I doubt there are a lot of folks reading this blog — and maybe not a lot anywhere — who wonder why some people think Donald Trump is a horrible leader and a worse excuse for a human being. But here’s a great example of why…
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will be meeting with the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado next week and is eyeing her recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump has refused to support Machado’s bid to lead Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro last week, saying she was “not respected” in the country. Machado praised Trump for his intervention in Venezuela and offered him her Nobel Prize. “The Venezuelan people…we want to give it to him, share it with him,” Machado said on Monday. It appears that Trump is ready to take her up on the offer.
Machado is obviously popular in her country, winning (as she did) over 90% of the vote in the 2023 opposition primary. Trump wishes he was half as popular in this country. But that’s how Donald is: If you cross him or don’t give him what he wants, you’re failing, you have lousy ratings, you’re ugly, etc. And then he doubles or triples-down to get what he wants or, failing that, attempts to rewrite history so it’ll say at least somewhere that he won.
He reminds me at times of a fellow I used to know — a lower-level comic book artist — whose mantra was “I never fail.” I’m not sure if he said that because he wanted people to think he was a person who never failed at anything or if he really/truly convinced himself of that — but I saw him fail an awful lot. I’d say maybe 75% of the time, not that he’d admit that to anyone else or even himself. And when he did have to cope with the irrefutable truth that he lost, he’d insist he really won and that would have been probably acknowledged — had he not been sabotaged by some ugly loser with a failing business who was envious of his awesome failure-free track record.
One day — this was back in the eighties — he heard that a certain artist was leaving a certain comic and announced, “I’m going to take over that comic.” So he did some sample drawings and submitted them and the editor said thank you but no. He then did some more samples and the editor said thank you but no. Then he did some more samples — even though by now, someone else had the job — and the editor said, first of all, “The job has been filled.” Then the editor, trying to be helpful said, “You’re just not ready for a job like this” and suggested aiming a little lower. Because the artist had talent; just not enough for the level of work he was pursuing.
That struck me as sound advice but the artist — and this is how he was about every friggin’ thing — kept telling me over and over how the editor was an idiot. His work was head-and-shoulders better than the guy they hired and everyone knew it. And he’d launch for the nineteenth time into some bizarre, conjured-up-outta-nowhere narrative of how the artist they did hire was hired because of bribery or a kickback deal or a favor or someone was sleeping with someone…so he really won. The precise explanation changed but it was never that someone with taste thought the other guy was better. Which is the way it usually goes in this world when you get turned down.
(I’m not naming names for obvious reasons but if I did, folks who are familiar with the comic book artists of the eighties would say, “I can’t believe this guy thought he was better than that guy.” It’s like if I entered an all-gender gymnastics event, lost and claimed that the winner, Simone Biles, was sleeping with the judges or something.)
And what kinda horrified me about this “I never fail” guy is what he’d do to not fail. Imagine you have a mouse in your house and you want it gone. So you hire an exterminator who advertises “I never fail” and he assures you he will rid your home of the mouse and, by God, he does. The mouse is history…
…but in the process, the exterminator destroyed half of your house.
That part wouldn’t bother this failed comic book artist one bit. What would bother him is if he didn’t catch the mouse and he had to figure out a way to tell you and himself that he didn’t fail: The mouse was sleeping with the judges or something like that. Anything to keep up the “I never fail” face.
So for some reason, Donald Trump — the pettiest, thinnest-skinned man in the world — is furious that he hasn’t been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. He thinks he deserves it for the seven, eight, nine (the number keeps changing) wars he claims he’s settled. The man realizes that given what he’s done in Venezuela and what he’s threatening to do in Greenland and other sovereign locales, he’s not likely to get one the real way. So he seems to be setting up a deal.
It may or may not be good for the United States or for Venezuela but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s good for Donald Trump. He will finally be able to say that he got a goddamn Nobel Peace Prize. He’ll help Machado do what she can to bring peace and democracy to her country if she forks over her Nobel to him. Which she’ll presumably do because her country is more important than her ego.
Never mind that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee says that they’re non-transferable. This would be his way of saying F.U. to them for daring to deny D.J.T. something he wants and thinks he deserves. Better still, it would be his way of saying “I never fail.” It’s kinda like buying an Oscar statuette off eBay and insisting you’ve just been named Best Actor. Or ridding a house of a mouse and ridding the homeowner of his house in the process.
Because every thing Donald Trump is transactional. He will do the right thing if there’s something in it for him.
0 Comments