Donald Trump’s sudden ass-kissing won’t save him
Bullies always reveal themselves to be cowards once they finally come up against an opponent who intimidates them. That may explain why Donald Trump, the most callous bully of his generation, has suddenly turned into a timid ass kisser today. He’s kissing up to Steve Bannon. He’s kissing up to the Democratic Mayor of Boston. He’s even kissing up to the people in the streets who are protesting against him. And none of it’s helping his cause.
The larger picture here may be that Trump has finally figured out how much trouble he’s in. He relied on a fellow monster like Bannon to help get him this far in politics. Now that Bannon no longer suits his purposes, he’s cut him loose without a hint of loyalty. But now Trump has to worry that Bannon will retaliate against him. And so it’s why we saw Trump tweeting this today: “I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service. He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton – it was great!” But Trump isn’t just kissing up to Bannon; he’s now kissing up to everyone (except Hillary).
Trump briefly tried today to falsely accuse the anti-Nazi protesters in Boston of abusing the police. But after that tweet went nowhere, Trump changed his tune entirely and began praising the protesters. He tweeted “Our great country has been divided for decades. Sometimes you need protest in order to heal, & we will heal, & be stronger than ever before!” Well, he initially tweeted it with “heel” instead of “heal” and had to replace it. Then he tweeted “I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one!”
These are almost the kind of tweets you’d expect from a gracious and psychologically competent leader. But as we all know, Donald Trump isn’t any of those things. He’s merely reached the point today where he’s truly scared that he’s going to get bullied out of office, whether it be by Bannon and his monsters coming at him from the far right, or the mainstream American protesters coming at him from every other part of the spectrum.
Donald Trump is essentially begging for mercy, after having spent the past two years trying to tear down everyone and everything in order to get ahead. It’s remarkable that he’s had a coherent enough moment today to even figure out that groveling is the only tool he has left in his bag. It’s unlikely to get him very far, of course. Steve Bannon is going to do whatever is best for Steve Bannon, because that’s his nature, and that’ll include using ugly tactics to destroy some of Trump’s closest allies and family members. And the people protesting in the streets against Trump and his racist base aren’t about to show him any sympathy. Not after what he’s said about them. Not after what he’s done to this country.
Moreover, this won’t last long. We’ve seen a few brief moments in the past in which Trump tried taking a conciliatory tone. Because that’s not his true nature, and because he’s clinically compelled to rebel against his own occasional handful of reasonable decisions, he’ll be back in attack mode before long. We saw it this past week, when he grudgingly gave a prepared speech condemning his own white supremacist supporters, but then came to resent it so thoroughly that he turned around and gave another speech the next day defending white supremacists. That sequence only served to hurt him more than if he hadn’t given either speech.
So now we wait and watch to see how much longer Trump remains in timid kiss-up mode before he inevitably shifts back into petty attack mode. He might even end up attacking Bannon before long, just to make up for having had to kiss Bannon’s ass today. If he does, it’ll only motivate Bannon to do what he’s already itching to do to him. And we know Trump end up attacking the anti-Trump protesters, because his narcissism won’t allow him to continue showing them graciousness.
If Trump were a mentally competent and psychologically stable person, today might have been considered a breakthrough for him. He’s moving on from his petty feuds and sideshows in favor of deciding to sound like a leader for once. But this isn’t who he is, and he’s not capable of sustaining this charade. When he’s done this in the past, some commentators on the left and right have been quick to declare that “Trump has finally become presidential” before getting burned a day or two later by his next meltdown. It’s why you don’t see too many rushing in today to praise Trump for his tweets, because we all know it won’t last.
