Donald Trump’s Failures Make Him Even More Dangerous
If countries keep calling the president’s bluff, as Mexico has done, there’s a good chance he may start burning things down just to prove a point.
Donald Trump may be channeling his favorite Bond villain Auric Goldfinger as he plays chicken with the world’s economy, but he’s not much of a mastermind.
Photographer: Silver Screen Collection/MoviepixAny remaining thoughts that President Donald Trump has been playing three-dimensional chess while everyone else around him is engaged in less sophisticated pursuits should perish with his sudden abandonment of tariff threats against Mexico.
The only thing Trump got from this stunt was yet another round of abundant attention as everyone tried to decipher the riddle of “what is this unusual and loopy man up to this time because he’s breaking the norms of generally accepted presidential behavior?” For Trump personally, the opportunity to generate and then bask in that kind of media buzz is, of course, far from nothing. Self-aggrandizement and self-preservation have motivated almost all of his thinking for decades, first as an unknown outer-borough tyro, then as a closely watched developer and carnival barker, finally during his years as TV celebrity and now president.