Back in 2015, when he first surged on the stage to become president "by accident", people I've visited with overseas in Europe and the Near East, expressed their admiration for the "Strong Idiot" who claimed he could change the world by the sheer force of his charm and personality, which tuned out to be a huge failure because bullying and bribing don't change the world for the better, but for the worse.
Back then, I used one word to tell them what I, as an American, think of Trump: HE'S AN IDIOT. Disappointed they were but did not change their conviction.
Nowadays, they contact me and ask me how come Americans have voted for such an idiot? I tell them, I told you so. It's as if they needed to see him performing in office to make a judgment, but not before even though all indicators were there. From overseas, they get "surface news" that dwells on grand declarations but not on the substance of the criminal all Americans knew Trump is.
Yes, the world now has seen Trump in action and understand what a dangerous imbecile he is. Even if their leaders keep meeting with him and pay him lip service, everyone knows the undenibale fact that the US has lost its world leadership for good. The damage is done inside, it is no longer on the surface.
The US has become the Village Idiot of the world thanks to Trump. He is a village idiot with dangerous weapons, but that is not a convincing argument. Jerry Seinfled once said in one of his episodes, "these people don't understand. That is why they have guns".
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Somebody Needs to Tell Trump Everybody Is Laughing at Him
Mona Charen
Tue, December 30, 2025
IN THE COURSE OF HIS LOSING RACE with the teleprompter during his Oval Office address on December 17, President Trump returned to a theme that obsesses him—respect. Even before his entry into politics, Trump was convinced that “weak” leaders, including Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Obama, were despised by other nations and that the United States was a laughingstock. As of 2016, according to a Washington Post tally, Trump had fumed at least one hundred times that other nations were “laughing at us.” Between 2020 and 2024, he probably exceeded that total, and in fact, even now that Biden is in the rearview mirror, Trump perseverates about how much Biden was scorned by the world.
After a litany of lies and an extra helping of gibberish (“We had men playing in women’s sports, transgender for everybody, crime at record levels with law enforcement and words such as that just absolutely forbidden”), Trump closed with the respect theme:
"When the world looks at us next year, let them see a nation that is loyal to its citizens, faithful to its workers, confident to its identity, certain to its destiny, and the envy of the entire globe. We are respected again, like we have never been respected before."
His speechwriters might want to make a note that the word “of” should follow the words “confident” and “certain,” not “to.” And while we’re offering constructive criticism, the president might profit from a little thought experiment.
Suppose you are driving in a foreign country. It’s late at night and you get pulled over by a policeman. After examining your passport and driver’s license, he narrows his eyes, gives his palm a few smacks with his nightstick, and demands a $1,000 bribe to let your infraction go. You might pay the man, but do you come away from this encounter respecting him? Or do you drive off, shaken and angry, concluding that the cop and maybe the whole country is rotten?
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The president seems genuinely not to grasp the difference between respect and fear, and because he has surrounded himself with fawning toadies, there isn’t anyone available to explain it to him. Accordingly, here is my modest effort to do so:
Dear President Trump,
Of all the wrong ideas you hold in your heart—that tariffs are paid by foreigners, that good looks are the chief credential for cabinet offices, that the 2020 election was rigged, that allies are bloodsuckers we’d be better off without—perhaps the most gobsmacking is your cherished notion that people respect you when they kiss your ass.
Sorry, that’s not true. They despise you on two levels. On the first level, because you’ve managed to get elected president, you do have leverage that nearly everyone must grapple with in some fashion. (Think of Volodymyr Zelensky.) That power comes not from you personally but from the great strength of this country, economic, military, and diplomatic. So yes, when you use that leverage to extort lavish praise from people, they will offer it. But they don’t mean a word of it. Not a word. And in their hearts they hate you for demeaning them in this fashion instead of treating them with respect.
The second level of contempt arises from the knowledge—recognized by the whole world, Mr. Trump, except you—that your extravagant need for attention and praise is evidence of your emotional stuntedness. With every renaming of a building you are sending up a signal that screams “I am so insecure!” And here’s the truth: You cannot piggyback on the respect John F. Kennedy earned by slapping your name on the arts center that was named by statute to be his living memorial. Your name may be side by side with his on the marble for now, but in our hearts, we will never respect you. Quite the opposite—for all of your depredations and twice on Sunday for attempting to hijack someone else’s honor.
It gets worse. It isn’t just that your ravenous hunger for recognition betrays a personality disorder, it’s that your particular style of seeking it really does provoke ridicule—that’s another word for “they’re laughing at us.”
The “Gulf of America”? Musing about absorbing Canada into the United States whether they like it or not? Decorating the Oval Office in a Saddam Hussein aesthetic? Threatening to expropriate Greenland from our ally Denmark? Truly great nations don’t need to prove their manhood by lording it over smaller ones. Imposing tariffs on islands inhabited only by penguins? Panting after a Nobel Peace Prize so flagrantly that you’re claiming to have settled eight wars? In two of those cases, there was no war. In the other six, the conflicts are either ongoing or were largely settled without you. Offering meme coins for sale to the highest bidder? Auctioning off pardons to criminals and leaders on the take? You bet they’re laughing.
Among the specific nations whose contempt you most often cited against other presidents, the go-to was China. China was, in your telling, always gloating about getting one over on Biden, Obama, etc. Well, just in the past few weeks, you have agreed to give China access to high-end microchips that are crucial for commercial and military use (and that were withheld by Biden), and you have held your tongue as China has pressured our ally Japan over its support of Taiwan. You even soft-pedaled the threat from China in your National Security Strategy. A younger Trump might have demanded, ‘What did we get in return?’ Nothing.
Our traditional allies are not always laughing. More often they’re wringing their hands as you luxuriate in the company of international outlaws like Vladimir Putin and Nayib Bukele, and mouth stupendous lies such as that Zelensky started the war with Russia.
In short, there has never been a president who has made the United States less respected than you have. We are, to borrow a phrase, disrespected like never before. Whether your twisted ego can recognize that is open to question, but what is not debatable is that virtually the whole world knows.
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