The North Korea Summit Was a Trumpian Fantasy from the Get-Go

wishful thinking, lack of preparation, exaggerated rhetoric, disregard for detail, and a cult of personality.

.. Precisely what sort of agreement the North Koreans might be willing to reach, and what Kim meant by “denuclearization,” Trump didn’t dwell upon. To anybody who knows the history of the issue, these are key questions. Pyongyang has been saying it supports the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” for decades. As far back as 1992, the North and the South signed a mutual declaration committed to this aim. But the reality has been a steadfast refusal on the part of the North to give up its nuclear program.

.. For decades, Trump has exaggerated his negotiating skills as he overpaid for many properties and pushed some of them, such as the Plaza Hotel, into bankruptcy court.

.. By then, some Republicans were calling for the President to get the Nobel Peace Prize, and the White House was ordering commemorative coins featuring Trump and Kim.

 

Elon Musk, the Donald of Silicon Valley

He is prone to unhinged Twitter eruptions. He can’t handle criticism. He scolds the news media for its purported dishonesty and threatens to create a Soviet-like apparatus to keep tabs on it. He suckers people to fork over cash in exchange for promises he hasn’t kept. He’s a billionaire whose business flirts with bankruptcy. He’s sold himself as an establishment-crushing iconoclast when he’s really little more than an unusually accomplished B.S. artist. His legions of devotees are fanatics and, let’s face it, a bit stupid.

I speak of Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, the Donald Trump of Silicon Valley.