The more dangerous America’s crackpot President becomes, the saner the world believes him to be. Just look back at the initial half of his first 100 days: the crazed tweeting, the lies, the fantasies and self-regard of this misogynist leader of the Western world appalled all of us. But the moment he went to war in Yemen, fired missiles at Syria and bombed Afghanistan, even the US media Trump had so ferociously condemned began to treat him with respect. And so did the rest of the world.
It’s one thing to have a lunatic in the White House who watches late night television and tweets all day. But when the same lunatic goes to war, it now emerges, he’s a safer bet for democracy, a strong President who stands up to tyrants (unless they happen to be Saudis, Turks or Egyptians) and who acts out of human emotion rather than cynicism.
How else can one account for the extraordinary report in The New York Times which recorded how Trump’s “anguish” at the film of dying Syrian babies had led him to abandon “isolationism”?
Americans like action, but have typically confused Trump’s infantile trigger finger with mature decision-making. What else is there to think when a normally sane US columnist like David Ignatius suddenly compares Trump to Harry Truman and praises his demented President for his “flexibility” and “pragmatism”?
This is preposterous. A madman who goofs off at something he doesn’t like on CNN is just plain wacky. A man of…