The Trump Doctrine
When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.
A trip down memory lane (i.e., the now infamous Access Hollywood tape):
Trump: “Yeah that’s her with the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful… I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Bush: “Whatever you want.”
Trump: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Trump this week, via The Hill: Trump on ‘taking’ Cuba: ‘I can do anything I want with it’.
Trump, speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, would not rule out a military move, adding, “I think I can do anything I want with it.”
“Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he said. “You want to know the truth, they’re a very weakened nation now.”
Here’s the video:
I never bought the notion that the Access Hollywood tape was about “locker room talk” but did, in fact, demonstrate his state of mind. Clearly, the E. Jean Carroll case demonstrated that it was literally something he would do.
The question of whether there is a “Trump Doctrine” about foreign policy has been asked from time to time, as is the case with all presidents.
But forget all the attempts to think about spheres of influence or the “Donroe Doctrine” or “flexible realism” or anything else.
The Trump Doctrine is succinct and clear, and we have known about it since before he was elected: When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.
Rich, powerful men can do what they want, when they want.
That’s the Trump Doctrine.
To Hell with actually understanding what is going on, how it works, or what the consequences might be. No, just move on them like a bitch.
What else do you really need to know?
It’s a shame millions of American voters ignored what they were told, and the world is now living through the consequences.
I don’t think voters ignored it, they wanted a master, they wanted to surrender their will, and they wanted to hurt their enemies. They weren’t misled, they chose cruelty and violence, and they got cruelty and violence, which is why no one has left MAGA. Trump is giving them exactly what they wanted. Children starving to death in Africa, protesters shot in the face by ICE, sexual predators unleashed, our friends and allies betrayed, brown people and trans people living in fear, this is what MAGA wanted.
Thank you for highlighting the connection between Trump’s aberrant, rapey sex life and his rapey foreign policy. Why the pederasty of President Trumpstein Files is not irrelevant. Someone who would help abuse underage teens is unfit for leadership. No surprise Trump’s demonic sexual thuggery bleeds into his politics.
We need a serious policy wonk laser focused on affordable housing, universal healthcare, clean and renewable energy, safe and affordable mass transit — and on defending our tranatlantic and transpacific alliance from China and Russia. This crooked, lowlife trash president and his phony VP simply cannot deliver the goods. Incompetent.
And, yes, mollycoddled American adults are to be faulted for our childish embrace of Twitterbrained political entertainment, long-debunked trickle down bs, anti-intellectualism, tedious victim-mentality white grievance, anti-wokeness, and bigoted scapegoating instead of on serious policy solutions. Our immature, amoral, hatemogering electorate got exactly the immature, amoral, hatemogering presidency they earned.
And until American voters take personal accountability for their indefensible, inexcusable political fuckups instead of coddling each other and shifting blame with lame “A woke liberal irritated me online so I voted to destroy my life with white supremacist fascism” bullshit excuses, expect continued American mediocrity. We in psychology can report: positive behavior change is downstream of one’s ability to admit, “My decisions are my responsibility.”
Not seeing anything yet from the US indicating such growth. “It’s always somebody else’s fault” is no way for a person or nation to achieve greatness. Bad news for anyone expecting sweeping improvements in the USA’s post-Trump quality of life.
@Michael Reynolds:
@DK:
Both of you, spot on!
@Michael Reynolds:
MAGA isn’t only sadists, also religious nutters such as Mike Huckabee and Pete Hegseth.
@Michael Reynolds: I absolve no one of their moral culpability for their votes for Trump. I also think that yes, there a very large number of people who clearly chose what they got.
But it is also true that it simply isn’t the case that everyone who voted for Trump voted for your list. This is important not because it absolves anyone or excuses anything. It is important because it is true.
And it matters because it means that there are persuadable people out there. It also is a reminder that people vote for any number of reasons, many of which are ill thought out.
I do think that millions who knew better rationalized away the clear warning before our faces, because that’s what humans do.
And I am at least somewhat hopeful that frustration with our present reality will have real ramifications at the midterms and even in 2028. But, of course, we shall see.
And note I say this not because I think we won’t suffer long term damage from Trump nor do I think we are going back to “normal” whatever that might mean.
As with the toddler’s worldview, we can reduce the Taco doctrine to one word:
MINE!!1!
@Steven L. Taylor:
If this was not what they wanted, why are they still supporting Trump? I think we have the good Germans syndrome: ‘What? Death camps? Why, I never supported genocide! I was just in it for the hate and the rallies.”
Trump got 50% of the vote. He’s now down to 40% support, so the weak Trumpies have abandoned him – or at least pretend they have – but 40% of Americans, having seen Epstein, having seen ICE, having seen the wars, and the insurrection, and the attacks on liberty, and the threats against our friends, still support him. At this point I don’t think we can pretend that this isn’t exactly what they wanted all along. The 10% were maybe more about the economy than the hate, but the 40% were always about the hate and the rallies. They will never change, they will never admit to their motives or to the damage they’ve done. 40% of Americans are bad people.
@Steven L. Taylor:
N0t everyone who voted for Trump is the same. Not everyone who still supports Trump is the same. Just look at the excellent work of Will Sommer at The Bulwark, the zoologist of the MAGA world. He has identified many different species among even the most zealous, demented, and vile. For example, there’s the current clash between Candace Owens and Erika Kirk, or the arm-wrestling over Charlie Kirk’s “legacy,” or Laura Loomer versus the anti-Semites. (One is reminded of Ken Watanabe’s classic line, “Let them fight.”)
And that’s just the modern Jacobins. Outside that circle, there is also a lot of diversity. Just to pick one, many Latinos who voted for Trump didn’t want ICE’s atrocities. Or the demolition of science in this country. Or wars of choice. Or, or, or… And to say that they wanted to “surrender their will” is patently ridiculous. Sure, that’s a trait of many people of a fascist and authoritarian bent. But it’s not true even of all of them, let alone everyone else who voted for Trump.
Having said that, I don’t harbor fantasies about how “gettable” the bulk of these people are. Among other barriers to defection, they have to face their own gullibility, something that most people who have been conned are reluctant to admit. And many of them may harbor very noisome views, about trans people, black people, or other people not like themselves. But they don’t share all of the same views. And they don’t all deserve condemnation to the bottom levels of hell for having voted for Trump.
It doesn’t help matters to stuff them into the same, stereotypical “MAGA voter” costume. Just as my high school US history teacher liked to say, important historical moments happen because of many causes. In this case, there were many people who were diehard MAGA, MAGA curious, MAGA because they’re friends were MAGA, ignorant of how our political system work, knowledgeable but frustrated with our political system, tired of a “broken” immigration system, tired of immigrants they didn’t like, science-friendly, anti-vaccine, modern imperialists, modern isolationists, Christian nationalists, manosphere fans…Unfortunately, we had many people with a common disgust for the status quo, which coalesced into the Trump coalition. But even within the MAGA part of that coalition, these people are not all the same.
@Kingdaddy:
If you surrender your will, it’s because you chose to do so. People aren’t lured into cults, they leap into them. And we’re not talking about the 10% who at least pretend to have quit, we’re talking about the 40% who despite everything still love Dear Leader, and who will always love and obey Dear Leader.
I take a hard position on responsibility and culpability because it’s the standard I apply to myself. I cut myself zero slack and hold myself solely to blame for all my misdeeds. And since I’m not a Christian I can’t just blame the devil and be conveniently forgiven so I can do it all over again. Nor do I forgive myself. I accept the truth, I acknowledge the harm I’ve done, and I do better.
Political expediency will require us to soft-pedal some of this, but between us here? To quote our old friend, these are shitty people with shitty values. Had these shitty people not wanted protesters shot in the face, the polls would show it. Every fucking one of these people saw January 6, every fucking one of them. Every one of them saw the rape – sorry, sexual assault – trial and its outcome. Every person who voted for Trump in this last election is culpable, and there is no excusing them. And now every single one of these creeps now knows that Trump raped little girls. And he’s steady at 40%.
Tried to violently steal an election. 40% support.
Renee Good and Alex Pretti murdered. 40% support.
Little. Girls. Raped. 40% support.
One of the most interesting, and discouraging ideas (backed up by data) I have heard about is that the more damage that is done because of someone’s mistaken choice, the harder they will defend it. The more committed to it they are. Trump’s narcissism is an extreme version of this. Trump supporters are this. Those less committed have eroded away.
People do this to defend their identity, to reassure themselves that “I am the good guy.” They might add “I have to make tough choices” rather than “I endorse a rapist and a bully”. He promised them that he would make their lives better. Which is something they needed. He talks to them like they talk to each other. So they trusted him. And great harm has been done, not yet to them, though. That’s just getting started.
I have watched many variations of this story throughout my life. It never makes me happy. There will be a crash at the bottom. (Maybe not always, that would be nice. I’m sure DK knows more about this than I do) Only then, can things change. We need to be ready to deal with the crash, because they won’t be.
The crash is coming. You can sort of see it from here, it seems to me. Be ready. And no, I don’t know exactly what that means. Maybe most of all be emotionally ready. Don’t be paralyzed by shock. Be ready to act.
@Michael Reynolds:
I think a large part of the problem is that far too many of them HAVEN’T seen all that stuff. The information bubble and sane-washing of his insanity are very real. This is not meant to excuse them for their gullibility (at best) but I feel that we live in a society that has fallen so far into propaganda and downright brainwashing that it’s going to take something truly catastrophic to penetrate. Whether that be the next Great Depression or nuking Iran (and I’m not even sure the latter would do it; our pocketbooks outweigh everything as a general rule) I don’t know.
It’s not just Trump’s Doctrine, so let’s not leave out the other rich, powerful men who are in play here.
Whether millions of persuadable voters went in for Trump (at first and again) because they were duped, or ignorant, or all in for the despotism, seems less important to me than noting that the oligarchs made Trump viable again through their donations and their captured media. These powerbrokers were persuaded themselves that their interests were best served by putting this manchild in charge – war, consumer loss of affordability, degradation of the Bill of Rights, mass deportation, loss of democracy all small price to pay for their expanded wealth and freedom to exploit.
I am so far past being pissed about Trump. Bring out the guillotines.
Peter Thiel, others and the Apocalypse, what influential loonies, folks like Peter Thiel and Pete Hegseth, Mike Huckabee and Mike Johnson are thinking. After traipsing through a vast amount of Revelation backstory Greg Olear eventually gets to the conclusion:
“Prevail”