Tag: Donald Trump

Thursday Thoughts

W.J. Astore

A Vote for Harris Is a Vote for Cheney (It makes as much sense as a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump)

+ As if the world wasn’t hazardous enough, we now have to deal with exploding pagers, walkie-talkies, even solar power systems, apparently. Thank you, Israel.

+ Yet another article suggests that a vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump—and Russia. Maybe a vote for Stein is just a vote for Stein?

+ Yet another letter from more than 100 senior Republicans associated with the national (in)security state is telling me to vote for Kamala Harris for President. Maybe a vote for Harris is really a vote for Republicans and a neocon foreign policy?

+ Strangely, I’ve been accused of “hating” Trump because I dare to criticize him. No, I don’t “hate” Trump. I simply believe he’s not the right person to be president.

+ I got my usual fundraiser letters from Biden and Harris. There’s no vision or platform in these letters. It’s all about saving America from Trump and the end of democracy. There’s also vague talk about a better future. And that’s it. How inspiring!

+ Jill Stein got into trouble recently for being reluctant to dismiss Putin as a “war criminal.” What is a war criminal? Without consulting a legal definition, I’d describe a “war criminal” as someone who pursues aggressive war.  Of course, most leaders claim whatever war they’re pursuing is “defensive.”  They even avoid the term “war,” e.g. Obama’s “overseas contingency operations,” Putin’s “special military operation.”

So, “war criminal” is a bit like pornography, not always easy to define, but you know it when you see it. So, sure, Putin is a war criminal, but so too were LBJ, Nixon, Bush/Cheney, Obama, and Biden. Just look at Biden’s ongoing and fulsome support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Seriously, what the U.S. did in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were war crimes on a massive scale.  The Iraq invasion in 2003 under the false pretense of WMD was a war crime.  Meanwhile, the people who get punished for war crimes are usually low-level corporals and LTs.  It’s never generals and most certainly never presidents.

+ Trump, or TDS if you prefer, has enabled the rehabilitation of war criminals like Bush and Cheney, with establishment Democrats eagerly embracing both these men.

Now beloved by Democrats everywhere

+ A vote for Harris is a vote for Dick Cheney makes more logical sense than a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. Meanwhile, if you vote for Trump, you’re likely to get Dick Cheney as well, because I don’t believe Trump has the ability to resist the Pompeos, the Boltons, the generals, and the usual suspects he’ll surround himself with.

+ If Harris loses the election in November, it won’t be because of Jill Stein.  Or Russia. Or even Bracing Views.  It will be because not enough people believed in her. But if Harris does lose, I expect the DNC will blame the voters for racism and sexism, Putin for election interference, and Jill Stein for stealing votes from Harris. Naturally, Harris and the DNC will not be to blame. Now, if they win, all credit will flow to Harris and the DNC. It’s nice to be able to run for office where even if you lose, it’s not your fault.

Readers, what’s on your mind this Thursday?

Bonus thought: I feel like political criticism has become a bizarre zero-sum game in America. If I criticize Trump, that means I’m helping Harris. If I criticize Harris, that means I’m helping Trump.

Can’t I criticize both of them? Because I want neither of them to win. That may be unrealistic, I realize, but neither candidate speaks to my principles, beliefs, priorities, and goals.

So then I’m told: It’s the American system. Take it or leave it. And I suppose I’d like to leave it, meaning I’ll vote Green. And then I’m told that’s a vote for Trump! Or I’m told that’s a wasted vote.

So the only “valid” vote is for Harris–or Trump. But each side pretty much hates the other, so how is a vote for either “valid”?

Because both parties take unaccountable dark money, both are corrupted, both don’t answer to the people, both are tools of the plutocrats.

If I want to embrace and defend democracy, why would I vote for either of these parties?

And the usual answer is: Because Harris (or Trump) is the lesser evil. But does voting for evil ever make sense? Shouldn’t Americans be able to vote for the greater good?

Cheerleaders of the Military-Industrial Complex

W.J. Astore

Harris and Trump Have Something in Common

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have something in common.  They both embrace colossal Pentagon budgets and both celebrate the “lethality” of the U.S. military, which, they agree, must be the strongest, bestest, in the world.  They also agree on giving a blank check to Israel and its leaders to do whatever they want in Gaza to the Palestinians and will continue to provide whatever weapons Israel desires to kill massive numbers of Palestinians while flattening and destroying the Gaza Strip.

With respect to Iran, Harris appears to be even more hawkish than Trump, and indeed criticized him for not being aggressive enough with Iran’s leaders.  Harris is also a strong supporter of Ukraine, seeing war as its best option to defeat Russia, whereas Trump is more skeptical of war and more open to diplomacy with Putin and Russia.

This isn’t surprising.  Mainstream Democrats in DC are basically warmongering neo-conservatives on foreign policy, so a vote for Harris/Walz is a vote, as the “liberal” New York Times reported, for “muscular patriotism” (or, to paraphrase my wife, febrile and unapologetic nationalism).  This is Washington Beltway conformity at its finest, as organs such as the National Interest write unironic articles about cheerleading the wonders of the military-industrial complex (MIC).

Ike got it all wrong. Embrace the MIC! Cheer for it!

See, President Dwight D. Eisenhower got it all wrong.  We shouldn’t be wary of the MIC; we shouldn’t worry that its unchecked power threatens democracy and our very freedoms.  No, we should embrace the MIC, celebrate it, enrich it with even more of our taxpayer dollars.

At Responsible Statecraft, Bill Hartung wrote a thoughtful response to the recent National interest piece.  To me, it all depends on what vision of America you want to advance.  If you want to advance America as the world’s hegemon, the empire of global reach, power, and dominance, the empire of constant warfare, then, heck, three cheers for the MIC.

But, if you want to advance America as a republic that leads “by the power of its example,” one that focuses on national defense and defense alone, then “three cheers for the MIC” guarantees the death of that republic and the corruption of its moral authority as an exemplar of democracy.

Of course, whether you choose to support Harris or Trump, we are witnessing exactly that latter fate.  When you embrace the MIC, war, and empire, you set in motion the death of Democracy.

Whether America’s politicians put an “R” after their names or a “D,” it doesn’t alter the fundamental reality that the power of America’s example is very much driven and determined by examples of its military power.  That is not about to change whether Harris or Trump prevails.

Governor Tim Walz’s Military Record

W.J. Astore

Questionable Assertions, but Not “Stolen Valor”

Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, has come under fire about his military record. Leading the charge has been another Vice President nominee, J.D. Vance of the Republican Party, who served in the Marines and deployed to Iraq.

A young Tim Walz. Little did that young man know how this photo and his military service would become yet another battleground in American politics, generating plenty of heat but very little light

Let’s use the Army acronym of BLUF (bottom line up front); in other words, let’s cut to the chase:

  1. Tim Walz has said he retired as a command sergeant major (CSM) after 24 years of service in the Army National Guard. While he did serve as CSM for his battalion, he didn’t attend the Sergeants Major Academy and therefore he retired a step down as a master sergeant (MSG).
  2. When Tim Walz retired in 2005, he was preparing to run for Congress. His unit was also preparing to deploy to Iraq, which it eventually did in March of 2006. Walz was well within his rights as a soldier to retire when he did. Whether he did so to avoid war service in Iraq is known only to Walz. He claims he’d made his decision to retire before his unit was notified of its overseas deployment to Iraq.
  3. Tim Walz has talked loosely about using weapons of war “that he carried in war,” implying he’d seen combat service when he hadn’t. I don’t see this as a case of “stolen valor.” He wasn’t boasting about being some kind of badass hero in war. Obviously, in 24 years of service in the Army National Guard, he’d carried weapons of war and trained with them under simulated combat conditions “down range.” He should have simply said: “I’ve trained extensively with weapons of war.” Period.

Does any of this matter? Not to me. Tim Walz, by all accounts, served honorably, reaching the senior enlisted ranks. If the Army had wanted him to stay instead of retiring, he could have been stop-lossed or his retirement request could have been denied. He moved on to Congress, winning his election in 2006. He seems to be a person motivated by public service.

The issues that really matter here aren’t mentioned by the Republicans or the corporate-owned news (the CON). Here are those issues:

  1. Tim Walz is a strong supporter of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
  2. Tim Walz is a strong supporter of massive military aid to Ukraine.
  3. To my knowledge, Tim Walz has not criticized the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) in meaningful ways, though he has spoken out against the idea of China being an inevitable U.S. enemy.

Tim Walz, in short, is a typical pro-Israel, pro-Ukraine, generally pro-MICC, Democrat.

The most important issue of all is the whole idea that one must go to war—to serve in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and, more likely than not, to kill other human beings, to prove one’s “valor” in uniform. Why is carrying and using a gun in war such a great and glorious thing? Especially wars like those in Afghanistan and Iraq that were based on lies? Would we respect Tim Walz more if he’d gone to Iraq in 2006 and shot up some Iraqis in the cause of “freedom”?

As a candidate for the presidency in 2016, Donald Trump famously denounced the Iraq War, using words like “stupid,” “dumb,” a “total disaster.” and a “big fat mistake.” The war was based on a lie, Trump said, about weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Even worse, the Bush/Cheney administration was behind the lie, leading to a war that destabilized the Middle East, costing the U.S. military thousands of lives and U.S. taxpayers $2 trillion, Trump concluded.

Under that bright blaze of honesty from Trump (yes, you read that right), we might question anyone who wants to trumpet service in Iraq as praiseworthy in the sense of “bringing freedom” or “spreading democracy.”

Lies

W.J. Astore

They’re Everywhere in America

Soon after Joe Biden took office as president in 2021, I remember hearing that his VP, Kamala Harris, was put in charge of immigration, informally known as the “border czar.” Yesterday, the House passed a resolution condemning Harris for her handling of the border crisis. Yet I’ve also been hearing from Democrats and the media that Harris never was the border czar, even as there’s plenty of video evidence of networks like ABC, CBS, and NBC referring to her using that term.

Denying that Harris was the border czar is a fairly small lie immersed in much larger sea of lies, and of course it’s a bipartisan effort. Donald Trump exaggerates and lies just to stay in shape. Democrats love to attack Trump for lying even as they lie themselves. Truly, it’s hard to run a government and a country when lies confuse every issue.

Another lie being told about Kamala Harris is that her candidacy is the result of democracy in action. She’s the people’s choice! Except almost nobody voted for her as a presidential candidate. She’s been elevated and selected by the DNC and the donor class. She is a packaged product of the so-called elites within the party, the very opposite of a candidate chosen by the people. And yet I’m told this packaged product is going to “save democracy” from Trump, who was actually selected as a candidate in a more democratic process.

Of course, there are far bigger and more serious lies than whether Harris was the border czar or whether she’s the people’s choice as the savior of democracy. U.S. troops’ deadliest enemies, I’d argue, are most often the lies told by the U.S. government, abetted and amplified by senior officers in the military. Think here of Iraq and Afghanistan, or go back further to Vietnam.

Daniel Ellsberg, truth-teller about the Vietnam War and so many other things

Knowing (or sensing/feeling) you killed for lies, or knowing your friends died for lies, is surely a contributing cause to a rash of suicides in the U.S. military today. The sacrifices and horrors of war may be eased by a “just” war, like World War II, but they are aggravated by unjust wars.  And they are further aggravated when you try to get help through the VA only to be turned away or stonewalled.

All this is prologue to a note I received from a regular reader of Bracing Views about lies in America. I’ve decided to retain the profanity because it’s more than appropriate:

I don’t know about you, but I find it quite amazing that, despite decades of bold-faced lying about US wars, all of it proven and even reported in the NYT and other mainstream media, the narrative of the each subsequent war is always accepted as true, until it too is exposed as being nothing but lies.

Let’s look at the recent record:

1) Vietnam–exposed as nothing but lies by the Pentagon Papers.

2) Iraq–exposed as lies when the infamous WMD were never found and there was nothing found to back up the claim of links to Al Qaeda.

3) Afghanistan–exposed as pure fiction as revealed by the Washington Post “Afghanistan Papers” which said that “senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

Add to the above list the fact that the Mueller report investigating the Russiagate hoax came up with nothing, ZERO.

Currently, there are a couple of new false narratives duly reported by the mainstream media and, for the most part, swallowed by most people. First is the false narrative about the US war in Ukraine, that NATO expansion has nothing to do with it but rather was caused by naked Russian aggression and Putin’s plans to re-create the Soviet Union and take over the rest of Eastern Europe. Second, the false narrative that Israel is just defending itself against Palestinian terrorism rather than committing grotesque war crimes, completely ignoring the fact that the Israelis have been keeping the Palestinians under illegal occupation for over 50 years, since June 1967. 

Lie after lie after lie after lie. And yet none of it matters. It is all sent down the memory hole as if it never happened. And then it is on to the next war, when the official narrative spewed out by the DC blob will once again be swallowed hook, line and sinker. It appears to be never ending. No matter how much lying is exposed, it simply does not matter.

I think it is pretty fucking amazing. What will it take to get people to come out of their coma and realize what the fuck is going on?

And keep in mind…..it has nothing to do with party affiliation. The lying is endemic, it’s in the DNA of the National Security State. Presidents come and go, but the lying for war-making never stops. And no one is ever held accountable either. 

It’s pretty fucking impressive, when you think about it.

Keep this is in mind……one would think that, after this abhorrent track record, the appropriate response would be to assume that the narrative justifying the new war of the moment was not true and nothing but more of the same lying. But that NEVER happens. NEVER.

How is that possible? Is it just a serious form of denial? Is it due to mental illness? Is it just some perverted form of patriotism? In what other realm is it possible to lie non-stop and never be held accountable? Even worse, to continue to have credibility despite a track record of pathological lying? 

A friend of mine pointed out that, in the old USSR, people knew that the official news on their TV every night was nothing but lies. 

So, this begs the question: Which system is more pernicious and has more effectively brainwashed its people? The one where people are controlled but they are aware that they are being fed nothing but lies, or the one that is constantly lied to but the people still believe they are being told the truth?

To those keen insights, I made this reply:

Our [American] system of lying is better! We have state/corporate media too, it’s just more subtle and advertised as “free.” We have our own “Pravda” except it rarely tells the truth, unless that “truth” is in the interests of the powerful.

To which our BV keen reader replied:

Exactly. But to suggest that we have our own version of “Pravda,” only worse because it has the cover of supposedly being “free,” is tantamount to treason, you realize.

This is the reason why Julian Assange/Wikileaks was such a threat…for actually challenging the right of the National Security State to lie non-stop about its war making and never be exposed for its lying or held accountable.

Of course, that is exactly why Assange was locked away in prison for so long and tortured, not because he was spreading lies but because he was revealing truths.

And we can’t have that in America!

*My hearty thanks to this Bracing Views keen reader for allowing me to cite this. I always say I learn so much from my readers, and I mean it.

Did Biden Drop Out or Was He Dropkicked Out?

W.J. Astore

A Palace Coup in DC

Amazingly, it remains unclear whether Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race on his own initiative, or whether he was dropkicked out by various DNC and DC swamp creatures.

When LBJ said he wouldn’t run for the presidency again in 1968, he gave a speech to that effect to the American people. Biden (apparently) tweeted a letter that wasn’t on White House stationery. Even the signature on the letter looks a bit dodgy.

As late as Sunday morning, members of the Biden team were insisting he was staying in the race. Biden campaign events were being planned for this week. Then, apparently, a sudden change of heart by Biden, captured in the aforementioned letter. Meanwhile, Biden remains in seclusion (or isolation), recovering, it is said, from COVID.

Fading into the background

I happen to think Biden reached the right decision, but that’s assuming it was really his decision. I can see where he may have dug in his heels, refusing to drop out, hence a palace coup. I’m guessing (and I stress here that this is a guess) that if you put Biden before a camera right now, he might say he’s still running in 2024.

Replying to a comment I made on Chris Hedges’s site, one reader put it well:

He was absolutely kicked out, delusional right up to the very last minute on Sunday morning. The last straw was the donors refusing him more money.

Another savvy reader replied that:

[This is] A message to anyone still foolish enough to think the D party can be reformed or do anything contrary to the wishes of its donors and the DNC ruling elite. Bad enough what was done to Bernie, but he was an outsider to them. This is explicitly about who rules; even conformist figureheads aren’t exempt. The Democratic party ceased to be democratic decades ago.

Remember how Democrats kept repeating “democracy is on the ballot” this fall? The hasty coronation of Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate for POTUS, after the rigged primary anointment of Joe Biden as that candidate, is decidedly undemocratic.

I wonder what the DNC will force Joe Biden to read from the teleprompter when he finally returns from Delaware. Perhaps a deal was struck for Biden to remain president for the rest of his term, which would allow him to pardon his son, Hunter. Somewhere, Jill Biden is unleashing primal screams.

Say what you will of the Republicans and Trump, but they managed to hold a contested primary where Trump beat a serious challenger, Nikki Haley, followed by a national convention that was “normal” for what passes as our democratic political process.

Interestingly, some commentators have suggested Kamala Harris won’t be the Democratic candidate, that someone else will emerge from whatever sham convention the DNC manages to throw together. But I think Harris has a hammerlock on the campaign funds, plus she’s pliable and therefore easily manipulable by the powerbrokers who surround her.

If Democrats are fated to lose this fall, why not with Kamala, who will be sold, of course, as the first Black and South Asian woman to run as president. Her loss can always be blamed on voter racism and misogyny, and, if that proves unconvincing, there’s always Putin.

Joe Biden Drops Out, Endorses Kamala Harris

W.J. Astore

I just saw that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the presidential campaign for 2024. He has endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris.

Biden made the only sensible decision.

In dropping out, Biden has done the right thing. Given the clear signs of his physical and mental decline, there was no way he could serve in office as POTUS from 2025 to early 2029. I’m not entirely certain he should be POTUS for what remains of his current term.

What I’m left with is lies. All the lies told by the corporate media and the yes men and yes women surrounding Biden that he was perfectly OK, indeed never better. That he was absolutely fit as a fiddle and both ready and able to serve until his 86th birthday.

Attention will now turn to Kamala Harris. Like most VPs (Dick Cheney being a notable exception), Harris has largely been sidelined. Now she’s front and center, with a chance to shine—or to fade into the background.

I haven’t been impressed by Harris’s political instincts. Her record is undistinguished. Her speaking ability is average at best. But perhaps she will show a capacity for growth. It’s not encouraging, however, that’s she’s basically a Hillary Clinton protégé.

Kamala Harris is an establishment figure at a time when Americans are unhappy with the establishment. She has a tough road ahead of her with many treacherous obstacles. They will severely test her mettle.

Readers, what say you about this news?

Trump’s Superlative Acceptance Speech

W.J. Astore

The Greatest, Most Magnificent, Bestest Ever!

When Donald Trump talks, you can count on plenty of superlatives. He reminds me of a carnival barker, the one who says: Step right up and see the ugliest monstrosity ever, the biggest creature ever, the smallest elephant ever (the size of a toy poodle!), the most beautiful mermaid ever. It’s the kind of act that grabs your attention even as it wears on you (or entices you enough to spend your $20 only to see a toy poodle with a tusk duct-taped to its poor head).

In the way he mixes occasional truths with hyperbolic superlatives, Trump is a clever salesman. Unlike Joe Biden, Trump readily admits America is in decline. Most Americans sense this and agree with him. His solution is a vague “Make America Great Once Again” slogan, complete with the usual tax cuts for the rich and promises to end the “invasion” at America’s southern border, the worst in all recorded history (those superlatives again).

Educated to be a careful engineer as well as a discerning historian, I am both aghast at many of Trump’s wild claims and entertained by them. I find them absurd but also frequently amusing. They’re not examples of careful and judicious thinking, and they’re not meant to be. Trump knows how to entertain a crowd. What he doesn’t know how to do is to unite and lead a country.

Wear a bandage on your right ear in solidarity with him.

Here’s an extended excerpt from Trump’s acceptance speech from last night. I’ll highlight a few words/claims that illustrate the Trumpian style, with a few comments of my own in [brackets]:

Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation in decline.

We have an inflation crisis that is making life unaffordable, ravaging the incomes of working and low-income families, and crushing, just simply crushing our people like never before. [Great Depression of 1929?] They’ve never seen anything like it.

We also have an illegal immigration crisis, and it’s taking place right now, as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It’s a massive invasion at our southern border that has spread misery, crime, poverty, disease, and destruction to communities all across our land. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. [Mongol invasions? Napoleon and Russia? Nazi invasions?]

Then there is an international crisis, the likes of which the world has seldom been part of. Nobody can believe what’s happening. War is now raging in Europe and the Middle East, a growing specter of conflict hangs over Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and all of Asia, and our planet is teetering on the edge of World War III, and this will be a war like no other war because of weaponry. The weapons are no longer army tanks going back and forth, shooting at each other. These weapons are obliteration. [I wish Trump had directly mentioned nuclear weapons here.]

It’s time for a change. This administration can’t come close to solving the problems. We’re dealing with very tough, very fierce people. They’re fierce people. And we don’t have fierce people. We have people that are a lot less than fierce, except when it comes to cheating on elections and a couple of other things, then they’re fierce. [I can’t help it: this is a funny line.] Then they’re fierce.

So tonight, I make this pledge to the great people of America.

I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately [By waving a magic wand?], bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy . We will drill, baby, drill. Can you believe what they’re doing? [That’s exactly what the Biden administration is already doing.]

But by doing that, we will lead a large-scale decline in prices. Prices will start to come down.

Energy… Raised it, they took our energy policies and destroyed them. Then they immediately went back to them, but by that time, so much was lost. But we will do it at levels that nobody’s ever seen before, and we’ll end lots of different things. We’ll start paying off debt and start lowering taxes even further. We gave you the largest tax cut. We’ll do it more.

Now, people don’t realize, I brought taxes way down, way, way down. [For whom?] And yet we took in more revenues the following year than we did when the tax rate was much higher. Most people said, how did you do that? Because it was incentive. Everybody was coming to the country, they were bringing back billions and billions of dollars into our country. The companies made it impossible to bring it back. The tax rate was too high and the legal complications were far too great. I changed both of them, and hundreds of billions of dollars by Apple and so many other companies would work back into our nation, and we had an economy the likes of which nobody, no nation had ever seen. China, we were beating them at levels that were incredible. And they know it. They know it. We’ll do it again, but we’ll do it even better.

I will end the illegal immigration crisis by closing our border and finishing the wall, most of which I’ve already built. [Trump built it himself?]

On the wall, we were dealing with a very difficult Congress and I said, “Oh, that’s OK. We won’t go to Congress.” I call it an “invasion.” We gave our military almost $800 billion. I said, “I’m going to take a little of that money, because this is an ‘invasion.’” And we built — Most of the wall is already built, and we built it through using the funds, because what’s more, what’s better than that? We have to stop the invasion into our country that’s killing hundreds of thousands [Does he mean by drug overdoses?] of people a year. We’re not going to let that happen.

I will end every single international crisis that the current administration has created, including the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine, which would have never happened if I was president. And the war caused by the attack on Israel, which would never have happened if I was president. Iran was broke. Iran had no money. Now Iran has $250 billion …

You get the idea. My brother used to say, jokingly, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re so great.” It’s a joke that applies well to Trump.

Here’s another saying, this one taught to me by my dad: “The empty barrel makes the most noise.” It’s a lesson I often recall whenever I hear Trump speak.

Trump Thoughts

W.J. Astore

A Quintessentially American Figure

Today, I thought I’d write about someone who’s uncontroversial: Donald Trump.

My reflections are impressionistic and random. Regular readers of Bracing Views know I won’t be voting for Trump (or Biden for that matter), so my comments here are not meant as an endorsement. With that said, let’s dive in:

When Trump was trying to get rid of Obamacare, he naturally had no replacement plan in mind. At the time, I read that Trump allegedly turned to his advisers and said, Why don’t we simply give everyone Medicare? It sounds like Trump: a simple solution to a problem he wants to put behind him. Of course, it was also the goal of Bernie Sanders and progressives. Trump’s advisers quickly told him he couldn’t do Medicare for All, and Trump dropped the matter. (I’m not sure this story is true, but it sounds true.)

As a businessman, Trump has a knack for discerning bad deals, so it’s not surprising he hit on NATO as a “bad” one. Why was America spending so much, allegedly to defend Europe, when Europeans themselves were spending far less for their own defense? Does America even need NATO? Once again, Trump’s advisers intervened, keeping the U.S. in NATO even as Trump did win commitments from some European countries to spend more on their militaries.

Trump ran in 2016 on the idea of draining the swamp, after which he surrounded himself with advisers drawn from the swamp, especially retired military generals. They were allegedly the “adults in the room” who were meant to control Trump’s worst impulses. What they ensured was that nothing fundamentally changed in the Trump administration, especially for the military-industrial-congressional complex and similar power complexes.

I’ve read, and I think it’s probably true, that Trump expected to lose in 2016. He ran because the Republican competition was so weak, and it gave him a platform to rebuild his popularity, which he apparently wanted to parlay into another lucrative TV deal. That November, Trump was as surprised as most Americans were when he won. He should have listened to his wife, Melania, who predicted he would win if he ran.

I’ve called Trump a con man, and I stand by that. And he’s a good one! He is absolutely shameless and will slap and stamp his name on anything to make a few bucks, whether it’s Bibles, towers, vodka, steak, sneakers, a university, you name it. This doesn’t make him a “bad” person. It makes him a shameless and therefore highly effective grifter.

Trump recognized in 2015 that the Republican candidates arrayed against him were nowhere near as skilled as he was at attracting attention and selling illusions. That’s how he was able to dispatch JV competitors like Low Energy Jeb, Little Marco, and Lyin’ Ted so quickly. In this, he was aided by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats’ “pied piper” strategy of encouraging Trump. Be careful what you wish for, Hillary.

Trump, unlike so many U.S. politicians, occasionally blurts out a big truth. The Iraq War was a disaster. The U.S. is in decline and is no longer the “greatest” nation. NATO is obsolete. Far too many people are dying in the needless and awful Russia-Ukraine War. We’re in Syria to steal its oil. We want Venezuela’s oil too. If you think Russia has killers, so does the United States. And so on. It’s not Trump’s cons that piss off the establishment. It’s those rare truths that Trump lets slip that they despise.

Yes, Trump is a con man, but he’s a genuine con man. He is exactly what he appears to be. In this sense, Trump is more genuine—more real—than most politicians, Republican and Democrat, who pose as public servants even as they practice their own grifts.

“War Paint” was the first idea that popped into my head when I saw this image

Trump, whatever else you can say about the man, often has superb political instincts. His raised fist and cry of “fight, fight, fight” after the assassination attempt made for stunning theater. The blood smeared on his face looked like war paint.

Trump, in sum, is a complex man, talented and flawed, perceptive and undisciplined, intuitive and uninformed, determined and manipulable. What he is not, in my opinion, is a public servant. What he is likely to become is our next president.

If so, one can only wish he shows a capacity for growth and a spirit of true public service. Whatever else he is or becomes, he is a quintessentially American figure.

Donald Trump Survives Assassination Attempt

W.J. Astore

An Update

Last night, Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed. He was apparently a registered Republican. He was armed with an AR-15 and fired eight times. He was 20 years old.

It’s unclear whether Trump’s ear was bloodied by a bullet or from shrapnel.

The shooting produced an indelible image of Trump bloodied yet standing defiant with his fist raised.

Reactions reflect the polarization of our times. With no evidence, people suggested the event was staged, basically a photo op for Trump. Tell that to the one bystander who was killed and another two who were critically wounded.

The usual cry of “violence has no place in America” was nonsensical, given America’s violent history and its ongoing facilitation of violence across the globe.

Some commentators have opined that Trump, in his defiant stance, won the 2024 election last night. Though I wouldn’t go that far, Trump’s supporters will certainly be even more highly motivated to vote for him in November, whereas motivation within the Democratic Party is on the wane.

“We’re off our rockers,” my wife said this morning, and as usual she’s right.

Here’s hoping that this will be the last violent event of this highly polarized election season.

The Distraction of Joe Biden

W.J. Astore

What genocide? What war? What militarism?

Joe Biden has become a major distraction. Much like Donald Trump, he’s demanding far too much attention.

As genocide continues in Gaza, as war continues to rage in Ukraine, as America continues to pursue militarism both at home and abroad, all the press can talk about is whether Biden should stay or go.

The answer is obvious: he should go.

Sure, Biden remains capable of having a “good” day in the sense of doing OK at a rally while reading prepared remarks from a teleprompter. Yet it’s impossible to ignore brain glitches where he introduces Zelensky of Ukraine as President Putin and suggests his vice president’s name is Trump instead of Harris.

America faces serious issues, especially working- and middle-class Americans who are struggling to make ends meet. Their stories are rarely told in the corporate-owned media as Biden’s flubs and stubbornness and Trump’s lies and showboating grab nearly all the attention.

A new (and desperate) ploy I’ve seen on Twitter/X is Biden supporters arguing that a failing older man is better than a lying one as president. That argument assumes Biden has a strong record as a truth-teller when it was gratuitous lies and flagrant plagiarism that ended his presidential campaign in 1988. Besides, is it really true that Biden, a man visibly in mental and physical decline, is the only choice Democrats can muster to defeat Trump in 2024?

Let’s look at one chart that shows Biden’s record. Since he became President, military spending has soared as social spending has dipped.

And this man, Democrats say in reverent tones, is the new FDR?

I suppose their counter would be: Trump will be worse! So, it’s the old “lesser of two evils” argument.

Biden and Harris continue to run a campaign devoid of any message other than vote for us because Trump will be worse. That empty message, and Biden’s visible decline, produce images like this:

Exactly. Which “job” is the Biden/Harris team so intent on finishing? No one knows since they’re not saying. Vague messaging and a confused candidate are almost certain to lead to a Trump victory in November.

And if that happens, those to blame will be clear, starting with Biden, the DNC, and all the scheming powerbrokers behind the scenes like the Obamas and the Clintons.