An Inflection Point

I could feel some tectonic plates shifting after the meeting in Helsinki between Putin and Trump. Some are calling Trump a traitor, which in my opinion is probably true. Others are asking what actually went on behind closed doors for two hours, since Trump is well known to have an attention span of about 18 seconds. The idea of him carrying on a sustained conversation for two hours with no aides to prompt him is laughable. So there will be the inevitable jokes about the Putin-Trump tryst. Was there spanking? Were there whips?

All of this is amusing, but I think it's not the main point. And I don't think that Trump's childishness or his petulance are the main point.

I think the main point is that Trump showed weakness. His painfully servile performance can be indicative of a number of things. Perhaps there really are pee tapes. More likely, the Russians have been financing Trump for many years, after the New York banks gave up on him, and so the Russians have the ability to ruin him financially, politically, any way you wish to name.

But we live in a world of carnivores. Putin is not alone. There's an old line about never showing weakness to a wild animal, because when the wild animal senses weakness, it automatically attacks.

The wild animal Trump needs to fear, more than Putin, is the American people. Right or left, we see ourselves as a great power, and when questions arise about what Mr. Trump was doing on his knees in front of Mr. Putin for two hours, I think the worm may just turn.

See also Bannon and Co. Aren't Very Good at Being Evil, Fascism, What Can Pierre Laval Tell Us About Donald Trump?