TRUMP’S HELLHOLE AND THE WORLD ORDER OF INSULTS

THE taxonomy of global influence—the framework of persuasion and power—is scaffolded by binary behavioural bookends.

- SHANKKAR AIYAR

Nations who wield their influence silently and well, build strength and alliances. Those who wield it with contempt build resentment, engender faultlines within and without. Donald J Trump is weaponising contempt, defining the world order of insults.

Diplomacy is a process for managing mutual interests. Trump is replacing it with a ‘Hellhole Doctrine’. Since his return to the White House, he has deployed systematic verbal assault on nations as an instrument of subjugation. It doesn’t matter to Trump and minders kissing his ring that the authority of the United States is leaking through a sieve of verbal bile.

Every week, the presidential pulpit hosts a parade of ‘Truths’ used to hurl insults. Not long back amid the tariff wars, Trump declared India, with a GDP growing at 7.8 percent, was a “dead economy”. This week, Trump endorsed a rant dubbing India (and China) as “hellholes”. That is rich coming from a regime that notched a record for shutting government for 44 days, and is witness to 63 school shootings in just four months and over 200 drug deaths a day.

Trump’s utterances often reflect the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind—riveted in ignorance, intentionally rude and divorced from facts. His tirades follow a singular pattern: the bully’s mandate of “my way or the highway”. Earlier this month, he issued a chillingly crude ultimatum to Iran: “Open the f***** Strait... or you'll be living in hell.” He also threatened to wipe out the “entire civilisation” of Iran!