I’m having a really bad day when it comes to remembering things to include stuff in posts. In the last post, He Didn’t Keep Us Out Of War, I meant to finish with Trump—who did, pretty much, keep us out of war. True, he did some ill advised drone and missile strikes, he did increase sanctions on Russia, but he also tried to hold the line. None of that was good enough for the Neocons and Deep State. Now those jokers don’t know which way to turn. Today it’s, ‘Where’s the endgame, please show me to the endgame!’ Tomorrow it’ll be doing carwheels or somersaults to try to get the Chinese to even talk to us—after we told the world that we’d be at war with China no later than 2025. Meanwhile, our military is not in good shape. These are same geniuses who undermined Trump at every turn—including calling China behind his back. Now they’re reduced to trotting out Bluto Barr on the Sunday talkies to smear Trump. Or indicting Trump on charges as phony as the impeachments. It’s almost enough to make you wish Trump ends up in jail just so we could vote for him to spite the Ruling Class.
Who will be voting for who out of interest? And what do people predict will happen with the Democrats - voters I mean - will they swallow Joey B as the hope of the nation again? And what do people think will happen if Joey 'wins' again? I'd love to know what regular Americans are thinking, both Red and Blue leaning
It's a disgrace that reality is ignored on this issue. It's a matter of record that Trump had no power whatsoever over the US military, was totally ignored for 4 yrs by the Pentagon, that he knew this early on, and in April 2017 publicly announced he was turning over all military decisions "to his generals" at the Pentagon. At that time it was seen as unprecedented that the commander in chief would give up a role officially assigned to him. Yet much worse is that the #1 talking point being used today to sell Trump is that he "didn't start any new foreign wars." And it's said with deep emphasis, eg, "this is most important," "this is why they don't want him." This couldn't be further from the truth, since #1, he was powerless. Further, he wasn't elected to maintain the status quo, he was elected to reverse it, and he failed. Why are people believing the same lies they were sold in 2016? Roger Stone on radio today 6/11 even went deep into the 2016 vault of failed promises, saying "he even tried to start bringing troops home." First, he wouldn't have been allowed to, in any case, Trump himself said that if troops left Syria he could move them into Iraq so he could "keep an eye on Iran." Media knows all of this, so why do they (including Tucker Carlson) let Trump go on and on 24/7 about how he'd stop the war in one day, or that he told Putin he'd bomb the turrets in Moscow Square, etc, never once interrupting him to him to remind him that he was totally powerless for 4 years? Or that in any case he now sounds like a worse neocon than McCain which is the opposite of how he ran as a 2016 candidate? Answer: Because no one fears him, he's just what they want, accepts that he was powerless, and instead of resigning and telling voters he was powerless, he sat there for 4 yrs. This isn't to say they want him to pres., just that they want him to be GOP nominee, he's a known quantity. Only 10 wks after his inaug. he bombed Syria without waiting for evidence, lamenting the "babies." WaPo patted him on the head. In Jan. 2017 US sent a huge shipment of heavy weapons to Estonia/Russia border "to reassure NATO." They'll say it was decided before he was in office. He'd been elected to scale back US foreign interference, to normalize relations w. Russia, to reduce US involvement in NATO. For 4 years he did the opposite. In July 2017 he went on tv and announced he'd changed his mind, now thinks endless Mideast wars are necessary. In Aug. 2017, led by Lindsey Graham, House and Senate voted nearly unanimously to remove all Russia decisions from Trump and reassign them to the Senate. Also in 2017 "he" approved the first shipment of javelins to Ukraine to kill Russians, which even Obama wouldn't do. Totally unprovoked, he enforced US annexation of one third of Syria, placed US military there where to this day US steals oil from the land and prevents starving Syrians from growing crops on the land. In 2019, totally without provocation, "he" used US forces to try to overthrow Venezuela's elected government. He hired Reagan-Bush neocon Elliott Abrams to help in the regime change. He blocked supplies including medicines, he turned off the electricity, the usual US pattern of causing massive suffering for millions of innocent civilians. "No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro." Sec. Mike Pompeo, 11:18pm, Mar. 7, 2019."....He backed massive effort to install US puppet in place of Maduro, decreeing Guaido was new president, hosted Guaido's wife at the White House and gave her a press conference. His plot to overthrow Venezuela failed, thankfully. US uses Colombia to launch anti-Venezuela ops, so US Amb to Col. was critical appointment. As of 2/1/2019, Trump had allowed Obama-appointed Amb to remain in place while repeatedly trying to put an even bigger Soros puppet in the job. 4/7/2017, “Why the ‘Trump’ State Department still loves George Soros,” NY Post, Mike Gonzalez, also 4/10/2017, Heritage. Some GOP Senators expressed shock at Trump’s choice. "The policies that won the election on Nov. 8 [2016] aren’t being implemented." Trump's criminal Venezuela regime change effort is a problem when selling him as peacemaker or "no new wars," so it's now vehemently being explained away as, no, no, he wasn't involved in that at all, nor was his administration, it was all carried out separately, and if you suggest otherwise, you're a "hater." In Jan. 2020 "he" was giddily proud of assassinating an Iran general and his staff while they were in Iraq. He was the opposite of what I voted for in 2016. This doesn't even get into him making Jared de facto pres. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Susan - there is an awful lot there in your fact-filled post to unpack and although I'd like to go through it sentence by sentence (and I wish somebody would!) I probably don't have the bandwidth to do so. Nevertheless, a few observations...
I didn't vote for Trump in 2016. I live in a red state which Mrs Clinton could never have won so I threw my vote away for the libertarian candidate, knowing Trump would win our state. Then, over the next four years I came to respect (that's as good a word as any) him, without ever thinking for a moment that I might like him as a person. Since then I have watched him as closely, perhaps, as anybody.
He is still in many respects an enigma to me. He is undoubtedly a narcissist (generally a very dangerous thing), and he is capable of extraordinary and embarrassing buffoonery. He has numerous additional defects of which you and others are well aware. Since, FBOW, I travel in generally highly educated, and intellectually smug circles, it is pretty painful to actually and openly support Trump. Which I still do. I can acknowledge all the shortcomings you describe and still conclude that he is the only 'electable' Republican over the last eight years who has been willing to call out the horrifying hypocrisy, treachery and corruption of the Democrat Party, the Uniparty, the MSM, and the Deep State. His Presidency was a time of prosperity in the US (and the world). In general business thrived, and stock market valuations increased. Poverty levels didn't grow and taxes were reduced for a large majority of Americans. Crime rates were far below present rates and energy was affordable. He called attention to the inequities of our trade relationship with China (without calling for war) and began asking critically important questions about the role of Nato which have still not been answered. And there was more.
I might be too generous to Trump, but I am inclined to say that the treachery and perfidy of the Deep State was probably insurmountable. Yes, perhaps he should have immediately
investigated Mrs Clinton, and fired Comey on Day 1 and never hired Sessions, and stood by Flynn, etc, etc. Yes, he made lamentable personnel decisions. If I tried to explain them I would say that Trump continued to try to 'work with' his enemies and bring them over. I can't begin to justify the actions of those like Bill Barr, who undoubtedly promised him to bring criminal charges against the government actors who tried to destroy his presidency with a conspiracy of false allegations, and ultimately proved himself a conspirator as well.
As for your timeline of Trump's foreign policy and military missteps, yes, they are deeply concerning. My inclination, perhaps a naive one, is to believe that he repeatedly gave the warhawks (neocons?) additional rope in order to prove that he was not a weak-willed, isolationist appeaser (like, say, the rap against George McGovern in 1972) but that he was/is a fighter who the military could trust. Thus, Pompeo, Bolton, the Syria incursion and the weapons to Ukraine. Telling the American people that the generals would be in charge was an attempt to prove to them his support for the professional military.
But the truth is Trump was fighting an impossible battle. In hindsight there was no amount of cow-towing he could do to the Establishment which would have neutralized the opposition to him. In a sense his attempts to conciliate probably backfired and further undermined his presidency. In hindsight, he was doomed.
Ukraine kind of proves the point. I feel certain that Trump would 'want' to end this horrible, despicable war, but I'm doubtful that he can openly campaign on a promise to simply end the war. If he is the nominee, it will certainly be a difficult platform to craft. Aren't about 80% of the Republicans in Congress in favor of continuing war support?
I will definitely support Trump unless and until some other candidate persuades me his or her policies would be better for America and he or she could be more effective than Trump. If such a candidate materializes and prevails the same Establishment will without doubt try to destroy him/her, so in any case I do not have very high expectations in the near term for our national project.
Frank, I agree with you that the image of Trump as a buffoon and illiterate is propaganda and largely unfair. But his inability at times, and often in public, to express himself precisely and clearly, helps the media sell its unfair image. I’m thinking, for example, of his attempts to defend his phone call with Zelenskyy (for which he was impeached) as ‘perfect’, which fell far short of an articulate explanation of the whole situation.
As to your point about private interactions with Trump, speaking anecdotally, I know one former government official who has interacted with him extensively who totally agrees with you. I also know (second hand) of one real estate ‘friend’ of Trump who thinks he is insufficiently rigorous and diligent to be president. I believe this latter ‘friend’ has been swayed by TDS, however.
They just keep piling disaster on top of disaster and the pity is that they really believe no one is noticing. The Russian’s won’t talk to us, the Chinese won’t talk to us, our Middle East policy is in almost total collapse, our prestige and clout on the international stage is virtually non-existent and we are blessed with a President who is universally ridiculed and held in contempt.
Coupled with the fact that our economy is being battered and hammered on a daily basis, one would expect a keen grasp of the obvious to finally occur to these clowns. But in spite of all the evidence to contrary, they remain firmly ensconced in la la land and pursuits that can only lead to disastrous consequences for the nation and the world as a whole.
Lasch makes the point that the “elites” live in another world than the rest of us and he also suggested that this can take the path of believing in fantasy. Amen to that.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the times have gotten about as interesting as I care to see them get.
It will not be long before these "disastrous consequences for the nation and the world as a whole" arrive. Then, and only then, we might wake up and give Trump a chance to fix them. If we do, I expect him to trigger a huge 'tiger trap' not for revenge, but because these people who have been persecuting him have in their hatred been careless and are guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Perle: I hope you’re right that we get a chance to fix this mess!
This round is for all the marbles and if the general population doesn’t wake up and these feckless Republicans don’t grow a spine and a set of balls, I don’t see how we survive as a republic.
If you subscribe to Red State and I expect any of the other right leaning blogs, the indictment has proven to be a brilliant move in that all those who have chosen their camp (Trump/Anti-Trump) to reside in are tearing at each other's throats. Who can bring these two sides together again to salvage an election both sides say must be won?
I view the Trump indictment as a huge opportunity to illuminate who the Rinos are. It’s interesting the Republicans that are silent, or even praising the indictment. A theory is DeSantis and his supporters are betting the indictment will sideline Trump. I believe it’s making him a martyr.
Or the indictment is causing them to become pro Trump, due to the over reach.
Rasmussen Poll part 1 on belief on 2020 cheating
Anathema growth in those believing there was cheating, especially with the censorship and propaganda campaign of the most secure election ever.
https://twitter.com/RaheemKassam/status/1668203089424162821
Who will be voting for who out of interest? And what do people predict will happen with the Democrats - voters I mean - will they swallow Joey B as the hope of the nation again? And what do people think will happen if Joey 'wins' again? I'd love to know what regular Americans are thinking, both Red and Blue leaning
It's a disgrace that reality is ignored on this issue. It's a matter of record that Trump had no power whatsoever over the US military, was totally ignored for 4 yrs by the Pentagon, that he knew this early on, and in April 2017 publicly announced he was turning over all military decisions "to his generals" at the Pentagon. At that time it was seen as unprecedented that the commander in chief would give up a role officially assigned to him. Yet much worse is that the #1 talking point being used today to sell Trump is that he "didn't start any new foreign wars." And it's said with deep emphasis, eg, "this is most important," "this is why they don't want him." This couldn't be further from the truth, since #1, he was powerless. Further, he wasn't elected to maintain the status quo, he was elected to reverse it, and he failed. Why are people believing the same lies they were sold in 2016? Roger Stone on radio today 6/11 even went deep into the 2016 vault of failed promises, saying "he even tried to start bringing troops home." First, he wouldn't have been allowed to, in any case, Trump himself said that if troops left Syria he could move them into Iraq so he could "keep an eye on Iran." Media knows all of this, so why do they (including Tucker Carlson) let Trump go on and on 24/7 about how he'd stop the war in one day, or that he told Putin he'd bomb the turrets in Moscow Square, etc, never once interrupting him to him to remind him that he was totally powerless for 4 years? Or that in any case he now sounds like a worse neocon than McCain which is the opposite of how he ran as a 2016 candidate? Answer: Because no one fears him, he's just what they want, accepts that he was powerless, and instead of resigning and telling voters he was powerless, he sat there for 4 yrs. This isn't to say they want him to pres., just that they want him to be GOP nominee, he's a known quantity. Only 10 wks after his inaug. he bombed Syria without waiting for evidence, lamenting the "babies." WaPo patted him on the head. In Jan. 2017 US sent a huge shipment of heavy weapons to Estonia/Russia border "to reassure NATO." They'll say it was decided before he was in office. He'd been elected to scale back US foreign interference, to normalize relations w. Russia, to reduce US involvement in NATO. For 4 years he did the opposite. In July 2017 he went on tv and announced he'd changed his mind, now thinks endless Mideast wars are necessary. In Aug. 2017, led by Lindsey Graham, House and Senate voted nearly unanimously to remove all Russia decisions from Trump and reassign them to the Senate. Also in 2017 "he" approved the first shipment of javelins to Ukraine to kill Russians, which even Obama wouldn't do. Totally unprovoked, he enforced US annexation of one third of Syria, placed US military there where to this day US steals oil from the land and prevents starving Syrians from growing crops on the land. In 2019, totally without provocation, "he" used US forces to try to overthrow Venezuela's elected government. He hired Reagan-Bush neocon Elliott Abrams to help in the regime change. He blocked supplies including medicines, he turned off the electricity, the usual US pattern of causing massive suffering for millions of innocent civilians. "No food. No medicine. Now, no power. Next, no Maduro." Sec. Mike Pompeo, 11:18pm, Mar. 7, 2019."....He backed massive effort to install US puppet in place of Maduro, decreeing Guaido was new president, hosted Guaido's wife at the White House and gave her a press conference. His plot to overthrow Venezuela failed, thankfully. US uses Colombia to launch anti-Venezuela ops, so US Amb to Col. was critical appointment. As of 2/1/2019, Trump had allowed Obama-appointed Amb to remain in place while repeatedly trying to put an even bigger Soros puppet in the job. 4/7/2017, “Why the ‘Trump’ State Department still loves George Soros,” NY Post, Mike Gonzalez, also 4/10/2017, Heritage. Some GOP Senators expressed shock at Trump’s choice. "The policies that won the election on Nov. 8 [2016] aren’t being implemented." Trump's criminal Venezuela regime change effort is a problem when selling him as peacemaker or "no new wars," so it's now vehemently being explained away as, no, no, he wasn't involved in that at all, nor was his administration, it was all carried out separately, and if you suggest otherwise, you're a "hater." In Jan. 2020 "he" was giddily proud of assassinating an Iran general and his staff while they were in Iraq. He was the opposite of what I voted for in 2016. This doesn't even get into him making Jared de facto pres. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
@susan
Susan - there is an awful lot there in your fact-filled post to unpack and although I'd like to go through it sentence by sentence (and I wish somebody would!) I probably don't have the bandwidth to do so. Nevertheless, a few observations...
I didn't vote for Trump in 2016. I live in a red state which Mrs Clinton could never have won so I threw my vote away for the libertarian candidate, knowing Trump would win our state. Then, over the next four years I came to respect (that's as good a word as any) him, without ever thinking for a moment that I might like him as a person. Since then I have watched him as closely, perhaps, as anybody.
He is still in many respects an enigma to me. He is undoubtedly a narcissist (generally a very dangerous thing), and he is capable of extraordinary and embarrassing buffoonery. He has numerous additional defects of which you and others are well aware. Since, FBOW, I travel in generally highly educated, and intellectually smug circles, it is pretty painful to actually and openly support Trump. Which I still do. I can acknowledge all the shortcomings you describe and still conclude that he is the only 'electable' Republican over the last eight years who has been willing to call out the horrifying hypocrisy, treachery and corruption of the Democrat Party, the Uniparty, the MSM, and the Deep State. His Presidency was a time of prosperity in the US (and the world). In general business thrived, and stock market valuations increased. Poverty levels didn't grow and taxes were reduced for a large majority of Americans. Crime rates were far below present rates and energy was affordable. He called attention to the inequities of our trade relationship with China (without calling for war) and began asking critically important questions about the role of Nato which have still not been answered. And there was more.
I might be too generous to Trump, but I am inclined to say that the treachery and perfidy of the Deep State was probably insurmountable. Yes, perhaps he should have immediately
investigated Mrs Clinton, and fired Comey on Day 1 and never hired Sessions, and stood by Flynn, etc, etc. Yes, he made lamentable personnel decisions. If I tried to explain them I would say that Trump continued to try to 'work with' his enemies and bring them over. I can't begin to justify the actions of those like Bill Barr, who undoubtedly promised him to bring criminal charges against the government actors who tried to destroy his presidency with a conspiracy of false allegations, and ultimately proved himself a conspirator as well.
As for your timeline of Trump's foreign policy and military missteps, yes, they are deeply concerning. My inclination, perhaps a naive one, is to believe that he repeatedly gave the warhawks (neocons?) additional rope in order to prove that he was not a weak-willed, isolationist appeaser (like, say, the rap against George McGovern in 1972) but that he was/is a fighter who the military could trust. Thus, Pompeo, Bolton, the Syria incursion and the weapons to Ukraine. Telling the American people that the generals would be in charge was an attempt to prove to them his support for the professional military.
But the truth is Trump was fighting an impossible battle. In hindsight there was no amount of cow-towing he could do to the Establishment which would have neutralized the opposition to him. In a sense his attempts to conciliate probably backfired and further undermined his presidency. In hindsight, he was doomed.
Ukraine kind of proves the point. I feel certain that Trump would 'want' to end this horrible, despicable war, but I'm doubtful that he can openly campaign on a promise to simply end the war. If he is the nominee, it will certainly be a difficult platform to craft. Aren't about 80% of the Republicans in Congress in favor of continuing war support?
I will definitely support Trump unless and until some other candidate persuades me his or her policies would be better for America and he or she could be more effective than Trump. If such a candidate materializes and prevails the same Establishment will without doubt try to destroy him/her, so in any case I do not have very high expectations in the near term for our national project.
Frank, I agree with you that the image of Trump as a buffoon and illiterate is propaganda and largely unfair. But his inability at times, and often in public, to express himself precisely and clearly, helps the media sell its unfair image. I’m thinking, for example, of his attempts to defend his phone call with Zelenskyy (for which he was impeached) as ‘perfect’, which fell far short of an articulate explanation of the whole situation.
As to your point about private interactions with Trump, speaking anecdotally, I know one former government official who has interacted with him extensively who totally agrees with you. I also know (second hand) of one real estate ‘friend’ of Trump who thinks he is insufficiently rigorous and diligent to be president. I believe this latter ‘friend’ has been swayed by TDS, however.
I AM GONNA VOTE FOR DJT WHEATHER HE IS IN JAIL OR NOT.
It's all so Kremlin.
They just keep piling disaster on top of disaster and the pity is that they really believe no one is noticing. The Russian’s won’t talk to us, the Chinese won’t talk to us, our Middle East policy is in almost total collapse, our prestige and clout on the international stage is virtually non-existent and we are blessed with a President who is universally ridiculed and held in contempt.
Coupled with the fact that our economy is being battered and hammered on a daily basis, one would expect a keen grasp of the obvious to finally occur to these clowns. But in spite of all the evidence to contrary, they remain firmly ensconced in la la land and pursuits that can only lead to disastrous consequences for the nation and the world as a whole.
Lasch makes the point that the “elites” live in another world than the rest of us and he also suggested that this can take the path of believing in fantasy. Amen to that.
I don’t know about anyone else, but the times have gotten about as interesting as I care to see them get.
It will not be long before these "disastrous consequences for the nation and the world as a whole" arrive. Then, and only then, we might wake up and give Trump a chance to fix them. If we do, I expect him to trigger a huge 'tiger trap' not for revenge, but because these people who have been persecuting him have in their hatred been careless and are guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Perle: I hope you’re right that we get a chance to fix this mess!
This round is for all the marbles and if the general population doesn’t wake up and these feckless Republicans don’t grow a spine and a set of balls, I don’t see how we survive as a republic.
I wonder, though: our economy is getting buffeted, but is theirs?
Nope. Plenty of graft and corruption to go around for them.
If you subscribe to Red State and I expect any of the other right leaning blogs, the indictment has proven to be a brilliant move in that all those who have chosen their camp (Trump/Anti-Trump) to reside in are tearing at each other's throats. Who can bring these two sides together again to salvage an election both sides say must be won?
I view the Trump indictment as a huge opportunity to illuminate who the Rinos are. It’s interesting the Republicans that are silent, or even praising the indictment. A theory is DeSantis and his supporters are betting the indictment will sideline Trump. I believe it’s making him a martyr.
Or the indictment is causing them to become pro Trump, due to the over reach.