Jeffrey Blehar: "Trump Versus the World;" So...Is Trump Insane...or What?

Yeah...I'm afraid the guy really might be insane. Either that, or a fucking idiot.

Or, of course, both...

This is a pretty fair summary of this dismal, embarrassing, and possibly disastrous Greenland business:

For those too embarrassed to keep up with current events, I recommend the work of my colleague Andrew Stuttaford, who has been covering the breakneck pace of weekend developments like a hawk. I will summarize: Donald Trump’s thuggish demands for Greenland, an island that we already have unlimited military basing rights with, are now at a fever pitch. In the wake of his big show of force in Venezuela, he cannot rest until he has added it to his trophy case: Its acquisition is “psychologically needed for success.” So now not only will Denmark be tariffed — at an opening rate of 10 percent, escalating to 25 percent until such time as they give Trump what he demands — so too will ten other countries who have responded to Denmark’s symbolic request for NATO allies to come to Greenland.
Who knows if Trump will actually go through with it; half of what he writes on Truth Social is bloviation, but the other half is deadly serious, and given this, the only safe thing to do is to take him at his word. But I have no time for those who blithely wave off this sort of wildly destructive behavior as “dealmaking.” It is no such thing; it is outright megalomania. There is no other way, no more “neutral” a term, to describe a president who now mutters about his personal right to “a sacred piece of Land” like Captain Queeg hunting for missing strawberries, or who now hints at war with NATO if he is not given what he will never be able to have. This language will have repercussions.
Because yes, that’s where Trump is at now rhetorically, and if you didn’t see the tie-in coming from a mile away, you need to update your Unified Theory of Trump. Just yesterday, the president wrote a missive to Norway’s leader that he had cc’d to every American embassy in Europe: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
Please read that again. Let the implication sink in: Trump is now on the warpath against Denmark, and is threatening the forced dissolution of the American alliance, and as an excuse, he is citing to Norway their awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Machado. Maybe, you might say, he’s just lashing out blindly in his frustration, reaching for any weapon to hand. But what a commentary that is on the mindset of the president of the United States: We are asked to understand him either as a schoolyard bully or a child throwing a tantrum. Wresting the physical medal from Machado — by dangling the prospect of freedom for her people before her eyes — was clearly not enough: All of Europe must pay for its sin in not awarding it to him in the first place. (For those wondering what relationship the actions of a Norwegian Nobel committee have to the government of Denmark, just assume that Trump thinks all Scandinavians are the same.)
This is our president. Is he “on tilt?” No, I think he is operating as programmed. He is living a power fantasy. He has mastered the Republican Party through both showmanship and fear. Only external forces — the bond markets, perhaps the Supreme Court, and finally the ironclad laws of political gravity — will act as a check on him now. So all of his actions are of a piece: demands for the fulfillment of his ego, relentless escalation, and desperately cheap attempts to create a permanent “legacy” that will forever be denied to him. Trump may be the main character in his own story, but he will never be able to write history’s verdict of him; that work belongs to future generations, and his helplessness in the face of it lies at the hidden core of his narcissistic rage.
The clearer this becomes, the more I expect Trump to lash out against a world that has rejected him — and I fear with disastrous, irrevocable consequences. Defend Trump’s actions with respect to Greenland if you must — my job is to judge them. And I have a clear enough picture of the man at this point to predict the dire future to come: To paraphrase the verdict of Cormac McCarthy in Blood Meridian, what’s wrong with Donald Trump is wrong all the way through him. And this will not end here.

Trump has done a helluva lot to save the country. He's still, as of this moment, done a lot more good than harm. But he seems to be going over the edge now.

   Sure, maybe this is all trolling and negotiation...but it doesn't seem that way...and even if it is negotiation, it seems like the most retarded of all possible negotiation...

   WTF is wrong with this stupid jackass?

   And the Nobel Prize shit...it's just like the cherry on top of this batshit sundae...

   I legitimately can't believe how fucking stupid this all is. Nobody can reign him in? Nobody?