If it means saving Ukraine and not caving to Putin, European leaders think the answer is kissing Trump’s a**

At the risk of sounding crass, let’s just say the quiet part out loud: Donald Trump loves to have his ass kissed more than any other human on earth. It’s so pathetic. Nauseating.

He feeds off it. He thrives on it. He needs it like oxygen, or in his case Diet Cokes. From the moment he strutted across television screens on The Apprentice, we saw the hints of a man whose ego was as bloated as his legs. The show was less about business than about a series based on sycophancy. The contestants who learned fastest that success meant showering the boss with compliments usually survived another week.

Trump has never changed that formula. In fact, as our ruling dictator, he demands it, and is as addicted to flattery as he’s ever been.

We’ve seen it in his Cabinet meetings, those absolutely absurd spectacles where grown men and women froth at the mouth at their Dear Leader. Cabinet members used to be the stewards of American democracy, but in their era of Trump, their only responsibility is to line up to praise him. The flattery is so over the top that it’s impossible to keep a straight face. Trump used to own beauty pageants, or something like that, so he’s now, as president, presiding over a loyalty pageant. And Trump adores every second of it.

Fast forward to last Friday and Monday, and the same grotesque performance is being performed on the world stage.

Take Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On an earlier visit to the White House, Zelenskyy was castigated for not groveling enough. Trump, egged on by loyalists like his little lapdog, JD Vance, accused Zelenskyy of being “ungrateful.” Trump all but threw him out of the building.

But this time around, Zelenskyy knew better. He arrived with exaggerated humility that seemed to pop-up into every sentence, thanking Trump repeatedly, expressing gratitude not only for military aid but for Trump’s “leadership,” and even Melania’s letter to Putin.

Trump was smiling broadly for the cameras, just soaking it up, visibly pleased, as though Zelenskyy had finally passed the test of the best way to laud Trump. Flattery is now Zelenskyy’s new strategy to save his citizens from Russia's continued attacks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine several years ago.

European leaders have figured this out, too. After the debacle in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where Trump once again looked like the willing mark in Putin’s game of adulation, Europe’s top leaders realized they couldn’t risk leaving Trump alone. In the middle of their traditional August break, they hastily flew to Washington, as if to build a protective ring around Trump, keeping him from wandering off into the arms of the Russian autocrat.

The calculation was simple: better to butter up Trump together than risk watching him give away the store to Putin.

And butter him up, they did. France’s Emanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, and Italy's Giorgia Meloni all paid their due homage to the hoarder of homage. Even those who privately roll their eyes and laugh at his buffoonery found the words to stroke his ego in public, knowing that survival depends not on strength or principle, but on how well you flatter Trump.

Trump has become the world’s most fragile strongman, needing constant reassurance, constant validation, constant praise. My God, what have we come to fawning over this pitiable old man?

Is it disgusting? Absolutely. Is it beneath the dignity of global leadership? Without question. Watching heads of state trip over themselves to inflate Trump’s balloon-sized ego feels like a dissing of diplomacy.

But here’s the ugly truth, and that’s if kissing Trump’s ass is the price of keeping Ukrainians alive, keeping Putin boxed in, and keeping Europe secure, then maybe that’s the cost of peace. But it’s a dangerous approach.

History offers a haunting and gruesome parallel. The appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s taught Europe what happens when you misread a tyrant’s ambitions and think appeasing is the answer.

There is no question that Putin is cut from that same cloth. He’s ruthless, deceivingly patient, and hungry for more. He can’t be trusted. And European leaders know it. So they choose to appease the lesser of two evils.

They swallow their pride. They flatter Trump, and they hope that by keeping him content, he won’t hand Ukraine over on a platter to the hungry Putin or look the other way as Putin eyes Finland, for example, as he seeks to grow his empire.

It’s so pitiful, yes, but it may also be the only way forward. Leaders have tried confronting Trump, reasoning with him, even shaming him, and they keep failing or at least maintaining the status quo.

But, they need to keep this in mind, and that is that Trump is the ultimate loser. The Art of the Deal was a hoax. Russia for that matter, wasn’t.

Trump has never won at anything, he screwed up everything he touches, so if European leaders are putting their “trust” in Trump to fix Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (it's not a war, it’s a one-sided assault), the world will lose in a way that might be unimaginable.

The man responds to only one thing — praise. So they pile it on. He’s told he’s a dealmaker, a peacemaker, a visionary. He’s told he’s strong, wise, and essential to the future of the West. None of it is true. It just needs to keep him from siding with Putin and betraying Ukraine.

This is where we are, global leaders reduced to crawling up the derrière of a 79-year-old man because the alternative, emboldening Putin, is far worse. They don’t have to like it. But until Trump leaves the stage, this is the grotesque game of survival.

The only problem is that peace at the price of dignity rarely lasts. When you build foreign policy on flattery, you’re building a house of cards.

Trump may be momentarily satisfied, but his appetite for adoration is endless. Sooner or later, someone will slip, fail to praise loudly enough than Putin, or dare to suggest reality, and the house of cards will wobble, and because they’re in Trump’s hands, the cards will fall.

So yes, kiss Trump’s ass if it keeps him from kissing Putin’s ring. Just don’t confuse it for a strategy. It’s a survival tactic, and survival tactics only last until the next crisis that Trump will undoubtedly create.

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