My thesis it that the despots in the news today admire Trump as much as he admires them.
Because he’s not as well known here’s a bit of information you may not be aware of about Turkey’s leader Erdogen:
Tens of thousands of political prisoners now languish in Turkish prisons. Few have seen, or hope to see, a court room anytime soon. Rumors are rife about the mistreatment—rapes, beatings, and electrical shocks—of Turkish prisoners, including political prisoners and July 15 coup supporters. from Can Erdogen get away with murder
Erdogen, Putin, Kim, and Mohammad Bin Salman are the despots most ion the news. There no doubt are others.
We also know for an absolute certainly that Donald Trump admires them. This has been a lead story in the real news for the past week, highlighted today by his loveliest with the murderous Kim Jung Un.
It is in fact a mutual admiration society of despots with no empathy who are ruthless in pursuit of their goals. The leaders of the free world have to despise Donald Trump because of his ruthlessness. They must know who and what he is. They know that in a fair and just world, like Erdogen, Putin, Kim, and Mohammad Bin Salman, he would be tried and convicted for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court,* or like Saddam Hussein would be brought to summary justice by their own people.
* The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt)[2] is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. It is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore exercise its jurisdiction only when certain conditions are met, such as when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals or when the United Nations Security Council or individual states refer situations to the Court.
What I don’t think is being adequately discussed is that they probably admire him because they believe the end justifies the means. Another way of putting it because they are all Machiavellians: a characteristic of unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described most famously in The Prince. Machiavelli described immoral behavior, such as dishonesty and the killing of innocents, as being normal and effective in politics. He even encouraged it in many situations. The book gained notoriety due to claims that it teaches "evil recommendations to tyrants to help them maintain their power. Adapted from Wikipedia
That Trump is a Machiavellian will be undisputed on this website. As I wrote in another story Trump epitomised the Dark Triad, a combination of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
We also hear endlessly in the factual media about how Trump admires these so-called strongmen.
What isn’t being illuminated is how they also probably admire him as much as he admires them because he is willing to not only have a policy on the border where migrants suffer and sometimes die but because he doesn’t care and, worse, he may enjoy it because like them he is a sadist.
Much has been said about describing his detention centers as concentration camps. To quote Joy Reid from this morning’s show, Trump and his appointees to enforce his anti-immigration campaign are “revealing in their cruelty.”
I think it is a fair comparison with the notation that Hitler was able to kill six million Jews and start a wold war because he had the power to do so.
Hitler was a machiavellian too. Even if he was at war with the United States and Trump was president he would secretly admire him. He’d admire him because he had no reservations, no inner torment, when he had to do things like the firebombing air raids by the United States Army Air Forces during the Pacific campaigns of World War War II . (Over 50% of Tokyo's industry was spread out among residential and commercial neighborhoods; firebombing cut the whole city's output in half. Some post-war analysts have called the raid a war crime due to the targeting of civilian infrastructure and the ensuing mass loss of civilian life.) History tell us that “for Truman, the choice whether or not to use the atomic bomb was the most difficult decision of his life.” Reference Of course Hitler wouldn’t have hesitated to use nuclear bombs to force the surrender of his enemy.
Consider this and compare how Trump and Hitler are similar:
When Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" in the 1500's, his intentions did not apply to the twentieth century. Some very important figures of the twentieth century used basic ideals from "The Prince" to obtain and maintain their position in power. One of these individuals was Adolf Hitler. Hitler used numerous Machiavellian ideas to win his respective place in Germany's government. The two most important Machiavellian principles that Hitler used were winning the people and how he dealt with cruelty and murder.Adolf Hitler, the self-proclaimed "savior" of the German people, was an insecure, egotistical man, who ominously controlled the German people. Reference
We don’t know truth of this, because for one thing Trump is reported to be a non-read. Still is must be included:
Donald Trump's ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed
According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband, real-estate mogul Donald Trump, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed.
"Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed ... Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist," Marie Brenner wrote.