It’s such an encapsulation of that part of the society (including t and v) to think that they could “humiliate” Zelenskyy. By insisting, in a conversation with toxic scum, on the relevance of reality, he was about the only clean thing in the room that could be heard.
There are people like Fareed Zakaria who think that trump can be somehow managed by a canny player. That doesn’t ring correct to me, unless the player has a lot of power and money, and it is the power and money that are managing trump. No agreement with trump is worth the paper it is written on. We all understand that he will do anything he is not stopped from doing. The problem with the american presidency is that there become fewer and fewer actors who can stop its occupant from doing things, in the era of political parties as universalizing corrupting bodies. If this whole train continues, they will eventually degrade the u.s. in wealth and power enough that its ability to do damage declines. But there is so much accumulated right now, that they can do enormous harm before they undercut themselves. I am persuaded by those who opine that trump has no intention of doing anything to aid Ukraine, and that the point of the performance was to put up a front for not doing anything, for the same audience who interprets any of that as a humiliation of Zelenskyy. If trump could extort money or resource access, and then backstab in return for it, I expect he would be interested in that opportunity. But not more than that. I also think that people are living a little bit in the past when they comment that, with trump, it’s always about money. That was before the first presidency, when his possibilities to exercise abusive power over other people in a country with some degree of rule of law was limited, relative to the amount of spending he could do (whether solvent or insolvent). But the access to abusive power in the presidency, for a sociopath, is on a scale not available to anybody else. If money was heroin for that addiction, the power of the presidency is fentanyl, and I don’t think trump is going back now. Money: fine; but that’s now the second motive. (I think there are elements of this for Musk as well, but there is enough about him that is different that I wouldn’t put him in the same category, or in the same post here.) I, of course, don’t _know_ anything, and I don’t even have any sophistication thinking in this sphere. But from my long distance from it, I can imagine that the calculus is roughly this at the moment: It is still possible that trump won’t direct the u.s. military to attack Ukraine directly. The question whether it is possible comes back, entirely, to what force is available to stop him from ordering it. I don’t doubt for a minute that, if the EU starts to get scared, and if they have time to act constructively, enough to start to give Ukraine meaningful ability to hold land or push back a bit, the u.s. under trump would act as a saboteur of that effort. If that is the correct vantage point, I would imagine that Zelenskyy’s challenge is to try to orient the rest of the world into some structure that will hem trump and the trumpers in as much as possible from direct attack, and where possible against sabotage. (Sabotage is harder, because to even find out that it is going on, you need somebody on the inside to report.) If they can get some weapons out of the weapons contractors and the congressmen, sure; try to do what you can. But any of that has meaning only when it is in your hands and being used. Don’t put weight on anything short of that. (I don’t mean, in this, btw, to downplay the true problem that the current condition is a WWI-type trench warfare with drones, and the prospect of extending that to a point of collapse is already so bad, that it takes something truly awful for that not to be the worst. I don’t see indication that any good-faith actor anywhere is denying that, though I don’t think saying it, alone, makes one a good-faith actor.) I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend who is a NASA program manager, and who interpreted a recent directive they had received, to discontinue the use of paper straws, and replace them with plastic straws, as a kickback to some petroleum company that had bribed trump. Given that this is a smart person I am talking to, the quaintness of that interpretation took my breath away. It seems clear beyond daylight, to me, that the images of turtles with straws in their noses, and seabirds dead of them, were the breakthrough that the environmental groups finally got with the public, to get some action to ban that specific plastic item as one of the most insidiously dangerous and cruel. The point of the paper-straw ban was the point of everything with these people. Most directly, it was an intent to deliver a “defeat” to the environmental groups, focusing on the image that had succeeded for them precisely because it is so awful to have to see more of. But more generally, this is the core of meanness. It is a rage, by those who are defiled in their nature, against the existence of anything that isn’t defiled. This is again Hannah Arendt’s summary of the last-century European political actors: that they didn’t understand the distinction between the parties and the movements. The parties wanted to control the government, whereas the movements wanted to destroy the government. Public commentary on this drives me nuts, because it seems to exactly repeat this error. People talk about the appointments of degraded morons to agency heads as being about loyalty: take somebody who couldn’t earn anything in a world of merit, and put him on a plush perch that he knows he will only retain as long as he can continue to curry favor. But I believe that only to about a 30% level as the motive. And it is an inward-facing motive; how to keep various functionaries on a leash. There is an outward-directed motive, and I think that is about 70% of the drive. These people are put there, because he couldn’t find anybody worse. It is again the effort to eliminate the notion of legitimacy from the concept of society people will adopt and live within. The word I wanted to use for the latter, thinking over the weekend, was “vesting”. It’s a bit of a bland word, but it wraps up several things that otherwise I can’t encompass in one word. The cognitive concept of truth; abstract notions such as justice; the society as an agreement underpinned by legitimized institutions. What all these have in common is that people accept restraint to uphold a prior commitment to these other things as “higher” over the long run. And when the mob wants to destroy the state — meaning, really to destroy that concept of society — it is this “higher” that they can keep their attention fixed on, as all the other particular targets (immigrants, academics, civil servants, black people, gay people, etc.) get rotated in and out as opportunities arise. So anyway: if every dealing with trump turns out to be, over time, a loss for Zelenskyy — the reality behind the literary Faustian Bargain — he may not be worse off having the break occur earlier. I don’t know what it may buy him to have humiliated t and v, by having the dignity to not accept those terms of conversation, in terms of coalition-building with other heads of state. I do continue to wonder what China’s play in this will be. I imagine they think they will have no trouble “managing” Russia into some kind of continuing subordinate status, when it is alone with a gigantic land area but a limited economy and population. If it were even just Russia swallowing Ukraine, China might still think of that as an okay outcome. I feel pretty sure they want the rare earths, in view of their relations with Mongolia up to now, and the fact that the only thing protecting Taiwan is that it holds the entire world’s highest technology as a trust, and collapsing it would cause such a large global implosion that it would destabilize China as well, for now. But they probably figure they can get those from Russian control, where Russia couldn’t develop them internally anyway. An actual coalition of Russia with the U.S., however, could become more worrisome for China, even if the U.S. is undergoing a process of self-degradation. So it is not inconceivable to me that China could want some stalemate to go on a while longer, which limits the coordination of the trumpers with other large actors as much as feasible. Another Faustian bargain for Zelenskyy if it is offered. But maybe more predictable in the short term. But there, too, I don’t know anything. Eric > On Mar 3, 2025, at 11:34, steve smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > > >> It's way too generous to say "Trump has a case". Trump and Vance's "case" >> consists of "You should be grateful to us because we give you money". I.e. >> suck up to me and I'll deign to give you more money. > I don't think Trump or Vance have backed any significant support for Ukraine. > The US people through our elected representatives and tax dollars *HAVE* > supported Ukraine (albeit a little slowly an a little anemically and a little > timidly sometimes?). Zelensky has been extravagantly and eloquently > thankful to all of the above. Trump and Vance were spoiling for an > opportunity to try to humiliate Zelensky in front of the cameras, so they > contrived it. >> Maybe someone makes the case you say is Trump's. But it's not Trump making >> that case. If he sporadically vomits words that sound like that, it's >> because they were put into his mouth by someone else. The question is Who >> put them there? Putin? Elno? Thiel? > > The "raw earth" (sic Trump) deal was extortion. Whether Ukraine's mineral > resources could or should be mortgaged to secure the financial support is one > thing, but the idea that the point of the West supporting Ukraine against the > hyper-aggressive Putin-led Russia is about economics completely misses the > point. Zelensky is right to avoid "doing business with" anyone who is not a > clear staunch ally when in this situation. > > Trump & Allies are clearly "War Profiteers", a fine old tradition among the > industrialists and financiers of the "free world". > > >> >> On 3/2/25 7:42 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote: >>> Just watched a new episode where two toddlers threw their toys out of the >>> cot. >>> >>> Zelensky makes a strong case — Putin is unreliable, having broken numerous >>> agreements in the past, so any peace deal would need ironclad security >>> guarantees. But lecturing Trump is hardly the way to secure a favorable >>> minerals trade agreement. >>> >>> Trump also has a valid case — the war is stagnating, there’s no realistic >>> military path to driving Russia out of Ukraine, and pursuing peace makes >>> sense. But losing your temper at an international press conference is not >>> the way to get there. >>> >>> At the end of the day, they’re all human, and it makes for great real-life >>> drama. 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