I found the Oval Office interactions among Trump, Zelensky, and Vance yesterday (February 28, 2025) to be an extraordinarily rich teaching moment for young people in the domain of discourse analysis.
The most interesting line to me was Vance referencing Zelensky using the "American media" to litigate the issue. Trump more than anyone else understands the power of cameras. Once things got heated, he knew he could not allow anything other than complete submission from Zelensky and once he realized that wasn't going to happen, he walked away. He has one style of negotiation. Unfortunately, it's worked well enough for him to get all the way to the White House twice.
Beautiful analysis, Steve. The cameras. I didn't consider them except for the cherry picked press presence. Do you think this was staged long ago? I'm going to spend some time in deep search mode to find out what the discursive dimensions are when big T met with Putin in Munich was it? I thought Putin couldn't leave Russia because he had been indicted for war crimes.Go figure. There is something surreal about his being in the Oval Office again. I can't quite describe it, but it seems almost like an alt reality in Back to the Future. Trump even looks like Biff. Zelensky as Marty McFly? This is a crazy reality.
I don't think it was staged and obviously Trump doesn't care one whit about shattering any kinds of diplomatic norms. It was pure theatre which Trump loves but I suspect he would have liked the mineral deal and a submissive Ukrainian President more. What I want to know is what Trump talked about for 90 minutes with Putin 2 weeks ago. We are in the middle of our Foreign Policy unit in my American Government class and it's hard to stay on the curriculum given that we are in the midst of blowing up 75 years of some basic US foreign policy positions. Down is Up and Up is Down.
The most interesting line to me was Vance referencing Zelensky using the "American media" to litigate the issue. Trump more than anyone else understands the power of cameras. Once things got heated, he knew he could not allow anything other than complete submission from Zelensky and once he realized that wasn't going to happen, he walked away. He has one style of negotiation. Unfortunately, it's worked well enough for him to get all the way to the White House twice.
Beautiful analysis, Steve. The cameras. I didn't consider them except for the cherry picked press presence. Do you think this was staged long ago? I'm going to spend some time in deep search mode to find out what the discursive dimensions are when big T met with Putin in Munich was it? I thought Putin couldn't leave Russia because he had been indicted for war crimes.Go figure. There is something surreal about his being in the Oval Office again. I can't quite describe it, but it seems almost like an alt reality in Back to the Future. Trump even looks like Biff. Zelensky as Marty McFly? This is a crazy reality.
I don't think it was staged and obviously Trump doesn't care one whit about shattering any kinds of diplomatic norms. It was pure theatre which Trump loves but I suspect he would have liked the mineral deal and a submissive Ukrainian President more. What I want to know is what Trump talked about for 90 minutes with Putin 2 weeks ago. We are in the middle of our Foreign Policy unit in my American Government class and it's hard to stay on the curriculum given that we are in the midst of blowing up 75 years of some basic US foreign policy positions. Down is Up and Up is Down.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/us/politics/trump-putin-call-russia-ukraine-war.html?unlocked_article_code=1.004.XqXg.6wosLWa5hZ0J&smid=url-share
Wouldn’t it be nice to have been a fly on the wall. Was that meeting with Putin in Munich? Now that I think about it, I think it was in Saudi Arabia.