The Trump Double-Down: Repeating the Same Behavior

The Trump Double-Down: Repeating the Same Behavior

And Expecting a Different Result

It’s a pretty common behavior, one embraced by autocrats throughout the ages, but it stems from a messianic one-note leader, unbending, with enough followers to reinforce his (not too many women here) notion of self-importance. “I am right, and those who do not agree are wrong.” They are all labeled “enemies” and “unpatriotic,” to be dealt with accordingly. “Only I can fix it!” “[Insert name or category of people, often based on race, religion or ethnicity] need to be stopped [eliminated?]” When hard facts contradict that monotonic message, either the opposing message/fact is wildly incorrect, biased and/or manipulated or the messenger is to be demonized, marginalized, dismissed or to be eliminated on any number of fabricated grounds. “Alternative facts” (no such animal exists; a fact is just a fact) – where those with the accurate information are dismissed or ignored or often killed – give rise to simplistic explanations, the birthplace of mythology and toxic conspiracy theories.

Given the unsustainability of falsehoods, even with massive numbers of believers reinforced with religious zeal, it becomes critical to the survivability of the false prophet that contrary information be suppressed, with violence if necessary, and those transmitting that information be demonized or “eliminated.” No, folks, the Earth is not flat, and the Sun does not revolve around our planet, as most people once believed. Autocrat standard response: Any system of governance that permits the dissemination of contrary but factual information must be destroyed by any and all means possible. Informants, secret police operating under the direct control of the grandmaster are assigned to hotbeds of opposing voices. If such “police” are masked without any form of obvious identification, accountability for their actions has left the building. That the recently recruited “soldiers” (Guardsmen) from former Confederate strongholds (Civil War history), are occupying the Union capital at the invitation of the government, should trouble us all.

Let’s start with the economy. If TACO Trump could not read the obvious tea leaves – impose tariffs, stock market falls; reduce or remove tariffs, stock market rises – he continues to wreak havoc on financial well-being of the nation. Corporations cannot plan, consumer confidence is plunging, and experts agree, the economy-biting chickens are coming home to roost. Hugh Cameron, writing for the August 21st Newsweek, soft-pedals with this summary: “S&P Global Market Intelligence, the research and data arm of the credit-rating agency, found that filings by large public and private companies rose to 71 last month from 66 in June, marking the highest monthly tally since July 2020. So far in 2025, meanwhile, the total of 446 bankruptcy filings is the highest for this seven-month stretch since 2010.

“Experts told Newsweek that, when factoring in things like currency depreciation and corporate structures, statistics such as these are less alarming than they may initially appear. However, the notable increase in both business and personal bankruptcies in recent months has exacerbated existing concerns about the overall health of the U.S. economy… In its report, S&P Global cited the impact of high interest rates and ‘uncertainty’ created by tariffs; but the economy is also grappling with elevated inflation, a precarious labor market and other headwinds that have prompted some economists to warn of an impending recession.” The underlying reality, which includes severe labor shortages in construction and farming, small businesses struggling to survive and tariff-driven price increases are beginning to impact us all, is that the economy is nowhere near the promised land Trump described... and nobody really believes he can continue to blame Biden and Obama. Still, often as a political threat that doesn’t really matter a whit to most of us, new tariffs are rolling out.

One last, foreign policy example. That same double-down behavior result was evidenced by Trump’s embarrassing bent knee to Putin in Anchorage on August 15th, and his complete abandonment (read: Putin appeasement) of the President’s own ceasefire demands (or else “severe consequences” would be assessed on Putin’s Russia) following Trump’s subsequent White House meeting with European leaders and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump resumed his total, near worshipping treatment of the indicted war criminal, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, as if Trump’s many statements about stopping the murderous devastation or his “disappointment” in Putin’s intransigence and even that Putin seemed ready for a ceasefire, never happened. So, would Trump’s recent reverting to his earlier near perfect statement of support for Putin (the bromance) generate a different result from Trump’s earlier support of Putin?

Putin got the delay he wanted, he immediately amped up his attack on civilian targets in Ukraine, and even as Trump had suggested Putin would accept meaningful security guarantees for a peace agreement, as European leaders met internally to discuss how this might work, Moscow’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, called this effort “a path to nowhere.” Lavrov believes that Russia needs to participate in the creation of the limitations, but we know Russia won’t accept much. Trump has already withdrawn the potential of adding US peacekeepers to the ground forces protecting a post-war Ukraine. Why does Russia, the serial breacher of its international treaties, get to dictate how we cover Ukraine’s post-war territorial security needs? Do we ask those arrested in this country about the quality of jail accommodation and the use of handcuffs? Why do we trust Russia for an effective containment strategy?

In the end, the one trick pony named Donald Trump has simply not delivered anywhere that matters. The economy is unraveling, Gaza has gotten much worse, and Putin is the only winner in the recent efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Trump’s lacky AG Pamela Bondi, is snail walking the promised big reveal, that document dump demanded by the congressional committee that subpoenaed those Jeffrey Epstein files, even as everybody now knows Trump’s name is all over those records. And since Trump’s momentary deflections and distractions in sending his red state police to blue states plus his effort to dial down the Russo-Ukraine war, have both failed, does Trump finally have to deal with that “deep state” pledge he made to his MAGA followers… or does he get yet another pass from cultish followers as democracy is squeezed out of our nation?

I’m Peter Dekom, and quoting from that old Joni Mitchell song (Big Yellow Taxi), “Don't it always seem to go…That you don't know what you've got... Till it's gone… They paved paradise… And put up a parking lot” right over that place where democracy once stood.