Andreas Kluth
Donald Trump, just weeks from returning to the Oval Office, wants friend and foe to know that he’s wrestled with an alligator, tussled with a whale, murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick — because he’s so mean he makes medicine sick.
Oh wait, that was Muhammad Ali, in the heyday of his boxing and epic trash-talking before bouts. Trump — especially in the run-up to his inauguration — is clearly challenging The Greatest for his title of GOAT in smack talk, chirping, jawing, or whatever you call it.
That must be why Trump has recently put Panama on notice that the US wants that canal back; Denmark, that he intends to make an offer to buy Greenland that Copenhagen can’t refuse; and Canada, that it should start looking forward to becoming the 51st American state.
Trump (probably) doesn’t mean much of this literally, just as Ali left most rocks, stones, bricks and other masonry unmolested. But that’s not the point of trash talk. With his constant and winky microaggressions, Trump, like Ali, is trying to put psychological pressure on foreign nations and their leaders, the better to destabilize them now and bend them to his will later. That way, he reckons, there may be a chance of a technical KO in the ring, or as Trump calls it, “peace through strength.”
Even so, trash talk is never just talk. It’s as open to exegesis as body language, tea leaves or tarot cards are.
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