differences between his past reality show and the present one: the scope of the budget, the fact that we are all forced to watch this one and that literally billions of us don’t like it.
I just watched an interesting conversation that you may find relevant to this post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze82ybiBnac