So, let's see.
The newly elected American President quickly moves to:
1. Announce he has no intention of stepping down at the end of his term. ("You'll never have to vote in another election.")
2. Fires the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Navy's supreme commander (both Diversity hires, don't you know?) and thus defangs the only group which could stand in his way when he...
What Luck! 
Diversity Hires!
3. Announces that he will not allow the Judicial branch to usurp the power of the Executive (i.e., his power,) and the 22nd amendment doesn't apply to him because he has not yet served two consecutive terms. So he'll worry about having to deal with stepping down or continuing, when he's 86, and besides, as long as he's saving the country, there is no law which applies.
4. Defeat the resistance of the one democratic nation actually fighting the Russian dictatorship, which invaded Ukraine because Ukraine forced it to invade, starting a war by getting invaded, and now we've got the three major powers--China, Russia and the USA--all aligned, so now the encircled European democracies, all of which are struggling with far right parties who are coming to power on the surge of anti immigrant wave, are now alone to face the new axis of evil, and they find themselves outgunned. What was once NATO has lost it's biggest, strongest member, and it has already fractured over Brexit, so continental Europe does not have to be invaded--it has already been outflanked.
Mix in South America, where a Trump wannabe named Bolsonaro can be installed in Brazil, and what've we got?
Greenland and the Panama Canal now are taken by the USA, quick as you can say, "Crimea," and the only spots not subdued are the warring tribes of the Middle East, but who cares about them? They are so chaotic, none of them and in fact the whole package of them are really no threat. And eventually, we can gentrify the whole property, which is to say, we can make it a playground for really white, preferably Nordic people from the former countries called the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, who will all want condos where they can spend those dark forbidding winters.
The Only Channel where the news is Foxy
Think Netflix can turn this into a riveting mini series?
Or, maybe not. Too close to the bone.
Why doesn’t mad dog acknowledge that polling shows support for trump at an all time high and support fir democrats at a four decade low? Could it be that the rhetoric of this post which reflects typical leftist dem thinking is now seen as hyperbolic and condescending and hypercritical given that trump is doing exactly what other presidents including democrats have done. Was the withdrawal from Vietnam a surrender by the us to tyrannical forces? It seem3d to me that I read somewhere that mad dog opposed the Vietnam war? But maybe I’m wrong maybe mad dog as a neocon who has stock in defense contractors.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what "polling" shows, but I don't need polling to know Trump has wide appeal to about half the population.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats are obviously "flaccid" as Maureen Dowd says.
The historical allusion to Vietnam is not even close to being apt.
We were not supporting a democratic regime fighting in opposition to a dictator in Vietnam.
That whole war was a bright and shining lie, and it was sold as a valiant effort to support the good guys against the bad guys. So I see your point in saying using the good guys v bad guys argument for entering a war is fraught. In the case of Vietnam, more than half the American public saw the lie for what it was.
Predictably, even though the communists won that war, they lost the peace, and are now every bit as capitalistic as we are.
And I do take your point that the United States cannot, and should not attempt to become the policeman of the world, never should have tried in Afghanistan nor in Iraq.
As Richard Russell told LBJ, "We don't want to stay in these Godforsaken countries, and the other side knows that."
For the most part, Americans did not want to stay as colonial occupiers (the Philippines the most obvious exception.)
And we do not want to stay in Ukraine, but Russia does.
As Biden said, we are not willing to start World War III and engage in nuclear Armageddon over Ukraine. And Russia knows that.
But we could, combined with NATO, make the war drag out, bleed Russia down, as we were bled down in Vietnam and they were bled down in Afghanistan.
That is the post WWII model.
In one way, the Trump model is refreshing: We don't claim to be morally superior to Russia just because we are a democracy and Russia is not, but we can do business with people who do not share our values, if it's in our interest.
The problem is it's not in our interest to see Russia gobble up Ukraine and then next Poland and the Baltic states.
And, of course, Mr. Trump no longer embraces democracy: he calls himself king, asserts his right to be president for life, says that the judicial branch has no right to limit his power, nullifies the Constitution over birth right citizenship and anything he does not like in the Constitution.
So, yes, that qualifies as a tyrant.
If the polling you cite is correct, well then, the American people will be just fine with a tyrant.
I visited Hungary last year, and looking around at the street life, people did not appear to be oppressed--lots of young happy people enjoying Budapest's night life.
As the lady sang, at the end of the movie "Nashville," --"You may say, I ain't free. But it don't bother me."
Mad Dog,
ReplyDeleteI agree with Maureen Dowd- the Democrats in Congress are flaccid. Depressingly so. Where’s the outspoken outrage??!! Why aren’t they en masse on the steps of the capital speaking out against Trump and his outrageously incompetent foreign policy. Trump 2.0 is so much worse than expected, yet the Democrats are behind the scenes, weighing their options and trying to decide how and what to take a strong stand on…If Trump’s proclamation that Ukraine started the war and Zelensky is a dictator doesn’t spur them into action nothing will. It’s such low hanging fruit- Donny’s unaware that England didn’t hold elections during WWII. Someone needs to alert the Brits that in this brave new world that makes Winston a dictator.
Wonder what nasty spin Trump will come up with now that Zelensky the Dictator has offered to step down as President in exchange for Ukraine being admitted to NATO. Altruism is as foreign to Donald as decency, so this is sure to have him briefly stumped…
Maud
The domino theory that Western and eastern Europe protected by nato is under threat is the same theory that was used as a neoco pretext to defend Vietnam. There is zero evidence that Russia would attack nato until nato decided to attack Russia through its Ukraine proxy. Neocons and dem nonsense is risking nuclear war defying years of detente and careful calibration in foreign policy. You are endorsing reckless incompetence in foreign policy not defending democracy which is delusional. Trump will end the war and deserves the Nobel peace prize unlike Obama who created conditions that led to isis genocide.
ReplyDeleteWow! A lot to unpack.
ReplyDeleteMostly sheer conjecture. But you are no less knowledgeable than any of the pundits we hear on the news expressing their own uninformed opinions.
You may well be correct that Putin is unlikely to cross the NATO line into Poland and the Baltics, because, unlike Ukraine, they did not give up their nukes.
Fact is, none of us know. We simply do not have inside information from the Kremlin.
Listening to LBJ tapes, where Johnson discusses Vietnam with his true intimates, including Richard Russell, it turns out he was every bit as clueless as we all thought he was back in the day. He knew the economics of cattle pricing very thoroughly but he was a schoolboy when it came to Vietnam and Southeast Asia.