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Trump's true colors aren't red, white and blue

Monday in Helsinki, the emperor had no clothes - and that, my friends, was quite a sight!

Really, there should have been no surprise at President Donald Trump's behavior in Helsinki. He has been leading up to his outrageous defense of Vladimir Putin in statement after statement ever since he became president.

But the summit in Finland, without question, confirmed his anti-democracy beliefs in a manner stunning to many Americans. He cuddled up to Putin like a schoolgirl with a crush; stated at the press conference following their "private" meeting that the U.S. has been "foolish" and that "we are all to blame" for problems between the two countries; and, of course, after two days of insulting the European Union in Brussels, called the E.U. a "foe" of America.

But Emperor Trump's most important words by far got relatively little attention in the melee that was the summit. President Putin, Trump said, was "very strong and powerful" in his denials of involvement against American democracy.

Please think of those only apparently simple words. They were said with almost an adoring look. Trump looked at Putin beseechingly, as if the Russian leader had something he yearned for. And he did. The American president wants to be all-strong and all-powerful, too.

In fact, this yearning is backed up by Trump's referrals to world leaders he admires: Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and, of course, our new best friend, Vladimir Putin. No space for democrats in this world.

So, folks, it's time to put aside any hesitation about who this American president is. From his earliest years, he has not only sought out, but emulated and adored, the "strong and powerful." Think of the execrable Roy Cohn, his early mentor. Think of the Mafia building trade unionists and the crooked lawyers in New York. And now, these world leaders.

In every one of these cases there is one constant: a profound and consuming resentment against the social classes he thought had ignored or dissed him.

Emperor Trump has always felt he was disdained by "elites," whether the Fifth Avenue real estate moguls in New York or the politically powerful in Washington. And so, he would show them: He would create a new elite - from hotels blazing "TRUMP" all over the world to reality TV stardom to the presidency of the United States to this summit in Helsinki.

This kind of politics by resentment is hardly new. Because of my own history, I think of Fidel Castro in Cuba. He grew up with an abnormal hatred of the U.S. because of the power wielded by U.S. investments in Cuba. Once he came to power, everything American was "out." When I interviewed Castro a number of times and then wrote his biography, "Guerrilla Prince," I was constantly stunned by how profoundly his resentments influenced his actions, and I was equally stunned by what a low opinion he, like Trump, had of his followers.

If this psychological portrait of Trump is as true as I believe it to be - and if it reveals as much as I believe it to reveal - then it is indeed time to be utterly clear about who this man is. For now we know, beyond the shadow of a doubt.

His first, primary and perhaps only loyalty is not to his country but to himself. He hates what he sees as namby-pamby, eternally negotiating, discussing and fussing bureaucrats, of the E.U. in particular and of democracies in general. He has not the slightest qualm about realigning the United States away from its historic friendships with Great Britain and Europe and toward the "strong and powerful."

Helsinki was not just a summit meeting: Helsinki marked the climax of an ongoing attempt to totally change the moral character of the United States.

Of course, President/Emperor Trump said upon his return to Washington that he DID trust American intelligence agencies, and that he had misspoken - when he said he "would" have no reason to believe the Russians would tamper with our elections, he really meant to say "wouldn't." Would you believe something like that - or wouldn't you?

So what comes next? It could be just more chaos, but on a far more dangerous scale than before. It could be that congressmen, Republicans as well as Democrats, will finally have the balls ... I mean nerve, to challenge the emperor. The Mueller commission might come up with irrefutable information about him that could end the nightmare, or it might actually turn out that the Russians do have something on him.

The best thing would be for the American people, who have so foolishly allowed him to bully them, to turn against him.

Email Georgie Anne Geyer at gigi_geyer@juno.com.

© 2018, Universal

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