Trump the fickle

"Unpredictable" is one of the epithets that most frequently accompanies Donald Trump's name (in his case, we wouldn't be talking about Homeric epithets, but rather Rabelaisian ones). But it's not true, as is the case with most expressions that are repeated until they become automatic. Trump is predictable: a textbook supremacist, nationalist, and sexist, with an exorbitant amount of money and a deep resentment toward a political and social system that he has always perceived as hostile to him. His brutality, his rudeness and ignorance, his childish nature, make him feel that with his money he can buy anything and everything, and in this sense, he is not entirely wrong, because a very large number (most?) of people are willing to sell what they have, or to sell themselves, in exchange for money or, simply, in exchange for the feeling of being there. He also has the conviction that, from the appropriate place of power (the Oval Office), he can impose his will on the entire world. It's called megalomania, and he's dedicated himself to it body and soul. This profile has been seen many times in leaders, powerful people, and rulers throughout history, and in fact, we find it repeated, on a daily basis and on a small scale, in many personal relationships where someone can exercise some kind of power over another, however paltry. So it's not unpredictable, because we know well how these people act.

However, megalomania is often accompanied by a capricious and fickle nature, and Trump possesses this to a degree that at times seems pathological. His economic wars fueled by tariffs, which are now raised, lowered, postponed, and replicated, literally depending on how Trump feels about one country or another at the time, are a good example of this. Relations with Russia and Israel (or his administration's interventions in the invasion of Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza) also follow this vacillating pattern. Especially in the case of Ukraine: this Sunday, Trump sent a message of support and admiration to the Ukrainians, just four months after having starred in one of the most grotesque episodes in the history of Western diplomacy, when he and his Vice President Vance heckled President Zelensky. Domestically, too: he has now militarized Washington and filled the streets of the US capital with heavily armed soldiers, and he has done so arbitrarily, following his whim.

It seems that the decisions of the president of the increasingly controversial world power are all directed toward one goal: to force those around him to flatter him in order to obtain his clemency and magnanimity, in the style of princes. He himself summed it up in three words: kiss my ass, who kiss my ass. It's regrettable, but it's also regrettable that so many world leaders, and Europeans in particular, are so willing to bend.