By this time, you have probably seen Donald Trump’s recent address to the American public and the world on the situation in the Middle East. If you haven’t, watch it here.
I only watched the first half of this, about nine minutes, then I turned it off. I couldn’t take any more. I actually felt compassion for the man, which is something different for me, because I have never had anything but contempt for him before this.
Trump is broken. He’s done. He walked in as if he was about ready to collapse, head down, without any life in his step. During the time I watched, he never let go of the lectern and never took his eyes off the auto-prompt, reading everything on it in a mechanical manner quite unlike his usual self. Eyes straight ahead, monotone voice. Body language defying everything he said. None of the usual bombastic, flamboyant behavior. Even when he took credit for all the “good” things which have happened, it was as if coming from a robot.
I’m not surprised. After all, the Word promises that those who exalt themselves shall be humbled, and there is no question about Trump exalting himself. “I’m the president. I can do anything I want. The only limit I recognize is my own mind, my own will, my own morality. Look at me. Look at me. Look. Look. Look.”
Trump is broken. He’s run up against something which he can’t control and it has done him in. This is probably the first time in his life where he experienced something like this, with negative repercussions directly and visibly in front of him and no way to avoid the accounting, which is disastrous. No matter which way he turns, no matter what he does, he loses. Loses, loses bigly. He is in uncharted territory.
I could easily expound on the Iran war, but that is not necessary. There are more than enough pundits eager and willing to analyze and write about that. Instead, I’m going to psychoanalyze Mr. Trump’s position and his mentality, from a distance, of course, as I have never met the man and I have never had any training in the profession, but I have had a lot of experience from life.
Trump is in a very bad position, between Iran and a hard place.1 If he withdraws from the battle because it is beginning to cost too much, then he will be seen as a loser, a quitter, someone who can’t stand being punched in the nose. If he stays in the fight, he has to escalate in order to “win”, a subjective perception which might or might not play well at home with his fan base. If he escalates, he runs the risk of generating even greater losses than already incurred, i.e., the lives of hundreds or thousands of American servicemen/women which will not play well at home. If this war drags on very much longer, it runs the risk of becoming a Viet Nam type engagement, which will not play well at home. If he resorts to the use of nuclear weapons (or consents to the use of Israeli nuclear weapons), he runs the risk of world-wide condemnation, including from his home base. He can’t quit and he can’t continue. Is it any wonder that he appeared as he did last night in the speech he presented? Old, broken, and unwilling to admit failure and defeat.
God, please, please have mercy on that man. He needs it.
- Pardon the pun. George W. Bush was in the same predicament more than 20 years ago. Caught between Iraq and a hard place. The saying goes, “caught between a rock and a hard place”, in other words, in a position where everything you do turns out badly because you made a stupid, a really stupid mistake to start with. ↩︎
Poor Roger's Almanac 