A Very, Very Hard Game of Poker: Donald Trump on North Korea

The doomsday clock was never closer to midnight than when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev slowly escalated the confrontation over Cuba in 1961. In the aftermath of the confrontation the world called called the showdown a massive “bluff” on JFK’s part.

Now Trump is invoking the poker metaphor again for his own nuclear showdown with North Korea. “We’re playing a very, very hard game of poker,” Trump eloquently put it in an interview with Reuters. This from a man who played as the house in Atlantic City and still lost.

“You don’t want to reveal your hand,” he continued in relation to whether or not pre-emptive strikes were on the table. 

Once as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce

But where Khrushchev was a rational player up against a tough and intelligent opponent, the story is rather different here.

Unable to hold a thought with any consistency, Trump resembles a petty and erratic fish. He may not know when to fold, or how best to size his bets.

Whereas his opponent across the pacific is already launching test missiles into Japanese airspace, responding to Trump’s tweets with state broadcasts, and possessed of the belief that his father, while alive, could control the weather. So showing signs of being the LAGiest maniac imaginable.

Like, Very Smart

Laying the blame for North Korea on George Ws Sr and Jr, Bill Clinton, and Obama, Trump suggested that he was the man for the job:

“I guess they all realized they’re going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests.”

The tests he referred to were carried out to eliminate diagnoses of mental decline and dementia…

Whoever wins this showdown – to paraphrase AVP –  we lose.