The only thing worse than having Trump as a sworn enemy

Maybe Donald Trump can publish another bestseller, an updated rewrite of Dale Carnegie's 1936 "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

After all, since his years as the "You're Fired" guy on "The Apprentice" television show, Trump has managed to bamboozle, cheat, directly insult and generally offend even his own Art of the Deal ways into a remarkable series of off-putting strategies that are consistent only in the result of throwing pretty much everyone with whom he has dealt under the nearest bus.

It's bad enough that he hates his enemies, yesterday rudely cheering the death of former FBI Director and Special Counsel Robert Mueller for deigning to investigate him, but Trump regularly now turns on his allies.

Just as Trump rewrote dealmaking as an artform based on cleverness in finding mutually agreeable trades for belligerence and threats, perhaps his new rewrite of friendships could exploit economic blackmail and military dominance as courtships to lasting relationships.

In this year back in the White House alone, Trump has managed single-handedly and without pressure ruined decades of personal and official ties to European allies and set off a hemispheric panic. He has breathed new life into failing enemies like Russia's Vladimir Putin and set off chasms within his own domestic political alliances.

This week, Trump managed to offend G-7 and NATO partners whose help he simultaneously was demanding to re-open the Strait of Hormuz — despite being unable himself to have avoided the predicted Iranian response to preemptive war. He called them "cowards," even while demanding they commit warships to a fight he decided to start alone, shunning their advice. He said clearing the Strait was "easy," wanting them to do it, but threatened to withdraw from attacking Iran without the U.S. doing the clearing work itself.

Whether the target is Ukraine's leader or the Japanese Prime Minister sitting in that Oval Office chair while Trump preens, the visitor waits expectantly now for a Trump remark that makes clear that "diplomacy" with an ally involved insult.

Apart from all else, Trump has confused friends of the U.S. with constantly changing policies and justifications for the war. By week's end, he even was showing discord with his one seemingly true international friend, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, over whether there is a way out of this war. Netanyahu clearly sees a continuing war as helping him domestically.

Trump Cracked Base Remains

Yet, despite disagreements even within his base of supporters, Trump still owns Republican legislators who fear his reelection wrath for themselves. And Trump was still holding approvals from a third or more of the polled public who seem willing to swallow anything in the name of breaking government and making anti-trans and anti-immigrant sloganeering the nation's highest priorities.

For whatever reasons, his supporters continue to find his words, however contradictory, more comforting than his deeds, willing to overlook attitudes that touch racism, divisiveness, dictatorial power and now even war as justifiable towards some larger goal of breaking the status quo.

Millions of words have been spilled over the Trump magic of holding supporters close during one of his "transactional deals," only to stab them in the back soon thereafter.

The skeletons of former Vice President Mike Pence, former attorney generals, chiefs of staff, defense figures, generals and such rigid Republican senators as Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy line the entry way into the Oval Office.

Apparently, the only thing worse than having Trump as a sworn enemy is to have him as a vocal friend – only to find the enemy is a scratch comment away.

The idea that Trump stands for nothing other than an image of strength, for ideals that last only long enough to complete an impatient transaction, are now cemented into the Trump legacy. In his name, Americans who do not kneel to him get hurt, and even political or international "friends" are always on trial with him.

Trump has insisted for decades now that only he alone can recognize and solve problems, that he needs no advice and counsel, and that, in fact, he hates systems of rules and traditions – including from the Constitution — that might block acting on his often-uninformed gut. In recent weeks, this isolationist decision-making has been on display with a series of nasty congressional hearings that feature his Cabinet members unable to explain even the most basic contradictions in Trump's utterances and departmental policies affecting national security, immigration, justice, health or environment.

Trump has embraced personal, national, even moral uncertainty as a weapon in winning friends and seeking global influence. It's not what we have taught our kids.

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