Trump Outrages: Blowing Up Stuff
By Mort Kondracke
In 1950, U.C. Berkeley professor Theodor Adorno published a book, “The Authoritarian Personality,” attempting to define the character traits of European Fascists. But some of those characteristics apply to Donald Trump and several of his close aides: outsized respect for the strong and contempt for the weak or those he deems inferior.
Hence, Trump’s sucking up to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong Un and dealing dismissively or insultingly towards European leaders (“weak”), including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky (“you haven’t got the cards”)—and, of course, woke Democrats (“whacked out”), poor immigrants (“poisoning the blood of our country”) and those afflicted with conditions like dyslexia (“low IQ,” “dumb”).
He demonstrates strength by renaming buildings after himself, planning gigantic monuments, vilifying journalists, punishing adversaries, ignoring Congress and judges, attempting to steal elections, trying to annex Greenland and Canada and making war on or in small nations like Venezuela, Somalia, Iraq and Yemen.
He evidently thought that conquering Iran would be as easy as bombing Venezuela’s military and arresting its dictator. Along with Israel, his forces have inflicted massive damage on Iran’s military and killed dozens of top Iranian leaders. But it’s a well-established historical fact he probably knew nothing about that bombing alone will not defeat an entrenched ideological regime. Even “boots on the ground” may not do it.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/03/26/trump-outrages-blowing-up-stuff/