• Latinos
• Asians
• Muslims
• Blacks
• The Disabled
• Women
• Prisoners-of-War

These insults delight his white, under-educated followers. But they have alienated millions of other Americans who might be willing to support him.

Not only has Trump insulted those who cannot harm him, he has attacked those who can.   

Among these: Special Counsel Jack Smith, responsible for his indictment on 37 counts.

On June 8, Trump was charged with not only mishandling sensitive material, but also trying to hide records and impede investigators.

Trump’s response:

“The prosecutor in the case, I will call our case, is a thug. I have named him ‘Deranged Jack Smith. He’s a behind-the-scenes guy, but his record is absolutely atrocious. He does political hit jobs. He’s a raging and uncontrolled Trump hater, as is his wife, who happened to be the producer of that Michelle Obama puff piece. This is the guy I’ve got.”

Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on gratuitously handing out insults and threats:

• “I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one.
• “For neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy—but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.”

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he consulted about foreign policy, Trump replied; “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”

Donald Trump

This totally contrasts with the advice given by Machiavelli:

• “A prudent prince must [choose] for his counsel wise men, and [give] them alone full liberty to speak the truth to him, but only of those things that he asks and of nothing else.
• “But he must be a great asker about everything and hear their opinions, and afterwards deliberate by himself in his own way, and in these counsels…comport himself so that every one may see that the more freely he speaks, the more he will be acceptable.”

Consider Trump’s approach to the greatest legal crisis of his life: Facing indictment for illegally taking dozens of boxes of highly classified materials from the White House and storing them in his private club in Florida.

His attorneys repeatedly advised him to return the materials after the Justice Department requested that he do so—and Trump repeatedly rejected that advice. Instead, he listened to the advice of Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, who told him he could keep the documents and that he should fight Justice Department efforts to see them returned.

The upshot of this was a 37-count indictment including:

• Willfully retaining national defense information; 
• Conspiring to keep those documents from the grand jury;
• Scheming to conceal the possession of Top Secret documents from the FBI and grand jury;
• Ordering his attorneys to make false statements to the FBI.

A major reason Trump is now facing difficulties in finding talented legal counsel to represent him lies in his notorious unwillingness to listen to his attorneys. He believes himself an expert in virtually every field—including law. 

(Another reason for his unpopularity among attorneys is that he is also notorious for stiffing those who work for him.

(Rudy Giuliani spearheaded Trump’s illegal effort to overturn the 2020 Presidential election from November 4 to February, 2021. He has repeatedly asked that Trump pay him for his efforts–and has been frozen out of Trump’s orbit.)

Now consider Machiavelli’s advice on the selection of advisers:

• “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him. 
• “When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful. 
• “But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.” 

Finally, Machiavelli offers a related warning that especially applies to Trump: Unwise princes cannot be wisely advised.

• “It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised, unless by chance he leaves himself entirely in the hands of one man who rules him in everything, and happens to be a very prudent man. In this case, he may doubtless be well governed, but it would not last long, for the governor would in a short time deprive him of the state.”

All of which would lead Niccolo Machiavelli to warn, if he could witness American politics today: “This bodes ill for your Republic.”