Source: Persuasion
by Sam Kahn
“With all the bravado that tends to accompany Donald Trump, something else has been striking me recently—when faced with major decisions, there’s a way in which he carries himself like a wise fool in a Shakespeare play, bemused by all the tumult that’s going on around him. In a revealing moment, on March 17, when asked to explain why the United States was at war with Iran, Trump said, ‘You could say we did it out of habit’ — as if the war was just a bit of noise going on in the background and had nothing really to do with him. … what is this storm that sweeps Trump along, this force that he can only bemusedly watch? I would argue that it’s political realism — the doctrine that’s taken over the second Trump administration, maybe not entirely with Trump willing it, but which marks a fundamentally different era in international relations.” (06/08/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/trump-misunderstands-realism