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One word defines everything Trump did this week
The word of the week for this Trump government seemed to be “contempt.”
There was Donald Trump’s contempt for the United Nations on display — for the United Nations General Assembly. In blatant and plain language, Trump assaulted the very reason for having created and maintained a world organization devoted first to international peace and second to resolution of outstanding global obstacles.
In its place was Trump’s assertion that it is he and whoever he chooses to let into his circle who will decide how we live, along with other countries that have wealth and military power to make it so.
We witnessed a Trump magic trick, turning years of Trump-fueled China hate into a lovefest for the arrival of its leader, Xi Jingping, in a state visit choreographed to extremes meant to sidestep all of the supposed issues with “Communism,” international trade cheating and even Covid blame into a fully upside-down acceptance of rising Chinese military, diplomatic, technological and economic effects. The contempt it all may well have reflected best was for American-style democracy, which was on simultaneous display.
Trump is playing out his spiritual and practical sneer of democratic principles just short of a finding of legal contempt from a judge by banning selected news outlets because he doesn’t like questions and criticism that challenge his often-incorrect assertion of fact, history, self-contradiction or policy with ill public effects. In barely meeting a court order to reissue press access to Politico, CNN and MSNOW only to bar them from a news event at the White House is to wave a legal red flag at the courts, which may be forced to react.
There were plenty more Trump policy challenges this week, more formal sneers against government healthcare, environmental protections, even disclosure that the vaunted ballroom project had spawned the architect’s resignation over lack of fire exits as required anywhere by the White House. The answer to the fire exits, and, in effect to the rest, is that it is Trump himself who determines what is code.
Contempt Contagion
Trump’s brand of contempt for anything that he now proudly admits is not a self-serving transaction devoid of any understandable principle except that of his gut is being dispensed in a way that is contagious.
Other voices, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, picked up where Trump left off with the United Nations, calling the dozens of nations walking out as he argued for continued fighting in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and with Iran “moral cowards.” The voices of Palestinians, Ukrainians and others facing assault from large powers effectively were muted or ignored, and we heard Netanyahu save special sneer for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for having an international rights opinion more complicated than Netanyahu’s own.
The language of our own election campaign, never a high bar, seems to be declining anew into statements of complete contempt for anything that does not fit into a complete red-blue allegiance test. Still, a month out, Trump appears to be readying himself and allies for more anti-election actions to unfold challenging the voters, the vote count, the certification and the seating of at least one house in Congress that will change majorities.
What will follow will be struggles about how much contempt to show in return against Team Trump as much as it will be towards seeking policies that overturn tariffs, war with Iran, controls over corporate behaviors and limits on the pace of technological development running faster than we seem able to comprehend or corral it.
The Daily Struggle
Increasingly, the daily struggle with prices, with White House orders that reach further into our lives, and with hearing a constant fire hose of Trump-inspired limitations are numbing us for what feels like more abuse.
What remains unexplained throughout the loads of executive orders and state-sponsored cruelties is who is better off now than two years ago. The clearest answers, as we keep hearing in campaign ads, are billionaires and corporations who were doing well before and now are doing phenomenally well, and the Trump family itself.
Even with reduced eyes on the specifics of the Chinese visit, there is no suggestion anywhere that this rivalry will produce any positive effects for this country. The clear winner was Xi, who effectively told Trump to stay in his lane and out of China’s way. Taiwan, trade issues, tariffs, jobs, military bumps in the night in the South China Sea and continued Chinese help for the Iranians who target our bases in the Middle East all are uninterrupted. Atop those results, we learned most about the Chinese visit from the Chinese press, which, unlike our own, faced no barriers. Trump, who has declared his ballroom a “military installation” requiring classified information, even offered to walk Xi through the construction site.
Likewise, we’re seeing Trump reaching out to bring Russia’s Vladimir Putin back into the international leadership over the expressed wishes of European allies.
There are no plans in this White House, whose handling of its own press ban was comically inept, to address any of the myriad issues that are fueling citizen anger. That takes too much work – or a lot more than renaming bodies of water and wishing away corruption challenges with contempt.
Terry H. Schwadron retired as a senior editor at The New York Times, Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times and leadership jobs at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team part of several Pulitzers in New York.
