Global

BANGKOK, Thailand -- China's navy quietly sailed into the shallow, energy-rich Gulf of Thailand earlier this month for Blue Strike 2023, a joint naval exercise to increase Beijing's influence with Thailand's newly elected, military-backed civilian government, which is also a strategic U.S. treaty ally.

Meanwhile, in his first political foray onto the international stage, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin flew to New York and attended the UN General Assembly Sept. 18-24, where he met President Biden and other politicians along with Google, Microsoft, Tesla, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is also eager to scrutinize and charm Thailand's new prime minister, and invited Mr. Srettha to visit Beijing Oct. 8-10.

The U.S. and China are eyeing the new administration and its views on international investment, tourism, trade, and weapons purchases.

On Aug. 22, Parliament ended three months of bickering and agreed on a pliant civilian-led, 11-party coalition government fronted by Prime Minister Srettha, a real estate tycoon.

Something happened on Tuesday, as I began researching this column — I wound up having to give myself a COVID test.

A good friend had just tested positive and, well, we had recently gotten together. I needed to see if I was OK. I note this not because there was bad news — I tested negative — but because . . . well, I’m not quite sure. I had never self-administered a COVID test before, or had any such test at all in several years. I felt fine. I didn’t feel sick. Of course I’m OK, I had whispered to myself as I inserted the swab into my nostril. But the test results could be a shock — that’s the whole point of taking it.

Even though there was no shock, I still felt as though something had grabbed my soul. I was unable, in the aftermath, to calmly push forward as an intellectual and delve into my chosen column topic: the narrowly averted government shutdown (and whatever it might have meant). My emotional space felt hollow. The column simply wasn’t there. Now what?

A megalomaniac is a pathological egotist, someone with a psychological disorder who exhibits symptoms like delusions of grandeur and an obsession with greatness, power or wealth.

 A sociopath is a person whose behavior is antisocial, often criminally greedy, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility, empathy or social conscience. Sociopaths never sincerely apologize nor are they capable of exhibiting remorse for wrongs that they have committed.

 A narcissist is person who has an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration, sexual gratification, applause and a lack of empathy for others.

  A paranoid person or group exhibits excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of other individuals or groups.

 A xenophobe is a person who is fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or of people from different countries or cultures.

 A demagogue is a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.

If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. follows through on his apparent plans to run for president in the fall 2024 general election, that will make it all the more important for progressives to have a clear understanding of who Kennedy is and what he really stands for.