- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
- Messages
- 80,282
- Reaction score
- 84,868
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- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
"When our allies have to devote this much energy just to keep the peace with our president, before they even begin to figure out how to make peace with Vladimir Putin; when they have to constantly look over their shoulder to make sure that Trump is not shooting them in the back with a social media post, before Putin shoots them in the front with a missile; and when our president doesn’t understand that when Putin says to Ukraine, in effect “Marry me or I’ll kill you,” that Zelensky needs more than just an American marriage counselor, it all leads me to ask: How is this ever going to work? Especially when every bone in my body tells me that Trump does not get what this Ukraine war is truly about. Trump is unlike any American president in the past 80 years. He feels no gut solidarity with the trans-Atlantic alliance and its shared commitment to democracy, free markets, human rights and the rule of law — an alliance that has produced the greatest period of prosperity and stability for the most people in the history of the world.
I am convinced that Trump looks at NATO as if it’s a U.S.-owned shopping center whose tenants are never paying enough rent. And he looks at the European Union as a shopping center competing with the United States that he’d like to shut down by hammering it with tariffs. The notion that NATO is the spear that protects Western values and that the European Union is possibly the West’s best modern political creation — a vast center of free people and free markets, stabilizing a continent that was known for tribal and religious wars for millenniums — is alien to Trump. ...Indeed, I agree with Bill Blain, a British-based bond trader and economic analyst, who wrote on Monday: “However much European leaders pile on their flattery of Trump, it’s clear the fundamental bond of trust that underlay the 80-year success of the trans-Atlantic economy, that served the U.S. so favorably for decades, is now ruptured. The end of the trans-Atlantic economy will change the global economy utterly — favoring Asia and new trade relationships.” So, it is also no wonder to me that Trump doesn’t feel any gut need to bring Ukraine into the West or understand that Putin’s invasion was just his latest march to break up the West as revenge for its breaking up the Soviet Union. ...
It gets worse. Trump is so deluded as to Putin’s nature that during his summit with European leaders on Monday he was overheard on an open microphone telling President Emmanuel Macron of France about Putin: “I think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.” Can anyone identify a single U.S. diplomat in Moscow or C.I.A. analyst who is advising Witkoff and Trump today? My bet is there are none, because no serious analyst or expert on Russia would tell them: “We have concluded that you are right and all of us have been wrong: Putin is not a bad guy, he just wants a just peace with Ukraine — and when he tells you he went to church and prayed for President Trump, you should believe him.”"
Link
While Trump may be a very sick man with a bottomless need for flattery, he isn't dumb. His undermining of the western alliance that has helped keep us safe for 80 years is isolationist, but isn't necessarily unAmerican. Although his support for autocracy rather than for the western values of a liberal democracy certainly is.
I am convinced that Trump looks at NATO as if it’s a U.S.-owned shopping center whose tenants are never paying enough rent. And he looks at the European Union as a shopping center competing with the United States that he’d like to shut down by hammering it with tariffs. The notion that NATO is the spear that protects Western values and that the European Union is possibly the West’s best modern political creation — a vast center of free people and free markets, stabilizing a continent that was known for tribal and religious wars for millenniums — is alien to Trump. ...Indeed, I agree with Bill Blain, a British-based bond trader and economic analyst, who wrote on Monday: “However much European leaders pile on their flattery of Trump, it’s clear the fundamental bond of trust that underlay the 80-year success of the trans-Atlantic economy, that served the U.S. so favorably for decades, is now ruptured. The end of the trans-Atlantic economy will change the global economy utterly — favoring Asia and new trade relationships.” So, it is also no wonder to me that Trump doesn’t feel any gut need to bring Ukraine into the West or understand that Putin’s invasion was just his latest march to break up the West as revenge for its breaking up the Soviet Union. ...
It gets worse. Trump is so deluded as to Putin’s nature that during his summit with European leaders on Monday he was overheard on an open microphone telling President Emmanuel Macron of France about Putin: “I think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.” Can anyone identify a single U.S. diplomat in Moscow or C.I.A. analyst who is advising Witkoff and Trump today? My bet is there are none, because no serious analyst or expert on Russia would tell them: “We have concluded that you are right and all of us have been wrong: Putin is not a bad guy, he just wants a just peace with Ukraine — and when he tells you he went to church and prayed for President Trump, you should believe him.”"
Link
While Trump may be a very sick man with a bottomless need for flattery, he isn't dumb. His undermining of the western alliance that has helped keep us safe for 80 years is isolationist, but isn't necessarily unAmerican. Although his support for autocracy rather than for the western values of a liberal democracy certainly is.
