Certainly, there have been cases where the media has been unfair and unreasonable in its treatment of Trump. The street corner psychoanalysis of Trump as often found on the pages of The Washington Post and the New York Times has been especially tedious and lamentable.
But we have a better understanding of Trump derangement syndrome now and those who point a finger at Trump’s critics have got it the wrong way around.
It is said of Trump’s presidency that no matter how chaotic or scandal riddled it has been, the media can always turn to an interview with a small group sporting MAGA baseball caps in diners in the back blocks of Wisconsin or Ohio or Arizona or western Pennsylvania who say they love Donald Trump more than ever.
I suspect there’ll be fewer of them now but still plenty for the media to call upon at will. After Helsinki, the predictable ‘Trump can do no wrong’ response is especially revealing of the symptoms and signs of the dreaded real Trump derangement syndrome.
It is a state of mind where the deranged have found themselves not just rationalising protectionist trade policies or a Trump Administration mandated action to separate refugee children from their parents and incarcerate them, but now to assume the role of barrackers for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a tyrant and mass murderer.
In the 544 days earmarked by chaos, scandal and since Trump issued a tweet saying he was “honered (sic) to serve you, the great American people, as your 45th President of the United States” no moment has been worse than his press conference with Putin at his side in Helsinki, no error so grave and damaging to Trump’s standing, no statement uttered so quickly and damned by so many from both sides of the political divide.
Just hours after the Helsinki Summit concluded, Trump was interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News where he doubled down on his strange affection for Putin and his willingness to accept Putin’s word at face value and contrary to the evidence gathered by his own national security agencies.
Trump suggested that we now know he and his campaign team didn’t collude with Russia, and Moscow has no Kompromat on him, because Putin said so.
Later in the interview, Trump oddly remarked, “I thought that President Putin was very, very strong.”
On his return to the US Trump still could not understand why everyone was yelling at him and tweeted predictable nonsense that “the Fake News (was) going crazy.”
Backed into a corner today, Trump did what he rarely does, back pedalled at Olympic speed and issued a baffling and preposterous explanation:
“I actually went out and reviewed a clip of an answer that I gave and I realise that there is need for some clarification. It should have been obvious, I thought it would be obvious, but I would like to clarify just in case it wasn’t. In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word would instead of wouldn’t. The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t’ or ‘why it wouldn’t be Russia.’”
“So just to repeat it, I said the word would instead of wouldn’t and the sentence should have been — and I thought I would be maybe a little bit unclear on the transcript or unclear on the actual video. The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double negative. So you can put that in, and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.”
If you believe that might I interest you in one or two casinos in Atlantic City going cheap?
Those suffering from real Trump derangement syndrome will by now have been placated and will have forgiven Trump for the misdemeanour of demurring at a double negative.
For the record, six US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and Trump’s own Department of Justice have stated that Russia sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election and undermined US political institutions. The GOP led Senate Intelligence Committee found likewise.
Beyond that Mueller is coming. As of today, the Special Counsel’s investigation has led to 32 indictments to four former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is banged up in prison, bail revoked.
If it is a “rigged witch hunt” as Trump has tweeted on too many occasions to count, it must be regarded as strange indeed that two of Trump’s team, including his former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Where it will end and when is known only to Mueller and his team. At present the only evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians is of the circumstantial type. But his behaviour in the presence of Putin in Helsinki only serves to give oxygen to some of the more bizarre theories of kompromat and scandal.
Let’s leave the speculation on Trump’s motives to his political opponents and wait for Mueller and due process. What we can say now is Trump is weak, craven and self-serving. When the US was an emerging geopolitical power, Teddy Roosevelt coined a phrase particular to describe his often ferocious and unforgiving brand of diplomacy. He “spoke softly and carried a big stick”. With Russia and Putin, Trump does neither and manages to trash his nation’s institutions into the bargain.
The end of empire in the US is now inevitable. The prospect of it has been apparent for two decades. Trump’s presidency has confirmed it and will continue to accelerate it. Everyone not afflicted by the real Trump derangement syndrome knows and understands it.
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