Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo
Trump talks to members of the media in October 2018.
Two current unrelated issues that require decisions from Donald Trump turn out not only to be related, but actually provide a window into our president’s malignant psyche.
The first is what to do about Hong Kong. The House and the Senate have jointly plopped onto his desk a resolution in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protestors (who swept local Hong Kong elections on Sunday by a huge margin). The resolution passed unanimously in the Senate, and cleared the House by a 417-to-1 vote.
Trump, however, is equivocating. By law, he’s required to sign or veto the bill within ten days of it being sent to him—with one caveat: If, after ten days, he does nothing, the bill can take effect without his signature. Trump has said his refusal to forcefully condemn a crackdown by China gives the U.S. more leverage in trade negotiations—though by the same logic, if a trade deal is ever reached, that would then free the Chinese government to run amok in Hong Kong.
But that’s not the real stumbling block to Trump agreeing to sign the resolution and affirm basic democratic values. Here’s what our president said (on, of course, “Fox and Friends”: “We have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with President Xi [Jinping]. He’s a friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy.”
Incredible guy Xi, of course, has rounded up millions of Chinese Muslims in “re-education” camps and stomped out his nation’s move toward greater freedom of speech and nascent democratic representation. Increasingly totalitarian at home, he markets China’s authoritarian ways as a model for other nations.
And Xi’s not alone in Trump’s Hall of Incredible Guys. North Korea’s Kim Jung-un, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, and, of course, Russia’s Vladimir Putin have all drawn Trump’s praise and respect for their tough-guy manner and authoritarian rule. Government leaders who adhere to democratic norms—Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau—are losers in Trump’s book.
The other issue to have piqued Trump’s thuggishness is the military’s court-martial convictions of murderers and prisoner- and civilian-abusers in their ranks, to which Trump has responded with pardons and orders to reinstate the convicted, over the objections of, apparently, everyone else in the chain of command.
The through-line in both these instances is the abuse of power, which Trump seems to admire more than any other form of human behavior and which he himself personifies at every instance.
