A New York Times article yesterday points out that Trump's latest dust-up with Ukraine's leadership repeats a now-familiar pattern of behavior for him. First, Trump insults and berates a friendly nation. Then, when the latter tries to mildly push back, Trump seems genuinely outraged and appalled that they would dare to defend themselves, rather than grovel and kiss the boot that kicks them.
As Peter Baker's analysis puts it: "The rules of the road when it comes to President Trump’s relations with foreign leaders are clear: He may trash you. But woe unto you if you whack back."
A famous French phrase (which A.L. Rowse cites in his book on Appeasement (1961)) seems to sum up Trump's attitude toward Ukraine best: Cet animal est très méchant: quand on l'attaque, il se défend.
Trump, in other words, is the very definition of a bully. He "must lay on all the blows, and take none," to borrow a phrase from William Hazlitt (who applied it to his study of the character of Cobbett). He does not understand the most basic principle of reciprocity in human relations: namely, that you reap as you sow.
Indeed, for Trump, there can be no reciprocity between the "strong" and the "weak," as he sees it. The strong owe the weak nothing, because they "have all the cards," whereas the weak owe the strong unending and unquestioning tribute, fealty, and devotion, because they have none.
As a Trump official put it in his first term—in a revealing quote Chrystia Freeland cites in her recent interview with Ezra Klein: "America is 10 times your economy, we should get our way 10 times as often."
Trump's idea of the right kind of foreign leader for a "weaker" country, Freeland observes, is someone like Delcy Rodriguez. A quisling, in short. Someone who will sell out her country and its rights in order to ensure her own political survival, and who will therefore never punch back when her nation's sovereignty is insulted and attacked.
Zelensky, while he may not be a perfect person, is certainly no quisling. Indeed, he is the polar opposite of a quisling. And so, when Trump attacks his country, despite its friendship and loyalty to the United States and its heroic stand against the common adversary—Zelensky will push back. This is what makes him trés méchant in Trump's eyes. This is what Trump cannot have.
Like all born cowards and bullies, Trump—even as he insists the United States has the right to lord it over "weaker" nations—is also perfectly willing to turn quisling himself as soon as an adversary convinces him it is strong.
Trump insists on groveling and bootlicking and flattery from Ukraine, in exchange for the military and intelligence support it needs to survive. And, as soon as Putin appears to be winning the war, Trump in turn starts lavishing praise and flattery and bootlicking on him. As Trump's top envoy hailed the Russian dictator yesterday: "You are a humanitarian [...], sir, and I salute that."
A "humanitarian"? While he continues to bomb and kidnap Ukrainian civilians in an unprovoked war of aggression?
A more apt description of Putin comes from W.H. Auden's poem responding to the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968—another war of aggression and imperial conquest that bears a striking resemblance to Putin's invasion of Ukraine:
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach,
The Ogre cannot master Speech:
About a subjugated plain,
Among its desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.
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