Donald Trump- hero or zero?

 Donald Trump- hero or zero?

It is hard to know where this one is going. We are now a couple of months into the second term of Donald Trump as President of the United States and the jury is still out. Are we watching a re-enactment of a typical war movie where the gallant soldiers are led over the top by a domineering sergeant major barking out orders only to find that the enemy are still firing missiles at them. Trump is still oozing confidence and bravado, still seemingly in charge of his mental faculties and yet there is something inherently wrong here. 

On the one hand, Trump's intentions are honourable but there is a nagging sense of cynicism about his latest bombastic outbursts, his very public threats and grievances, the impassioned rants, the ill judged statements designed to wind up and antagonise. The story of Donald Trump is now so well documented that we have now seen the film about him which he so despised and we know both his blood group and leg measurements. Everything about Trump is now an open book and widely available for social documentary, for comment and reaction.  

You can't hide his past and his future looks pretty transparent as well. In fact most of us can probably predict his next course of action in much the way that crystal ball gazers can see what might happen in six months time. For a while it looked as if Trump was both positive, proactive, admirable, sensible, even, quite possibly, constructive. It did look as if rational thinking had kicked in and the planet would be a safe place sooner rather than later. But now he seems to have made a rod for his own back. 

On Saturday we witnessed the release of three more Israeli hostages from captivity. Some of us were just overjoyed and mightily relieved since this could be the precursor for yet more good news in the Middle East. Hamas menacing body language and infuriating stubbornness suggested that the ceasefire was over and we were back on a war front. But then there was a volte face, a sudden change of heart and mind so the ceasefire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah was still intact. 

This morning, peace is still a blissful reality, a heartening sight and sound but then we begin to listen to Trump's more up to date ultimatums, the olive branch of peace to both Ukraine, Russia and President Putin. And yet there is something missing in the jigsaw piece. On Sunday evening, Trump took up residence next to a plane again and blurted out yet more worrying pronouncements about war, brutish belligerence and if Russia ignore him, the Trump card has got a problem and he's the grizzly bear.

There is something dark and sinister about Donald Trump when somebody insists on getting on his nerves. In fact at some point Trump may yet explode in front of TV news cameras and it won't be a pretty sight. This morning, Trump came out with some ridiculous nonsense about the mentally disabled or words to that effect and everything about the man has the air of a freak show. But once again this may be a gross exaggeration, a complete fallacy. Perhaps he's a saint and paragon of virtue. Who are we to say?

You can't help but think though that rather than showing the dynamic leadership qualities one has every right to expect of the President of the United States, Trump simply loves soundbites and controversies. He can't get enough of them. The man who used to be completely dependent on social media for some of his more outrageous words of wisdom, is still bleating, accusing, threatening again, blasting the eardrums of anybody prepared to indulge him. 

In fact, you remain convinced Trump sounds like a man forever rehearsing for a lengthy run in a mainstream TV soap opera. There is a bizarre theatricality about him that almost becomes patently obvious at times. Everything is a dramatic moment in his life, the indecipherable finger gestures, the endless gesticulating, the underhand handshake with fellow prime ministers and presidents and the limited vocabulary when matters of state demand a more rounded eloquence. 

And then you notice his behaviour behind the Oval Office wood panelled desk. He sits at the said desk with a number of vitally important papers and documents which have yet to be signed. Essentially, everything looks normal but the handwriting looks an awkward and laborious operation. He picks up the pen and then scrawls on the page painfully. The result may be a legible one but calligraphy experts may think otherwise. 

Now it is that the words spill from his melodramatic tongue like acid from a scientific test tube. Trump is ruthless, uncompromising, angry, irascible and moody. It is as if he deliberately wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. Initially, there is the understandable diplomacy, the right time and place. But then we briefly forget who we are dealing with here. Trump gets all niggly and unpredictable, rather like somebody being poked with a red hot poker.

The truth is that Trump comes across as a mass of contradictions and paradoxes, nice as pie one minute and fairly decent before losing his temper with that maddeningly argumentative tongue. At the moment, everything is still at the discussion stage, hundreds of ministers and talking heads trying desperately to hold everything together. 

Sadly, one of the warring countries has been left out in the cold. Ukranian president Zelensky, a likeable and patient man, has been cold shouldered by Putin and Russia as if the man were somehow invisible. While the rest of the world wants peace, normality and stability between the Ukraine and Russia, the sullen and sulky Vladimir Putin just mopes around the room like some discontented prima donna who keeps playing up before a big show. 

Meanwhile the man with the orange hair continues to give the impression of a man who is convinced that everything he does is right but then gets stuck in the revolving doors of a hotel going around and around. Suddenly Trump is attacked, criticised relentlessly for tactless drivel, putting his foot in it. As the days and weeks pass, Trump will certainly divide opinion and then resemble the village idiot. But don't panic everybody because Donald Trump is here to stay and at heart, a colourful character who will never bore us. In Trump we must have faith. Smile America, this is happening now. We're living it.