Donald Trump, shown here withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, is "taking America's ball and going home" - but the other players have their own sports equipment. The game will go on. This is taking "Doesn't play well with others" to a new level, and what you do when you're really a loser who can't admit it.

There’s a front page story in the New York Times by Steven Erlanger and Julia Hirschfeld Davis: Once Dominant, the United States Finds Itself Isolated at G-20.

...Where previous American leaders saw their power as a benevolent force, and were intent on spreading prosperity through open markets and multilateral cooperation, Mr. Trump has portrayed himself as a nationalist, a unilateralist and a protectionist, eager to save American jobs. What recent events have underscored, though — and especially at the G-20 — is that no nation is today large or powerful enough to impose rules on everyone else. In advancing his views, Mr. Trump has alienated allies and made the United States seem like its own private island.

emphasis added

There’s no clearer demonstration of how little Trump is able to understand the importance of relationships with others or the dysfunction that surrounds him than by looking at what has happened to the State Department on his watch.

The BBC’s Washington Bureau Chief Paul Danahar spelled out the painful reality. The guilty secret of every diplomat in Washington DC tells how diplomats trying to work with the United States have had to abandon normal diplomatic channels and fact-based arguments, and instead have to work Trump like some petty dictator or a dysfunctional royal court, stroking Trump’s ego.

"Four minutes with him is worth hours of meeting with anybody else," a visiting head of state told me recently. World leaders recognise transaction is the new diplomacy. America isn't taking one for the team anymore, because President Trump isn't a team player. So diplomats make sure they go into their meetings with an idea that Mr Trump can claim as a victory. It must be structured, as one diplomat put it, "so he can say to people, 'we scored a win here,' because for him it's all about winning". To make their case more effectively, America's allies are cloaking their own agendas in the president's language and priorities. Complex political issues are boiled down as "fighting terrorism". That's how the Saudi government played the president during his Middle East trip in May. The Saudis repackaged their long-simmering dispute with Qatar, over regional influence and the Muslim Brotherhood, as a battle against Islamist extremists. Latin American leaders are recasting their "war on drugs'' as a "war on terrorism.”

emphasis added

From a functioning Republic with long-standing institutions, the U.S. in six months has become the equivalent of a royal court, with courtiers switching between sycophancy and back-stabbing by turns while fighting for the ear of King Donald. (It’s no surprise his closest advisors are his own family. Monarchies run on blood ties and personal loyalty.)

As Danahar reports, the order of priority is to try to get the ear of his inner circle first, the ‘official’ circle next (Agency heads, cabinet officers, etc.) and last his pre-presidency contacts in show business and real estate.

So foreign diplomats try to talk to as many people in this group of interlocking circles as they can, in the hope that if these people see the merit in their case, they will convey it to the president. And if the president hears that view enough times, he will believe it. However, after laying out this elaborate strategy, the Western diplomat confessed, "but then there are those who say the most important thing is to be the last person to talk to him before he makes a decision".

And,

The guilty secret of every ambassador in DC is that the first thing they do in the morning is check the president's Twitter feed. That is now the best, perhaps it's the only, way to work out what is going on with US foreign policy.

emphasis added

Comparing Trump to Hitler is almost too easy, but some argue a more apt comparison is comparing Trump to King George. Even Trump’s own followers recognize the historical parallels, although the irony escapes them. The problem of having a petty dictator running the country is bad enough by itself — but made far worse by the fact that he’s an incompetent petty dictator.

For those wondering how this happened, there’s no real secret. Trump is a classic High SDO* authoritarian leader. His attacks on the norms of government are inevitable. His pursuit of isolationism is completely consistent with his world view: dominate or be dominated.

This is from a WSJ op-ed today by Economic adviser Gary Cohn and national Security adviser H.R. McMaster: The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a “global community” but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.

Under Trump, the United States is becoming the equivalent of the cranky old man down the block with a house full of guns, bombs in the basement, and a paranoid view of the neighborhood — but you can lead him around by the nose if you tell him what he wants to hear. His house is falling apart, his lawn needs work, garbage is starting to pile up in the garage — and he’ll tell you at length why none of that is his fault. It’s those others…

This is not going to end well.

* If you noticed the asterisk, here’s the key quote from the link below. It reads now like it was written specifically about Trump. Definitely read the whole thing. It nails both Trump as a leader, and explains the reason why his followers stick with him.

High-SDO people are characterized by four core traits: they are dominating, opposed to equality, committed to expanding their own personal power, and amoral. These are usually accompanied by other unsavory traits, many of which render them patently unsuitable for leadership roles in a democracy:

Typically men

Intimidating and bullying

Faintly hedonistic

Vengeful

Pitiless

Exploitative

Manipulative

Dishonest

Cheat to win

Highly prejudiced (racist, sexist, homophobic)

Mean-spirited

Militant

Nationalistic

Tells others what they want to hear

Takes advantage of "suckers"

Specializes in creating false images to sell self

May or may not be religious

Usually politically and economically conservative/Republican

Dean notes: "Although these collations of characteristics…are not attractive portraits, the are nonetheless traits that authoritarians themselves acknowledge." In other words, these guys know what they are, and are often quite unabashedly proud of it.

High-SDO people are drawn to power, and will seek it ruthlessly and relentlessly, regardless of the consequences to others. Many cultures (including ours, up until a few decades ago) have found these people so dangerous that they've evolved counterweights and backstops that conspire to either keep them away from the levers of power, or mitigate the damage they can do (and I'll discuss some of those in the last installment). However, modern America seems to have lost all vestiges of this awareness. Now, we celebrate our most powerful social dominants, pay them obscene salaries, turn them into media stars, and hand over the keys to the empire to them almost gratefully. They have free rein to pursue their ambitions unchecked, with no cultural brakes on their rapacity. They will do whatever they can get away with; and we'll not only let them, but often cheer them on.

Well, we can’t say (some of us at least) we didn’t see it coming… Read the whole thing, and the rest of the series as well.

UPDATE: Catte Nappe found the originals were posted here at Daily Kos back in 2006 by Robinson — two series, Tunnels & Bridges and Cracks in the Wall.