President* Donald Trump has a few cheap tricks in his playbook. The book is short and simple, because Donald Trump is barely literate, so the few tricks are being over-used, exposed and rendered ineffective as people learn to counter or avoid them.
The infamous "Trump power handshake" was effectively countered by Canada's Justin Trudeau a while back, but the move backfired hilariously when the newly elected president of France, Emmanuel Macron, shook hands with Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels on May 25. Macron used Trump's own trick, grabbed Trump's hand in a tight grip and shook it vigorously for way too long, maintaining eye contact. Trump visibly tried but failed to escape Macron's power grip, not just once but twice, and slipped into an increasingly uncomfortable grip completely dominated by Macron. There was a clenching of teeth and knuckles literally whitening, but Macron managed not only to render Trump's strange and disturbing handshake ineffective - he turned the table on him.
A handshake should not be a competition, but Trump certainly sees them that way, and he most definitely lost this one bigly. Being beaten at his own game was obviously disturbing for him. Macron later admitted that his handshake was "not innocent" but meant to send a clear signal that neither France nor Macron are going to bow down to Trump.
Macron later continued his not-so subtle humiliation of Trump by denying his outstretched hand and bypassing him to first greet Angela Merkel of Germany. This made Trump fume with rage and shake Macron's hand so hard it looked painful. However, the game was already over, and Trump lost.
We need Trump to be humiliated and ridiculed, because when he switches into fighting mode, he says and does stupid things that only make the situation worse for him. Make him mad and expose him for the fool he is, and we could hopefully be rid of him sooner.
