It flatters his colossal ego and frightens his opponents

I would like to offer a mildly unconventional suggestion that we should stop paying attention to what President Donald Trump says.

What he does, his disruption to justice and liberal values, and the promise he offers to potential imitators in politics throughout the world are obviously horrifying. But what comes out of the megalomaniac’s mouth and ipad are often Improvised explosive devices which it’s sensible to leave alone.

I do recognise that he has turned international relations upside down, and agree that he’s creating a potentially dangerous new world order. We may despise his tactics and pity the likely victims. But what he says upsets us more than it informs us. So let’s confine our outrage to his deeds. Even a discussion like this blog is a concession to the disproportionate power of his tweets and speeches, and is in my view a form of encouragement.

          Inventing new meanings for words as he goes along

Our leaders are obliged for PR reasons to respond to Trump’s insults, and luckily on the whole they do a reasonable job with basic fact checks of the ballistic bravado and by refusing to over-react. Those who do return fire appear feeble, and those who suck up to him directly are engaged in a dangerous and ultimately futile gamble. You can’t have a war of words or a polite negotiation with a man who invents new meanings for the words as he goes along.

While politicians are generally restrained, the media on the other hand just can’t keep quiet about him. Unfortunately that’s who he’s speaking to, and where the damage is done.

Let’s start from a basic premise that we know and agree what Trump is like as a human being. And no matter how we may express this in metaphors, similes, blatant insults and expletives, we don’t on the whole like him. I also imagine that it’s his actions rather than public statements which have had the greater impact on the tens of thousands of redundant public service workers and all those Americans who have lost their services.

          Less publicity would mean more truth

OK, he’s an interesting topic for debate. But why on earth does the global media hang on to his every abusive word? Much of what’s thrown at him, including the negative stuff, is received as flattery. Anything that is not merely fuels his lust for revenge on enemies and gives his life purpose. He’s not like other leaders (OK he is, but on a colossally magnified scale). We all know that his utterances fail to pursue logic, or any consistent moral or emotional argument, or the truth.

Even when journalists try to provide balance by pointing to factual errors, Trump’s  distortions and blatant fallacies are still providing ammunition for those who prefer to believe him rather than the liberal media. Surely less publicity would in this case produce more truth. So everyone should stop playing the news game as if there is some kind of equivalence.

We don’t, or shouldn’t, take notice of a two-year-old who screams their head off, tells us he hates us, kicks anything in the vicinity, and lays on his/her back waving legs in the air when they can’t get what they want. We don’t apply reason to distract them. It can be bloody awkward, especially if they do it at the Tescos checkout. But left alone we know that they’ll eventually realise the tactic is not working and they’ll shut up.

          A two-year-old waving their legs in the air

Trump has had much longer than the two-year-old to perfect his tantrums. For one thing, he knows he can have more effective if he has his hissy fit before he actually issues his demands. It’s more unnerving. Makes his seem more threatening. Gets him more attention.

If for no other reason than that he wants everyone to listen to him, we should shun the self-promotional garbage and illiterate politics. I for one don’t feel like doing him any favours.

We’d be able to work out what to do about him if he was only demanding something from the sweet counter. But pressure for dismantling the US constitution, international law, are the mechanisms for maintaining peace in Europe are infantile strops on massive scale. But we can’t be sure that’s what he really wants. Shouldn’t wariness be our response, not promotion for his hyperboles? What if they’re just collateral damage in the Trump superstorm?

          The wandering mind of an avaricious monster-baby

Big abstract concepts are not the forte of the trivial wandering mind of this avaricious monster-baby. His ambitions are actually simple and simple-minded. He wants to be President, obviously, and to accumulate money, and to win public aclaim, for instance simply by making other people feel wealthier. A Nobel Peace Prize would be particularly appreciated as well – not for the peace of course, but for the climactic impact on his ego. If along the way he gets access to the mineral wealth of Ukraine and real estate riches on the Mediterranean coast, that’ll be further confirmation of his astonishing brilliance, he thinks

But someone who describes the ruins of Gaza as a potential site for resort development is not an inspired genius with a vision. He’s someone without the imagination to begin to grasp the challenges facing those who live there. So let’s not allow him to take credit for his diminutive grasp on reality and arrested emotional development by constantly quoting his rather ordinary ambitions.

(My apologies for having done just that. I felt my case needed concrete examples. Here comes another.)

          No, bleach doesn’t cure covid

Don’t forget that the mind which delivers shocking and preposterous geopolitical proposals also drools minor drivel on a daily basis without the least interest in its viability, credibility or veracity. No, bleach isn’t a sensible treatment for covid 19.

As with the two-year-old, the more seriously we take his disturbing verbal tantrums and bullying outbursts, the more he will be inclined to employ them to get his own way and feed his insatiable egomania. Far more important is what he actually does, and how his sycophantic management team in the White House turn the drivel into practical – and assuredly odious – policies. It should go without saying that what’s in Tumps’s mind is only a coherent policy if someone else puts it there.

His boasts about his negotiating skills may be the only honest thing about the man. Frightening and antagonising those he is going to be haggling with before he’s started the deal-making tends to turn his adversaries into pathetic smarting pleaders, preconditioned to be on the losing side.

It wouldn’t a bad idea if we all shut up, stop repeating and paying attention to the bollocks, and let Trump do the second guessing for a change. Otherwise he’ll certainly beat us.