Trump Is a Reprehensible Bully at the NATO Summit

It was always going to be the case that Donald Trump behaved like a colossal, reprehensible bully at NATO, and so he has. He has been a belligerent, braggadocious, blameful wreck, who has endeaved in every conceivable way to undermine the United States' long-held alliances to Vladimir Putin's favor.

Yesterday, I wrote: "Trump's strategy appears to be: Continue to tell lies about the structure of NATO to underwrite demands that NATO members will not possibly meet, because they are absurd, then use their refusal to justify the United States' withdrawal from NATO. I hope I'm wrong about that, and fear that I'm not."

Welp:

Trump upends NATO summit, demanding immediate spending increases or he will ‘do his own thing’https://t.co/T3ejxxCeke

— Alan Abramowitz (@AlanIAbramowitz) July 12, 2018

Trump claimed that other member nations of NATO committed to "step up like they have never stepped up before," essentially asserting that they capitulated to his demands and declaring victory, despite the fact that French President Emmanuel Macron has made clear that they have not.

Currently the featured article on CNN's front page.
Trump has further announced that it may not be "necessary" for him to leave NATO, since his demands have been met, which of course is laying the groundwork for the reverse, which is that he will be forced to leave if his demands aren't met after all, which he already knows they aren't.

So here we are. And, again, it's important to understand why Trump is doing this:

The main reason for Trump’s targeted attack on Germany is to lay his reasons for withdrawing troops while Putin is building his military on Poland’s borders. This will leave Europe in a dangerous position while Putin aims to steal more land. Trump knows exactly what he is doing https://t.co/SKggn1F1wB

— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) July 11, 2018

Trump knows exactly what he is doing. Exactly so.

As I also wrote yesterday, though on the subject of North Korea: "Funny, isn't it, how we keep hearing what incompetent bozos the Trump Regime is, and yet they have managed to consolidate power almost entirely and turn the world's most prominent democracy into an authoritarian state in less than two years. It's almost like it serves the Trump Regime for everyone to keep believing their fools who are incapable of strategy."

It's long past time for all of us, including and especially the political press, to understand that Trump is not a wrecking ball by mistake or by accident. He is wrecking destruction by design.