The correct White House response to the poisoning of an ex-Russian agent and his daughter, in Britain last week, would have been for Donald Trump to have delivered a televised address, shortly after that of British Prime Minister Theresa May. May is an unremarkable politician, meaning that she adheres to the traditions and mores of ordinary presidents and prime ministers. So on Monday, when she said, in front of Parliament, that it was “highly likely” the Kremlin was behind the assassination attempt, it was, in fact, highly likely. Unremarkable politicians are cautious and plodding and aware that their words, more than those of non-presidents and non-prime ministers, reverberate around the globe. The American president, signaling to the rest of the world (and especially Vladimir Putin) that the United States is a reliable ally, would have said in a televised address that America stands ready to support Britain in any way possible. He would have reiterated May’s demand that Moscow explain itself. The president might have added that the United States viewed a Russian attack in a NATO member country as particularly alarming and intimated that Washington and London would soon respond jointly. The overriding message would have been two-pronged and unmistakable: the United States and Britain are allies, and there will be consequences. This is how one bolsters relationships and deters future attacks.

This, of course, is not what Donald Trump did. Trump has two plays in his playbook: either he struts and flaunts and makes big, beautiful declarations he eventually walks back (one recalls his very manly but brief showdown with the gun lobby), or he equivocates. With Putin, it’s always equivocation. That’s why, on Monday, Trump stayed silent and then, on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, he said he mostly believed the British but wanted to withhold judgment for now. This is because the American president is an idiot who believes bad men who say nice things to him, as well as a child who cares more about his feelings than about our national security and the once-special relationship between Britain and the United States. Today’s announcement that Rex Tillerson had finally been axed—24 hours after the now-former secretary of state declared, “We have full confidence in the U.K.’s investigation and its assessment that Russia was likely responsible for the nerve-agent attack that took place in Salisbury last week”—reminds us that the only insiders in this White House are toadies and tough guys who want desperately to be led.

We should be crystal clear that the price of this latest waffling will be more poisonings, more deaths. For now, it can’t be viewed as entirely coincidental that Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov was found dead Monday night in his home, in London. But, more important, it will be more incursions, and more assaults, against the liberal democratic order.

The president’s most zealous supporters, those whose plights and furies have become the obsession of progressives and media elites, welcome the chaos. They think the old configurations are corrupt and un-American. They crave a battle royale with anyone they believe to be on the inside: the globalists and profiteers who have apparently made zillions off the backs of Real Americans—anyone who feels angry, Lilliputian, put upon. They think that what polite company refers to as the “liberal democratic order” is a sham, and if the president is undermining it, that’s good because shams are bad. One imagines they have not given much thought to the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, Yulia Skripal, the police officer who found them, or the 18 others who were exposed to the nerve agent, Novichok.