Well, we’re all walking on eggshells aren’t we, waiting for the Gucci pump to drop. No sooner was Russian President Vladimir Putin indicted as a war criminal in the International Court of Justice for forcibly bringing Ukrainian children to Russia — an utter disgrace — than new BFF, Chinese President Xi Jinping, showed up in Moscow offering his support and a joke of a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine that would keep Russian troops in place.
Meanwhile, erstwhile Putin BFF, former American President Donald J. Trump, is facing an indictment of his own in New York over his alleged coverup of hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels, a misdemeanor that could be bumped up to a felony if it is tied to campaign finance. For Trump — a man for whom there is no such thing as bad publicity — this plays into the martyr aspect of a paradoxical personality in which everything he is and has is the best but yet, poor, poor, poor, poor him.
Trump has to be careful here. Whatever MAGA bump he might get off of the indictment will not advance him with the independent suburban women you need in the general election, particularly if his calls to protest turn springtime in New York into Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C.
The Republicans, too, are in a dangerous situation. They’d love nothing better than to sit down at the table with the new cool kid in the high-school cafeteria, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom many of them view as a more palatable Trump. Yet they can’t aggravate Trump’s MAGA base. So they’ve threaded the needle by denouncing what they see as the political persecution of Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which is not the same as supporting Trump. DeSantis was in particular walk-a-fine-line mode, denouncing prosecutors who weaponize the system, which was especially rich, critics said, coming from a man who has weaponized the educational, economic and legal systems in Florida to quash minorities.
Still, DeSantis couldn’t resist a little schadenfreude: "Look, I don't know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” he said to laughter. “I just can't speak to that,"
He, too, must tread carefully though. He and the rest of the Repubs know they can’t win with Trump. But what they may not realize in their hubris is that Trump won’t let them win without him. If DeSantis gets the Republican nomination — and I predict he will — Trump will go third party on him. It will be the Bull Moose Party — make that the Bull Moose in a China Shop Party — all over again, with the Republican vote split and a second term for Joe Biden. As long as Trump’s around, no Republican will sit in the White House.
The stakes couldn’t be higher overseas either. Xi can’t afford to lose the European market for Chinese goods, particularly coming off the Covid economy. So while he may offer Putin Chinese tea and sympathy, he’s not about to get in bed with him if it means losing money — and losing face on the world stage. Putin, too, can’t appear to be the junior partner he actually is, because that makes him look weak at home. And he hasn’t exactly been racking up the victories in Ukraine.
So everyone is not merely dancing on a wire but dancing on the wire on tippy toes without a net.
When you play for ultimate power, there is no margin for error.