30 March 2016

Trump: NATO is Obsolete

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKCN0WT0MZhttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-idUSKCN0WT0MZ

Trump thinks NATO is obsolete. He's right, it should have been disbanded but instead since 1989 it has been the primary tool of imperial expansion. Trump apparently didn't get the memo. I don't know who is advising him, but they're not doing a very good job. NATO is anything but obsolete.


I just cannot see that the Establishment is going to allow this man to take over the executive branch of government. And when I say Establishment, I'm not referring to just the RNC but the whole of the Washington and Manhattan Establishment.

Trump is digging his own grave and all but flaunting his utter ignorance. He apparently doesn't understand how things work, how the US operates both domestically and abroad and he (apparently) isn't up on what's happened over the past 25 years. If he gets the nomination, his statements on NATO alone would send shockwaves through the Pentagon, Europe and certainly Wall Street.

I don't care if the guy becomes president and wrecks the country but I find it hard to believe that the literally trillions of dollars at stake, and the massive global power the US wields, will all be allowed to just crumble because a bunch of racists, hicks and tax protestors want this guy in. The world doesn't work that way.

If Trump wins the presidency, then there's something else going on. If he wins the GOP ticket, then perhaps his whole task in this charade is to pave the way for Hilary to land in the Oval Office.

Amazing. I just recently re-watched 'Game Change' the Julianne Moore movie about Sarah Palin. Despite its compression and a few other points it painted a pretty faithful picture of the Palin experience. The McCain staff reported on her total ignorance and possible mental instability... which I think has come out even more as of late. Palin was absolutely clueless about government, politics, the world etc... totally unqualified to teach a high school civics class let alone run a state or country.

Trump may be worse, or perhaps to put it another way he knows just enough to actually do some real damage. He is quite literally the Frankenstein monster of the Right.

7 comments:

  1. Two thoughts/questions:

    1) I actually think Trump is brilliant. It's possible, in a moment like this, he's overplaying his hand, especially with Pentagon and spook types listening in. But, of course, GW said plenty of ludicrous things, and some thought Reagan was going to usher in the apocalypse with all of his antagonism of the Soviets. It was a smokescreen. So, I can't believe Trump would be that stupid, unless (as some conspiracists have it) he's a stooge to guarantee a Hillary presidency and eviscerate the integrity (or what's left) of the Republican party. Even if the Republicans somehow subvert Trump's steamroll, and get Cruz on the ticket (or even more absurdly put Kasich on), they will have destroyed themselves among their voting base. I wouldn't be surprised if a failure of Trump will lead to a Whig like implosion.

    2) I've heard that the McCain campaign was completely side-swiped by the Palin pick. Do you think she was a kind of plant? Not as in she was in on some conspiracy. Rather, that some number of staffers brought an unstable element to break McCain's campaign? I can't imagine someone as veteran as McCain making such an insane decision. Maybe Republicans were that desperate that, like a thirsty man in the desert, they saw an oasis in a female governor as a running mate, only to drink sand.

    cal

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  2. Hi Cal,

    When thinking of Trump, the word "brilliant" doesn't come to mind. "Cunning" is a more appropriate word. He's adept at reading people and knows how to endear himself to an audience.

    What differentiates him from Bush and Reagan is the latter two enjoyed overwhelming support from the Republican establishment. Bush's idiosyncratic malapropisms were due to of the onset of either Alzheimer's or dementia (from what I've heard, these days he's a basket-case who spends most of his time painting) and Reagan's popularity was based more on his libertarian message of reducing the size of government. As far as I know, his bellicose anti-Soviet rhetoric emerged after he became president.

    There's actually an interesting story about Reagan pertaining to this issue: it's rumored that he actually toned back significantly on his hawkishness and entered into dialogue with Gorbachev after watching a made-for-TV movie entitled "The Day After", made in 1983. It was basically a series of correlated subplots focusing on various families in the Midwest and how they were affected by the aftermath of a nuclear conflict between the Americans and the Russians. It's tame by today's standards but it apparently scared the hell out of a lot of people back when it first aired.

    On a side note, the BBC produced a similar film a year later entitled "Threads". In my opinion, its proletarian grittiness made The Day After look like Mister Rogers' Neighborhood by comparison. Genuinely scary as well since it was based on a realistic scenario.

    I think the primary impetus for selecting Palin was that she was a woman and had sex appeal. She also had, and continues to have, a down-to-earth, unassuming demeanor that resonates with rural and suburban America. When I first saw her, the first thing I thought of was how she reminded me of the mother from Bobby's World.

    A.P.

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    1. AP:

      Perhaps Cunning is a better word, but I'm impressed by Trump's ability to manipulate the public eye and play a media darling. He reads the pulse of what a significant enough amount of people want, a kind of anti-hero. That's why I attribute brilliant. Not because he's a deep man or someone of powerful conviction, or pursues wisdom, or any other such thing. While I don't think he's Hitler, or bringing about some kind of American Reich, he certainly possesses Hitler's media genius!

      As I recall, the Republic establishment was wary of both of those men until things got further under way. Reagan was disparaged as the "cowboy", hence he lost to Goldwater the first time around in the Primary. And Bush was feared as a zealot, but way more popular than lackluster McCain. But the establishment both embraced, full heartedly, these men. I'm sure a lot was going on behind the scenes for this to come about. I'm curious how this will happen with Trump. He's not an ideologue, but he's much stronger willed than Bush or Reagan (my read anyhow). He'll probably end up tearing the Republic party apart in the end, as factions will emerge. Trump will probably have some rump party that becomes like one of his corporations, burning it in the end.

      I think if the Republic Party is going to survive, it has to sabotage Trump and eviscerate him during the election so Hillary wins. The gamble is whether the Republican faithful will abandon them in this cold calculated move of real-politik. "Conservatives" already have a hard enough time swallowing the bitter-pill of the Republican establishment. This might be the deathblow.

      I saw a documentary about Reagan: one White House aid said that Reagan was either the most enigmatic man he'd ever met or a complete airhead. If it was the latter, it wouldn't be surprising if a TV movie turned the ship around for him.

      Yeah, I figure those are some of the reasons for Palin. I guess McCain's camp thought they could manage her weird charismatic associations, her family issues, and any other political mishaps she made. No one realized she'd become Jezebel's village-idiot sister. And good point about the sex appeal. I remember reflecting on the fact they played the Heart song for her when she got on stage for the RNC acceptance speech. Trying to channel that wild-child 80's spirit among all those Gen X!

      cal

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  3. Cal,

    I concede your point about Trump being "brilliant". The distinction between "brilliance" and "cunning" is one of semantics, anyway. It takes brilliance to attain the level of success he has in New York. No small feat for sure.

    For the Republican Party to survive as an entity that represents the politically conservative world outlook, it will have to sever its ties with religion in general and evangelicalism in particular and embrace a more Nietzschean, social-darwinist world outlook that favors small government, low taxes, minimal public spending and few, if any, economic regulations and labor laws. It would have to endorse a society where the law of the jungle is paramount and the most vulnerable are left to fend for themselves in a heartless, cut-throat environment where the most ruthless and downright sociopathic individuals would thrive.

    It wouldn't have to actively endorse what are currently considered "alternative lifestyles"; it would merely have to react indifferently to them and not say anything one way or another.

    In severing its ties with religion, it would likely have to endorse repealing any tax-exempt status churches currently enjoy and require parochial religious schools to meet strict state curricular regulations in order to operate. Then again, if its platform is based on deregulation, it might actually advocate homeschooling and other forms of private education and encourage those things to proliferate.

    In saying this, I'm hoping it doesn't survive at all. I'm sick of them controlling the historical and social narrative. I'm sick of their thinking dominating the Christian church. I'm sick of having to put up with their useful idiot bullies dominating the conversation on social media and intimidating anyone who disagrees with them. I'm sick of their intellectual dishonesty. I'm sick of their dogmatic free-market fundamentalism. In short, I'm sick of them.

    A.P.

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  4. I don't think Palin was a plant. I think McCain was trying to save his campaign and connect with the Evangelicals who didn't like him. It worked to a degree but in another sense backfired.

    Maybe the best thing about Trump and Sanders will be the breaking of the Party Duopoly, but I doubt it.

    I have to say I'm almost equally surprised that so many are going for Sanders. Did they learn nothing from Obama and his many promises? He came through on maybe 5% of them and even they were wrecked by compromise. All the hopes that so many had in 2008 (not me) fell flat. If they're not disappointed by him, then they aren't paying attention. The guy should not have won in 2012. The GOP had that election handed to them and they blew it. But no matter, the policies aren't all that different.

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  5. I remember that movie was a big deal. Everyone was talking about it.

    The funny part about the 'The Day After' is that it seemed to expose the fact that Reagan didn't really understand nuclear weapons. He certainly didn't understand policy and strategy but I guess he didn't really grasp what a nuclear war would be like.

    He hated Mutually Assured Destruction and viewed it as immoral. 1983 was tense, certainly one of the more dangerous moments of the Cold War. But after that dumb movie Reagan seemed to switch gears. Andropov died, Chernenko died and in 1985 Gorbachev came along. Within just two years everything began to change. People have forgotten how mad the Right was with Reagan. Traitor, buffoon, useful idiot. They denounced his negotiations with the USSR. But in 1989 that all changed and the myth-making began in earnest.

    He was also strongly disliked in Europe. Even a lot of conservatives were mad about the Pershing missiles in Germany and there were many protests in the UK. A lot of this history has been erased from memory. While we were all humming along with 99 Luftballons we didn't realise it was an anti-nuclear song.

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  6. Republic Party... is that kind of like the Republicans always referring to the 'Democrat' Party? They refuse to say Democratic. I always heard that started with Nixon.

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