Think of Donald Trump as Newman, the mailman Jerry profoundly dislikes in “Seinfeld.” There is an episode in which the quick-to-find-fault-in-women-he-dates Jerry discovers to his horror and disgust that a woman he is currently seeing used to go out with his reviled, unappealing neighbor Newman.
To make matters worse for his battered ego, the woman told Jerry that in fact it was Newman, not she, who broke off the relationship. When Jerry tells all this to his friend Elaine, a dialogue follows:
Elaine: “Perhaps there’s more to Newman than meets the eye.”
Jerry: “No, there’s less.”
Elaine: “It’s possible.”
Jerry: “No. it isn’t. I’ve looked into his eyes. He’s pure evil.”
Elaine: “Maybe he’s an enigma, a mystery wrapped in a riddle.”
Jerry: “Yeah, he’s a mystery wrapped in a Twinkie.”
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In Trump’s case, the Newmanesque “there’s less” is not a disparaging characterization, but more of an observation about the depth and longevity of his statements. This doesn’t mean his statements are comical, irrelevant or just provocations meant to rile the world. Some of them he means seriously.
When Trump blurts out an idea with conviction, bluster and 100 percent certitude, or issues a statement with multiple exclamation points, it is almost never the product of a carefully crafted thought process.
Agree or disagree with those statements, Trump discharges copiously and bluntly what he believes to be common sensical truisms. About everything and anything. They do not express a coherent policy or plan of action, a thorough examination of options weighed carefully.
Trump is detail-averse, so one-line statements suffice. How people interpret them is not important to him. Most of these statements have the lifespan of mayflies, the aquatic insect that typically lives for only a day. They live until the next issue – say, sanctions threats on Colombia or confronting Denmark on the purchase of Greenland – crosses his mind and keyboard.
That is why neither the nationalistic far right and Netanyahu sycophants, nor the anti-Netanyahu liberal democrats (aka “the center-left”), should get excited or depressed, elated or disappointed, by something Trump says. The life expectancy of his controversy-generating statements is shorter than the time it takes him to type an agitated, impassioned response on social media or sanctimoniously whine on television.
His default modus operandi is based on pointing to what he believes to be plain common sense, which he then utters without any filters, regard for decorum or how it will be received. It’s who he is.
So when he says that Egypt and Jordan – and even Indonesia, according to reports – should take in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from Gaza, which is “a giant demolition site,” he is not calling for ethnic cleansing but in his mind stating an obvious fact from his default real-estate point of view: Gaza is currently uninhabitable and for all he knows, he just called it as he sees it.
Trump may be desultory, coarse and crude, but he is not the cause of the cracks and shifting plates of the world order. He is an accelerant of processes and dynamics that have already been set in motion. He does not care and is often openly resentful and hostile to the “rules-based,” institutions-and-alliances-based, post-1945 American-led international order. He thinks it is costing America a lot and benefiting it little.
But he does relish being at the epicenter of American superpower swagger, thoroughly enjoying the confusion, discord and chaos his statements stir in the world.
If you tell Trump that what he calls “Making America Great Again” potentially destabilizes political power balances, alliances and financial markets, he would thank you for the compliment.
If you are Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Denmark, Ukraine, South Korea or Japan, do you: A) continue to rely on America for leadership, a strategic umbrella and maintain that, despite Trump’s statements, America will remain a dependable ally; or B) diversify partnerships, consider augmenting your defense and even contemplate a nuclear option and improve relations with China.
If you picked option B, which many of these countries are likely to choose in the next couple of years, ask Trump: “How does that benefit America? How does that make America great again?”
Which brings us back to the Middle East and Israel. There is little I can add on the possible implications of Trump’s idea to relocate Gazans to Egypt and Jordan, dissected and analyzed by Zvi Bar’el and the potential effects on Israel are critically described by Amir Tibon.
What is interesting about Trump’s statements is less their unfeasibility, but how they are interpreted and received in Israel. Unlike his statements about Greenland, Panama and Colombia, this truly has comical qualities.
First there was the far right and the Netanyahu cult. They welcomed Trump’s election with the delirium of the arrival of an earthly Cyrus and a heavenly Messiah combined. His insistence on ending the war in Gaza and concluding a hostage deal was dismissed offhandedly as something he had to say, but didn’t really mean. Until they discovered that he meant it, and he also means that to end the war, there needs to be a stage 2 of the cease-fire deal.
The vile attacks on him, and especially on his Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, soon followed. Nothing to worry about, Benjamin Netanyahu tried to placate them, I received assurances that the war will resume. Until they find out that no such assurances – short of the total collapse of the cease-fire – were given by Trump.
Then came Israel’s Netanyahu-despising liberal democrats. They don’t particularly like Trump, but quickly adopted a pro-Trump “he made the deal happen” stance, which rapidly evolved into a self-deluding notion that Trump will “pressure” Netanyahu in ways that Biden never did, and compel him to end the war and forge a normalization process with Saudi Arabia with a Palestinian component that would effectively disintegrate Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
Then came Trump’s casual remark about Palestinian refugees from Gaza being settled in Egypt and Jordan, while Saudi, Qatari and Emirati money will build Mar-A-Jabalya with beautiful condos and a Trump golf course.
By now, neither side in Israel knows what to make of Trump. Here’s an idea: Don’t try to make sense of it. What he said yesterday could change or be ignored tomorrow. What he posts about Gaza can turn into Greenland within an hour.
If you think his ideas are patently impractical, that they can’t be made into policy, or that he is unpresidential when he says those things, don’t waste your time looking for telling clues and perceptive insights into what exactly he means.
There’s no answer. Is there more to Trump than meets the eye? No. There’s less, and that’s not entirely a bad thing.
First published in Haaretz, 28.01.2025
