Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

Given the reality that DJT will be elected the next US President, I took a trip down the writings of various FP pundits commenting on what would Trump's FP look like? There was a notable polarization of ideas but all the authors I read pointed out that Trump is fundamentally an authoritarian nationalist. At one extreme was the thinking that Trump will continue his bluster about leaving NATO, implementing a 10% tariff on all imports across the board and tease isolationist rhetoric similar to that which was prevalent leading up to US involvement in WWII, but he won't do anything drastic. On the other end was this from Robert Kagan, a neoconservative and co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, he is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution:

What will Trump do? Who knows?,” Kagan replied. “Who knows whether Trump himself has a foreign policy.” Trump “will certainly not have pro-liberal prejudices as most previous U.S. presidents have, at least since World War II. He will make common cause with right-wing forces in Europe, as he did in his first term.”

Kagan’s conclusion?

“Trump’s foreign policy will be unpredictable because we haven’t had a dictator as commander in chief. It will be uncharted territory.”

Thomas Edsall, a political commentator for the NYT's wrote this:

During Trump’s first term in office, virtually everyone — his adversaries, his allies, the media — consistently underestimated his willingness to break rules. He is a man without borders, without conscience, without dignity, ethics or integrity, committed only to what he perceives to be in his own interest. He admires dictators who rule without constraint, and if he believes it would be to his advantage to join them, there is nothing — in his mind or his character — that would stop him.

My take on Trump is much like Edsall's, however and IMO, Edsall fails to recognize that US president's operate under significant restraints both political and constitutional. It remains to be seen if those constraints will keep him from making a long list of very bad FP and National Security decisions. In my mind, I try to balance that concern with recognition that during his first presidency, I was very much in favor of his ME policies vis-a-vis Iran and SA, his abandoning of the Paris Climate Accords and his US boarder security policies. Although I've been an ardent supporter of US aid to Ukraine, there is no clear and obtainable military outcome with Zelenski's stated goal of driving Russian forces out of Ukrainian territory Putin has annexed since 2014, a huge and costly long-shot. Like many realists on this matter, I'm wavering

I haven't decided just yet if that is enough to make me vote for Trump with the alternative of not voting at all because I will not cast my vote for Joe Biden, a US president that has taken a path of patent liberalism and associated government spending that sickens me.

[iam416]

Setting aside the fact that he's senile or likely senile, shrinkflation is a terrible argument to excuse the economy and there is no earthly way he can successfully blame the Rs for the border disaster he both created and could easily remedy.

[Mike]

Having his schedule cleared for the past week really paid off last night. He didn't try to shake a single invisible person's hand.

[iam416]

Katie Britt is irrelevant. The Chairman is relevant. And he remains absolutely unable to do anything w/o a teleprompter. Because he's absolutely unfit to be President.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Giving the SOTU response is like being on the cover of Madden at this point.

I didn't watch either speech last night but some some clips of HER this morning and oof, it really was pretty bad. Even MAGA media guys are mocking her.