A Week for the Ages in the Annals of Trump Suck-Uppery
Finally, eighteen minutes after the start of this remarkable display, Rutte offered what will undoubtedly become his most famous strategic self-activation act. One day earlier, before leaving for the NATO Summit, Trump had smoked the cameras that Iran and Israel do not stick to a cease-fire contract that he announced on Monday evening. “We have essentially two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what they are doing,” he said. During his photo with Rutte in The Hague, Trump referred to his intervention in what he described as “a big fight like two children in a courtyard”. Trump did not repeat his criticism charged with explanive, but for any reason, Rutte seized the chance to defend him for his bomb F anyway. “Dad must sometimes use strong language,” he said, without further development. The moment was so painful that it was almost a relief when Trump started talking again.
We can only imagine what they thought of the Rutte line in the Kremlin. Trump, of course, loved it. After his return to Washington on Wednesday evening, the White House published a clip, with a coil of highlighting her trip to Usher’s piece in 2009, “Hey Daddy (Papa’s house).” Thursday morning, Trump collected funds for the comments of Rutte, selling red “dad” t-shirts for thirty-five dollars per song. “When Biden was president, we laughed on the world scene. The whole world walked all over us!” Read an email. “But thanks to your favorite president (me!) We are respected again. A moment ago, NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte called me a dad on the world scene. How nice! “
The counterposter of many Europeans whose Rutte security interests were probably trying to protect by losing so low was, without surprise, Swift. The former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Gabrielius Landsbergis, described the “rushing ruts of weakness and sweetness” both “shameful” and “one of the most shameful episodes in modern history”. In a long refutation on X, he added: “I think I could speak for an important part of Europeans – he is tasteless. The wording seems to have been stolen from the adult entertainment industry. ” Nathalie Tocci, specialist in foreign policy and former adviser of senior European Union officials, said that the “pathetic flattery and genuflection” had made her feel “deeply embarrassed as a European”. Perhaps more importantly, she concluded: “it doesn’t even work”.
This strikes me, is an essential point often overlooked by suckers. Trump’s bottomless need for a positive affirmation is such that no one can aspire to permanently satisfy it; It simply does not stay away. Ask Mike Pompeo, whose desire to rent the boss was so extreme when he was Trump’s secretary of state that an former ambassador called him a “heat research missile for Trump’s ass”. Nevertheless, Pompeo was frozen in a job when Trump returned to the post – a Maga Expulsion announced by Trump in a social-media position.
Another problem with Rutte’s strategy is that there is little evidence that sycophance, as extreme, has produced a significant long -term change in Trump’s opinions. European leaders, including the predecessor of Rutte, Jens Stoltenberg, spent years trying in such a prudent way to dissuade Trump from his positive opinions from Putin, his criticism of Ukraine and his desire to impose punitive prices on the EU – with little success. If anything, their collective desire to be absent before Trump probably convinced that they are weak, the opposite of the strong leaders he admires.
When Trump was re -elected last year, Malcolm Turnbull, a former Prime Minister of Australia, tried to demystify the myth that flattery will take you everywhere with Trump. “There were two confrontation errors on Trump,” he told Times. “The first was that it would be different in power on the campaign track. The second was the best way to deal with him was to suck him.”
So, that, in addition to his own embarrassment, did Rutte really really realize this week by succeeding in Trump? “Trump obtains victory and returns home,” said Ivo Daalder, the American ambassador of NATO During the presidency of Barack Obama, told me, describing how civil servants had orchestrated the events of the week. “”NATO lives for another day. But, added Daalder, the “reality is different”. For beginners, the objective of expenses of five per hundred will not be really debated for a decade, and even then, it is in fact three percent of the GDP to the military budget, a threshold that even the United States is not currently meeting. NATO Members have accepted Trump’s request “is not only the Russian military threat (which Trump denies exists), but the awareness that they can no longer count on the United States.”
Daalder’s description of the state of business in Europe today touches me a lot than that of Rutte: if Trump is really a father, then what he really makes the family – and warn them that he will no longer pay their bills. I can understand why everyone is so relieved that he has not crushed everything during the reunion of the annual family. But is the divorce really disabled? As for the secretary general, he finished the summit trying to return to the comment for which he will inevitably remain in the memories. “I did not call it” dad “,” insisted Rutte to journalists. It was just a metaphor. ♦
