Trump and the Flattery Doctrine

As the New Year approaches, Trump renews his most dangerous resolution: chaos without consequence, ego without restraint, and a world forced to live with the fallout.

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As we approach the New Year, we all make resolutions. We promise to be better, to do better, to break bad habits and tell ourselves that this time will be different. Most of those promises don’t make it past the following morning. I know; I’ve lived that cycle, both personally and professionally, standing beside Donald Trump while believing I could manage the chaos, contain the damage, and convince myself that tomorrow he’d be more disciplined than yesterday. Watching Trump yesterday on the steps of Mar-a-Lago, standing next to Benjamin Netanyahu like a casino emcee introducing a high-rolling regular—“Do you recognize this guy?”—I realized something painfully familiar: Trump never makes resolutions because he never believes he needs to change. Chaos isn’t a flaw he vows to fix in the New Year. It’s the habit he renews every morning. Every New Year.

I wrote in Disloyal about how nothing around Trump is accidental; not the disorder, not the insults, not the deliberate trampling of norms. What we witnessed during his impromptu press conference with Netanyahu was a microcosm of that worldview. Foreign policy reduced to performance art. Protocol treated like a nuisance. History compressed into soundbites. When Trump casually pledged “immediate” support for another Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he wasn’t projecting strength. He was advertising impulsiveness, the same reflex that once governed how he handled classified intelligence, alliances, and human beings.

This is how Trump operates: decisions first, consequences later; if ever. He announced he had personally asked Israel’s president to pardon Netanyahu in an ongoing corruption trial, apparently untroubled by the concept of sovereignty or the appearance of interference. That’s classic Trump logic. Laws, borders, institutions—they’re all flexible if you flatter him enough. Justice becomes negotiable. Loyalty becomes currency.

Then came the moment that should have stopped everyone cold. Trump accepted Vladimir Putin’s claim that Ukraine attacked his residence without independent U.S. intelligence confirmation, because Putin said so. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, hosted just one day earlier, called it a lie. But Trump has never trusted allies who tell inconvenient truths. He trusts strongmen who mirror his worldview. I’ve seen this pattern up close: the louder the lie, the more confidently it’s embraced, especially if it comes from someone who projects power and feeds Trump’s ego.

Netanyahu, to his credit—or perhaps due to his survival instinct—kept a poker face. He praised Trump as the greatest friend Israel has ever had. He emphasized the “content and intensity” of their relationship. Later, he indulged Trump’s deepest weakness by announcing that Trump would be awarded the Israel Prize, the nation’s highest cultural honor. Trump responded by declaring that Israel itself might not exist without Netanyahu’s leadership. It was a mutual admiration society built on flattery, not foresight.

Meanwhile, Gaza was reduced to a shrug. “What a mess,” Trump said, as if discussing a poorly managed renovation rather than a humanitarian catastrophe. Reconstruction might begin “pretty soon,” disarmament or not. Precision was absent. Empathy was optional. This is what happens when global crises are filtered through the attention span of a man who confuses decisiveness with wisdom.

Iran fared no better. Trump once again insisted that U.S. strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities—until the conversation shifted to whether further strikes might be necessary. Suddenly, nothing was confirmed. Iran “may be behaving badly.” Negotiations were hoped for. But if missiles continued? Yes. Nuclear development resumed? Fast. Immediate. These aren’t throwaway words. They are commitments made casually, without process, without clarity, and without respect for the lives that hang in the balance.

Yet even here, Trump contradicted himself. He ruled out regime change while acknowledging the regime’s brutality, inflation, and repression. It sounded less like a coherent policy and more like a stream of consciousness—one part warning, one part shrug, one part boast. I’ve heard this tone before. It’s the sound of a man hedging his own impulses in real time.

Syria was treated with similar glibness. Trump praised the country’s new president as a “tough cookie,” suggesting that choir boys don’t survive in the Middle East. An “understanding” was reached, whatever that means, while Netanyahu looked visibly unconvinced. In Trump’s universe, understandings don’t need definition. They exist until contradicted, revised, or forgotten.

I spent years rationalizing this behavior. Translating it. Softening it. Convincing myself that behind the bluster was a method. There wasn’t. There never was. What we are witnessing now is the same man, older, angrier, and more convinced than ever that instinct outranks expertise and that admiration is proof of success.

As the New Year approaches, people will resolve to eat better, drink less, be kinder. Trump will resolve to do exactly what he’s always done, because in his mind, the problem has never been him. And that is what makes this moment so dangerous. When ego replaces judgment on the world stage, the cost isn’t personal failure. It’s global consequence. And unlike most broken resolutions, this one doesn’t fade quietly by morning.

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