When Donald Trump won the White House for the second time, I was not unhappy with the result in spite of his evident character flaws so blatantly – even proudly – on display. I agreed with many of the things he attempted to do in his first term and the alternative candidate was so much worse.
The credit Trump accumulated in my mind was squandered yesterday in his meeting with Ukraine’s President Zelensky.
Even during Trump’s first term, he struck me as a character extracted from a comic book; a cardboard cutout, two dimensional, a Marvell hero or villain, depending on your viewpoint. If I were to compare Trump to a character in literature, it would be Rex Mottram in Brideshead Revisited. Here is Mottram’s wife’s assessment of her husband:
“He wasn’t a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending to be whole.”
One could argue that Trump’s arrogance, braggadocio, pomposity, and hyper-inflated ego are all part of the package, as is the frequent nonsense he spouts with such relish. After all, it’s the end result that counts. I probably did say that to myself; but no more.
The pilgrimages foreign leaders have been making to the Oval Office remind me that in the exercise of raw power, nothing ever changes. Just as weaker kings used to bring offerings to stronger kings to appease them, so they continue to do so. Kier Starmer’s was the most nauseating, particularly when he produced the Letter From the King. Trump lapped it up.
Zelensky’s visit was very different. He didn’t grovel enough. He was insufficiently grateful for the beneficence of the dominant super-power. He didn’t say thank you enough.
When Zelensky attempted to make his case in a language that was not his native tongue, he was shouted down, bullied and ejected.
Quite possibly Trump’s attempt to come up with a peaceful solution was genuine; perhaps Zelensky should have abased himself more thoroughly. Either way, what we witnessed was the exercise of raw power of the strong over the weak.
Although one probably shouldn’t apply this to nation states, Malcolm Muggeridge had a point when he used to say “You can have love or power, but you can’t have both”.
Peter Hitchens was correct in this article published today:
Well, at least the silly myth that America is the world’s kindly sugar daddy has been killed off forever. I do not like Donald Trump and I feel quite sorry for Ukraine’s President Zelensky. But Friday night’s White House melodrama will be good for the world, if only we heed it. And if you think nothing like it has ever happened before, you are gravely wrong.
It is indeed a wake-up call for Canada and Europe. The US is not our friend; nation’s do not have friends, they have allies; sometimes the allies are rather disagreeable regimes. Whether the US is Canada’s ally remains to be seen; either way, we can no longer depend on the US to be our sugar daddy.
Donald Trump cares about nothing but the size of his wallet. He will prove to be a disaster for the States.
A very good assessment. We are getting the water board treatment by the hegemon. I wish I could say we did not deserve it.
D’Arcy Luxton
I loved your assessment.
But unfortunately the whole world’s economy sadly is based on the USA dollar. I think that should stop.
Well spoken David, my sediments also. I now have two world leaders, that make me cringe when they speak, the way they speak, and what they speak.
It would be a good idea, David, to read the whole exchange, and to see where it went wrong.
https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110331/documents/HMKP-116-JU00-20191211-SD1364.pdf
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2025/02/28/trump-zelenskyy-vance-face-off-in-oval-office-shouting-match-heres-everything-they-said/
It was very unwise to get into a public argument with Trump.
I watched the entire thing before writing the article and saw quite clearly “where it went wrong”.
Of course Zelensky was unwise to publicly argue with Trump: it’s unwise for anyone to publicly argue with Trump.
Trump alone did not elect himself president in November; his supporters did. We should pray for the American people who are being misled by their supreme leader.
Undoubtedly Trump is a crass belligerent vulgarian, but he is a crass belligerent vulgarian who has done some admirable things – like limiting abortion. When compared to the buffoon he was running against, he was the lesser of two evils.
Given the opposition, I can understand why a majority of Americans voted for him.
I dissent. I am not buying what might be called the received narrative re what is going on between Russia and Ukraine, the demonisation of Putin, that Zelensky in comparison is a democratic hero, that the war started with Russian forces crossing their border, and so on, being peddled by the European Nato bloc and the legacy media. Regardless of what opinion I have of Trump’s character, I think he is right to challenge that narrative. He may be motivated by self-glorification if he can apply his real-estate negotiation skills, together with Putin’s well-founded concerns about Nato’s eastern encroachments, to end the war. If so, so what ? Ask the seismic questions, such as why does Nato exist ?
First, a ceasefire; second, not to repeat the errors of Paris 1919 that led to World War (Europe) Part 2.
I more or less agree with your Nato comments, although no amount of provocation justifies Putin’s actions.
That being said, I don’t think the received narrative is what Trump was challenging; he was upset by Zelensky’s supposed “disrespect” and the fact that Zelensky questioned him. Zelensky wasn’t sufficiently obsequious.
If Trump truly wanted to end the conflict, he could have made a gargantuan effort, set his over-inflated ego aside temporarily and said to Zelensky “we’ll discuss safeguards later”.
Theres so much more going on here that we don’t know of yet- so I’m reserving my judgement- but- 2 things come to mind- after receiving 1/4 of a TRILLION dollars from the USA alone I would expect a little more from the recipient than changing the conversation mid meeting to such a delicate subject – and Canada will benefit much more from Mr Trump’s actions toward us than we have seen from 10 years of the moron drama teacher child abuser thats hell bent on killing our country-finally we are forced to look in the mirror and re-assess how we deal inter provincially – maybe eastern Canada might consider buying oil from Alberta now instead of Russia….as a business owner I can tell you that selling to other provinces is harder than selling to other countries- theres something good coming out of this tariff thing-in time….Canada needs a spanking
I think the total amount the US has given to Ukraine is closer to $175 billion.
The future remains uncertain. Wars or conflicts seem to be more popular than peace in the earthly kingdom. War in Ukraine will not last forever. The question to ask is: will Russia attack Europe after Ukraine?
Seems to me we are seeing a return to the isolationism of the 30s and 40s which kept the US out of WW2 until 1941. Most Americans are tired of being ‘the world police force’. They’ve spilled blood and lost treasure for all of us with little or no thanks. Amen to the wisdom of this being ‘a wake-up call’ for Canada. Why haven’t we paid our NATO assessment? I’ve also heard we haven’t done our duty with our NORAD assessment. Good old Americans – they’ll pay, take the blame, die!!
No matter how rude, overbearing, obnoxious he is, President
Trump has had a large mandate from his citizenry. We need to remember that.
Elected dictators are not different from non-elected dictators. We believe in truth and humility and servanthood leaderships.
In some circles, there is much speculation about the identity of the Antichrist. Some of the more popular targets are Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. Others think that Russia will lead an end-times league of nations to seize Israel’s land. Regardless, Christians must desire God’s will above all else in our broken world. We live in a very challenging time.