Projection

The Very Stable Genius throws around terms like "nasty" and "terrible" to pre-empt their application to him

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It occurs to me that something I need to be careful about is not positioning myself as the mirror opposite of what I discussed in my May 4 post titled “Willfully Ignoring.” My point in that one was this:

The common thread running through all the layers is a ploy that so far has been a sure-fire way to fire up the base. Anyone else can see that it’s a classic oh-look-a-squirrel diversion from the MAGA dismantling of the nation’s institutional foundation. The whole infrastructure is committed to focusing solely on the machinations of the Left, as if Joe Biden or Barack Obama were still president and enjoyed a Democratic congressional majority.

I open this post as I have to hopefully ward off any whataboutism. I get plenty of that on social media.

To reiterate what is a fundamental premise here at Precipice, I am a conservative - that is, a fusion of the classical liberalism of Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Frederic Bastiat, the defense of a transcendent basis for morality, and an understanding of the way in which the West’s been unique blessing in human affairs. The 1955 National Review mission statement and Ronald Reagan’s 1964 A Time for Choosing speech are among my lodestars.

I cheer the societal push-back on militant identity politics and climate alarmism. I support both a Ukrainian victory over Russia and an Israeli victory over Hamas. I understand that the reason the US government’s debt and deficit are on an unsustainable course is that a century ago, the decidedly anti-Madisonian notion that government ought to concern itself with the two big givens of the human condition - sickness and old age - came to have a lot of appeal among the populace.

And I see the coverup of Joe Biden’s dementia and cancer as a major scandal.

So I’m not trying to shirk what the post-American Left has contributed to our dire present juncture.

But the current president and the party in his thrall continue to stomp what remains of national decency and humanity into the dust.

The Very Stable Genius is a weak man and an empty vessel, as evidenced by the fact that Putin is as resolute as ever regarding his maximalist demands for peace with Ukraine, putting the lie to the VSG’s claim that he could resolve the issue in 24 hours, as well as by the tacit reversal of the basis on which he originally peddled his tariffs.

But he’s in the catbird seat. He has the institutional power of the presidency, and understands that he can increase that power purely by the exercise of swagger. The one thing he’s handled deftly is instilling fear and humiliation wherever he thinks he needs to. He doesn’t need to even come close to policy consistency, just wield dread on the part of corporations, the media, and the other branches of government (and even agencies in his own branch) that he can make their lives miserable.

It affects the work of the intelligence community:

New emails document how a top aide to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, ordered analysts to edit an assessment with the hope of insulating President Trump and Ms. Gabbard from being attacked for the administration’s claim that Venezuela’s government controls a criminal gang.

“We need to do some rewriting” and more analytic work “so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS,” Joe Kent, the chief of staff to Ms. Gabbard, wrote in an email to a group of intelligence officials on April 3, using shorthand for Ms. Gabbard’s position and for the president of the United States.

The New York Times reported last week that Mr. Kent had pushed analysts to redo their assessment, dated Feb. 26, of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and the gang, Tren de Aragua, after it came to light that the assessment contradicted a subsequent claim by Mr. Trump. The disclosure of the precise language of Mr. Kent’s emails has added to the emerging picture of a politicized intervention.

The final memo, which is dated April 7 and has since become public, still contradicts a key claim that Mr. Trump made to justify sending people accused of being members of the gang to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process.

Emails on the topic from Mr. Kent, who is also Mr. Trump’s pending nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, have circulated within the intelligence community and were described by people briefed on them. Mr. Kent’s interventions have raised internal alarms about politicizing intelligence analysis.

Defenders of Mr. Kent have disputed that his attempted intervention was part of a pressure campaign, arguing he was trying to show more of what the intelligence community knew about the gang.

But the disclosure of his emails supports the accounts of critics who said he was applying political pressure to generate a torqued narrative that would support, rather than undermine, the administration’s policy agenda.

Corporations are tiptoeing around what they really mean, in a manner not unlike what campus speech codes have done to the free exchange of ideas:

Hedge your language. Don’t be too specific. Don’t say “Trump.”

For chief executives, speaking in public has become a tightrope walk. Say the wrong word and it might tick off the White House.

As companies start to feel the impact of President Trump’s tariffs, especially the 30 percent tax on Chinese goods, they have a responsibility to tell their investors how they will deal with the higher costs. For many companies, that means raising prices.

But Mr. Trump, who insists that other countries are paying the tariffs, doesn’t want to hear that. So executives are speaking even more delicately than usual, including on the perfunctory quarterly earnings calls that are normally only of interest to Wall Street.

Since Mr. Trump’s first term, corporate leaders have been wary of the president’s habit of taking to social media and singling out companies and executives that he feels are working against his economic or political agenda.

Mr. Trump’s second term has brought a new intensity to the situation, according to crisis communication experts and consultants who work closely with chief executives. Mattel, Ford, Amazon and Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook have faced his ire in recent weeks.

“Companies have got to reconcile with the fact that politics has penetrated nearly every element of their business and to bake those considerations in to prepare your C.E.O.s,” said Brett Bruen, president of the consulting firm Global Situation Room, which is based in Washington.

And tariffs, a central pillar of Mr. Trump’s economic policy, potentially hit squarely where it hurts companies the most: profits.

Consider the not-so-veiled threat against toymaker Mattel:

executives are finding that speaking too plainly has consequences. When Mattel released its earnings in early May, the maker of Barbie said it would raise prices on U.S. toys because of tariffs on imports from China, then totaling 145 percent. It also scrapped its financial forecast for the year, citing uncertainty over trade and tariff policies.

Mattel’s chief executive, Ynon Kreiz, went on CNBC and was asked whether it would be cheaper for the company to manufacture toys in the United States. “We don’t see that happening,” he said.

A few days later, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump didn’t hide his disdain for the Mattel boss. He threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Mattel’s products, saying the company “won’t sell one toy in the United States.” He also said, “I wouldn’t want to have him as an executive too long.”

Consultants tell clients to avoid the t-word:

Those advising chief executives in this fraught moment say they are telling leaders to describe the financial impacts of tariffs in the gentlest way possible. Talk about the “fluid” or “uncertain economic environment” without naming the White House policy that created those conditions, advisers suggest. Consult your government affairs person. Play up the opportunity to increase “productivity” rather than discussing the time and money spent figuring how to rejigger a company’s global supply chain. And if something has to be said about tariffs, let the chief financial officer address it, not the chief executive.

Even the word tariff itself is to be avoided, said Denise Dahlhoff, director of marketing and communications research at the Conference Board, a business group. “More neutral terms to use are ‘sourcing cost’ or ‘input cost’ or ‘supply chain cost’ — they are not as incendiary as ‘tariff,’” she said.

Consultants said to expect to continue hearing a variety of euphemisms about tariffs and their impact on prices. On Tuesday, Home Depot’s chief financial officer, Richard McPhail, said the home-improvement retailer intended to “generally maintain our current pricing levels.” Translation: The prices won’t rise. Unless they have to.

The VSG particularly relishes insulting reporters and the organizations they work for.

His take on NBC:

President Trump berated NBC News reporter Peter Alexander — calling him an “idiot” and a “jerk” — on Wednesday for asking about the luxurious jet the Pentagon accepted from Qatar during an Oval Office meeting with his South African counterpart.

“Why are you talking about that? What are you asking that for? You know, you oughta get out of here,” Trump fumed as the journalist attempted to ask the president about the $400 million “palace in the sky” aircraft intended to serve as a temporary replacement for the aging Air Force One fleet.

“What does this have to do with the Qatar jet?” Trump continued. “They’re giving the United States Air Force a jet. Okay? And it’s a great thing.”

. . . “You are a real — you know, you’re a terrible person,” the president raged, before questioning Alexander’s intelligence.

“Number one, you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter. You’re not smart enough,” Trump charged.

“You ought to go back to your studio at NBC,” the president suggested, “because [Comcast Chairman] Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated. They are so terrible the way they run that network.”

Earlier this month, it was the Wall Street Journal’s turn:

President Trump berated a reporter from The Wall Street Journal aboard Air Force One late Sunday and described the news outlet as “rotten” and bad for the country.

“Who are you with?” Trump asked a reporter who shouted a question in his direction. “Boy, you people treat us so badly.”

The Journal, Trump continued, “has truly gone to hell … a rotten newspaper. You hear me? What I said … it’s a rotten newspaper.”

The president said he wouldn’t answer a question that came from a reporter for the Journal “because it would be wasting my time.”

“The Wall Street Journal is China-oriented,” he said. “And they’re really bad for this country.”

With a few exceptions, Congress has gone into deliberate denial about the One Big Beautiful Bill’s impact on the debt and deficit, because to deny the VSG the provisions he wants to see would be to incur his wrath.

Everyone’s afraid of this guy - well, except the world stage’s rogue actors.

The tool he uses to instill the fear?

Projection.

Among his favorite insults are “nasty” (which he has termed the trade negotiators of Canada and the EU), “rotten” and “terrible.” It’s screamingly obvious to those who still have some kind of functioning sense of decency that he’s using these terms to head off at the pass any application of them to him.

And usually, the objects of his nastiness just wither.

Pushback is not going to take a form favorable to conservatives. If public dissatisfaction with what is happening to the country reaches a critical mass and the Left sees an upturn in political fortunes in sight, it will happily conflate actual conservative principles and policies with the foul behavior cited above.

Courage and persuasion are going to be needed here in post-America the way long-range missiles and fighter jets are needed in Ukraine. Ukraine must wait for outside parties to supply those items. Our courage is going to have to generate from inside each one of us. Persuasion can bolster that courage as the uncommitted see our confidence.

But time is of the essence. Trumpism isn’t waiting for permission to carry out its intentions.