Trump is a narcissistic pragmatist

The crudest form of pragmatism possible

I have long considered Trump to be a pragmatist, though after witnessing Trump berate Zelenskyy, I think Trump represents the lowest form of pragmatism possible. He believes that if he takes action that he would otherwise deem cowardly taken by others — from rewarding a bloodthirsty dictator after publicly humiliating our allies, to seeking negotiations with Iran after making a big show of pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal — those actions will produce desired results. It’s not that Obama was wrong to attempt to make a deal with Iran. It’s only wrong because he isn’t the one orchestrating “the deal.”

To Trump, the grace of his touch transforms what would be, in principle, a destructive policy into a productive one. As long as he has the power to set the terms of deal, he thinks that those agreements will stand. Not only does his pragmatism cause his admiration for dictators, as using violence is a method of “getting stuff done quickly”, he also thinks if he were to exercise that kind of power, it would produce the result he would want.

I think this is why Trump really wanted to humiliate Zelenskyy at the White House a few days ago. Part of it is explicit admiration for Putin and agreement with his morality, though I think an uglier motivation driving this public humiliation was to “bring to heel” those who disagree with Trump during this “peace” negotiation. As shown within that public confrontation, Zelenskyy explained why Putin shouldn’t be trusted as Russia has a history of violating agreements. But that doesn’t matter to Trump, because those agreements were not orchestrated by him. After all, Zelenskyy should be so lucky to even be invited to the White House, right? He doesn’t have the might to stand against Russia alone, so he should be reminded of that when entering into these peace talks.

If Trump diminishes our allies in order to accelerate the completion of a deal, this action is transformed into “strength” and a willingness to “break norms to get results.” And since he is the one orchestrating and manipulating the terms, it will be successful.

Yes Donald, it will be successful — successful in stroking a misshapen ego at the expense of the free world.

This is a direct post from Harry Binswanger’s private forum Harry Binswanger’s Letter (or HBL for short). If interested in these kind of topics, feel free to visit this site for a two week free trial for more content from an Objectivist perspective.

Thank you for reading.

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