Trump’s campaign strategy comes into focus When Donald Trump took office in 2017 he was determined to best Barack Obama in every way and, as absurd as it was, he was especially determined that he should win the Nobel Peace Prize as Obama had done in his first year in office. Trump even went so far as to ask then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to nominate him (which he dutifully did). At times he also went around saying that because a couple of right-wing European randos had also nominated him, he’d actually won it, claiming that he was bringing world peace and so deserved it. This ruse played into Trump’s cultivated image as some sort of peacenik, despite the fact that he is one of the most bloody-minded public figures in American history. Sure, he managed to avoid getting into a major war during his term but that was mostly a combination of luck and adversaries who knew a sucker when they saw one. But it was always clear from his history and his rhetoric that Donald Trump had a very violent imagination. Recall his repeated retelling of assaults by undocumented immigrants and gang members, mesmerizing his followers with explicit, lurid details. Here’s one from the 2018 midterm campaign: Trump is a big believer in summary execution. One of his other favorite tales during that campaign was the account of Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier in Afghanistan who had wandered off and was captured by the Taliban who then brutally tortured him for nearly five…