Do Those Dominating a Situation Truly Bluff & Then Back Down?: Misreadings from Melos to Davos, & Beyond

Did Trump “dominate” Davos—or just do his chaos-monkey routine in other people’s Common European (& Atlantic-Arctic) Home; or how not to read Thoukydides in the context of Trump’s grapples with the Greenland Defense Force…

This morning my feed brings me something that strikes me as extremely weird:

Niall Ferguson: How Trump Won Davos <https://www.thefp.com/p/niall-ferguson-how-trump-won-davos>: ‘I have never before seen a single individual so completely dominate this vast bazaar of the powerful, the wealthy, the famous, and the self-important…

This is—to say the least—a definite outlier in my feed. Otherwise, it has the vibe that Trump went to Davos to make himself look ridiculous and incompetent.

The dominant general reaction is things like:

accompanied by some frantic backpedaling by those hoping to become rich and powerful through going all-in on the Trump grift and supporting the Greenland-annexation idea:

Henry Farrell: Bessent and Lutnick: a Farce <https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/europe-has-more-bargaining-strength>: ‘Act One: Europe Can’t Do Nothing to Stop Us!…. “‘I imagine they will form the dreaded European working group first, which seems to be their most forceful weapon’, Bessent told a small group of reporters.”… Act Two: Actually, Europe, We Don’t Want You to Escalate!… “;I’m urging everyone here to do is sit back…. I would urge all countries to stick with their trade deals we have agreed on them’, Bessent added.”… Act Four: Exit, Stage Right, Pursued by Bears…. “Howard Lutnick was heckled…. Christine Lagarde walk[ed] out….Lutnick… [met] with widespread jeering amid appeals for calm from … Larry Fink...”

So what gives here?

Well, my first reaction is that this once again fits my rule-of-thumb:

Brad DeLong: A $140,000/Year Poverty Line? I: Stewarding & Utilizing Resources <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/a-140000year-poverty-line-i-stewarding>: ‘It continues to be the case that, every time something from the Free Press <http://thefp.com> brushes past my awareness, it almost invariably turns out to be wrong—usually deeply, often ignorantly, and also frequently making a choice to be stupidly wrong…

The rule-of-thumb is that whatever the underlying truth may be, it is definitely not what it says on the tin at the The Free Press, which is not a “press”, at least not as we conventionally think of that human social practice.

But I dove deeper into what “Trump Won Davos” and “dominate[d]” it in a way Naill had “never before seen a single individual so completely” do meant. And by the end