Trump's mad obsession

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Donald Kirk

Trump's mad obsession

Posted : 2021-01-07 16:36

Updated : 2021-01-07 16:36

By Donald Kirk

LONDON ― In Europe, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson is sometimes called the English version of Donald Trump. And in the U.S., Trump's bitterest critics liken him to a dictator, maybe an American version of Hitler or Stalin or Mao or even his bosom buddy Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

Actually, all such comparisons are absurd. For one thing, while Johnson may have miscalculated the devastating effects of the pandemic, he's responded a lot better than Trump, who was in denial for much too long and never got the country united behind a coherent, universal, disciplined program.

As for comparing Trump with fearsome dictators, whether mass killers or petty tyrants, that's ridiculous too. Much as Trump might intimidate his foes, make false charges and tell tall tales, he's not strong enough to fulfill his fantasies of clinging to high office. His demands for recounts and recalculations of votes in the presidential election of Nov. 3 have gone nowhere, and his campaign to reverse the results makes him look like a demagogic tycoon accustomed to twisting arms and bullying underlings.

It would be hard not to find fault with just about any national leader's response to an illness that no one saw coming. Johnson on Sunday was saying most British schools would reopen and then on Monday reversed himself as a new strain of the virus spread more quickly than anyone had quite imagined.

Piers Morgan, an outspoken commentator noted for his criticism of the country's conservative leadership, went crazy on his morning program, pillorying Johnson and his education secretary for incompetence. Keir Starmer, Labour Party leader, refused to yield to Morgan's attempt at getting him to attack the conservative Johnson. Diplomatically, Starmer said it would be hard for anyone to have known just what to do but urged his countrymen to unite behind the government's edicts.

The British response to COVID-19 now appears as severe as that in South Korea, where authorities asked people to stay indoors and work and study at home while restaurants and shops remain open for briefer hours and limited service. Meanwhile, North Korea remains a mystery since foreign diplomats and almost all aid workers have left Pyongyang and no one's being led by the nose on one of those group tours that many of us endured in happier times. From all we can tell from the state media and sub rosa mobile phone conversations, Kim's dictatorship is sealing its borders tighter than ever while clandestine Chinese imports, notably fuel and food, are much reduced.

In London the famous holiday sales that had customers looking for unbelievable bargains are largely ignored. Famous brands are responding erratically, some taking orders but shipping later. You can't just go in, try on whatever you like and leave with maybe a necktie or two. Around Piccadilly Circus, on Oxford and Regent Streets, Trafalgar Square and the Strand, the heart of the West End where theaters once thrived, traffic is light and tourists not much seen. Many fashionable stores are simply shut for the duration, whatever that is.

It seems difficult to believe, that while the British media is full of news about the lockdown and the new AstraZeneca vaccine developed by scientists at Oxford, the man in charge in Washington carries on endlessly about his lost election.

In the waning days before he's pitched out of the White House, Trump might try and redeem himself by showing a little compassion for the millions of Americans who've suffered from COVID-19 and the hundreds of thousands who've died. All he seems to worry about are the millions of votes that he goes on claiming were stolen from him in pivotal states, notably Georgia, where he belabored the state's secretary of state for an hour begging him to come up with the numbers needed to give him a few more electoral votes.

You wonder how long Trump is going to go on with this mad charade. Right up until Jan. 20 when Joe Biden is to be inaugurated? Will he show up for the inauguration? And will Mike Pence be there to congratulate Kamala Harris, his successor as vice president?

Even if Trump relinquishes his embarrassing quest to sabotage the election outcome, he's obsessed over nobody's future but his own. Humiliated in defeat, he displays his true colors not as a terrifying dictator but as a comic-book bumbler unable to deal with reality and move on after four inglorious years that he never deserved in the first place.

Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, writes from Seoul as well as Washington.