Philip Rucker, one of the Washington Post's staff Trump-haters, claims the President is "embrac[ing] totalitarian leaders around the world." Paul Mirengoff goes to great lengths to refute this at Power Line, I'm not certain why.
The single insight which helps me understand Donald Trump is my conviction that he is, at heart, a salesman. His flattery of people he hopes to influence is just sales hype, and can vanish in a heartbeat.
Trump's insight - that people who experience you as liking and respecting them will find it easier to agree with you than those who feel you despise them - isn't rocket science. It's more like time-tested common sense.
Trump is trying to cajole three specific "totalitarian leaders" (Kim, Xi, and Putin) into making deals he finds favorable, using approaches that worked for him in the past. The same approaches he's used successfully on union (and mob?) bosses, planning boards, mayors, suppliers, and contractors to get hotel, condo, and casino projects approved, built and running.
There are dozens more "totalitarian leaders" around the world Trump hasn't so much as smiled at, much less praised. His way of dealing with foreign leaders is an interesting mix of bullying and cajolery. Michael Walsh does a nice job of describing this mix for the New York Post.
