More Thoughts On Trump As The Peace Candidate

Obviously, how this plays out will depend on Trump. However, from my point of view there are multiple advantages for Trump by positioning himself as the peace candidate—both looking to the past as well as looking forward.

First of all, by staking out his position on the high ground as the Republican peace candidate Trump not only distinguishes himself from Zhou and the midgets, he also distances himself from the unfolding foreign policy and economic disaster for America that is now unfolding. Only RFK is a credible peace candidate, and he won’t be allowed anywhere near the nomination if the DNC has anything to say about it. The effect on candidates of both parties should end up being similar. Consider.

Suppose Newsom enters the race—whether against Zhou or, more likely, because Zhou is forced to withdraw from the race. Will Newsom embrace the Trump position? That will mean running against four years of Dem war mongering, running against the current Dem occupant of the White House but also against Congressional Dems. The strong tendency of Trump’s move is to freeze any non-RFK Dem candidate into a pro-war position. That, I predict, will end up being unpopular with the Dem base as well as with suburban women. The more people think about it, the less popular WW3—whether nuclear or not—will prove to be as an option going forward. OTOH, getting into crazy wars and then screwing up is also unpopular in America. There’s not good way out of this dead end.

Again, on the GOP side, which of the midgets will join Trump as peace candidates? That would make them the “me, too, midgets.” DeSantis has terminally screwed this issue up. Hey, not his fault. He tried to do what his handlers told him to do. Big mistake. His first instinct was more right than wrong, from the standpoint of American politics:

Ron DeSantis Is Right About Ukraine

His statements have been hotly disputed, but not refuted.

But then the War Party called his bluff and he flubbed it:

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote recently, “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

The War Party, the party of Bluto and Turtle and Wall St., was outraged:

The comments inspired a wave of disapproval from conservatives and Republicans, including The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page and the Washington Post columnist George Will, who quipped, “If that is his settled view after the dust settles and he elaborates on this, then he’s not fit to be president, period.”

Are the WSJ and George Will a wave? Apparently DeSantis thought so, because only a month later he had changed his tune. Again, in fairness, this may have simply been to please the money men, but that too was an unattractive revelation:

Ron DeSantis forced into U-turn after calling Ukraine war ‘territorial dispute’

Likely Republican contender for White House says remark was ‘mischaracterised’ but calls Vladimir Putin a war criminal

If DeSantis’ handlers had any notion of rebranding him in the direction of peace, that train left the station with Trump’s statement. Reread Trump’s statement. He avoids all BS, such as pandering to the crazies by calling Putin a “war criminal”. The path to peace, “stopping the insanity,” begins with eschewing irresponsible rhetoric.

But Trump’s statement also positions him to put forward a narrative about the past. A narrative about Hillary’s Russia Hoax, about Zhou’s and Hunter’s Ukraine corruption, about the faux impeachment. In short, about the war on Trump, to prevent him from coming to a greater degree of understanding with Putin that would have prevented the war. The narrative is about corrupt war mongers planning a war that Trump was trying to stop, and the corrupt war mongers led America to an historical defeat out of greed. That’s a powerful story to tell to the American people, and it will almost certainly become more powerful as time goes on.

That’s the past. The future is the war mongering Zhou regime seeking to put the peace candidate in jail. Trump jailed for the cause of international peace? Yes, because this all goes back to Trump trying to expose the Russia Hoax that was part of what prevented peace with Russia in the first place. Yes, it’s a more complicated narrative, but it can work.

All of this will fold into Trump’s usual narrative of competence that was sabotaged by The Swamp for ignoble reasons. I wrote the other day that Trump needed to hone his message. He’s doing it. He looks to be on his game.