Whatever you like to believe about certain Trump companions and their conversations with Russian persons, nothing about it suggested an organization capable of participating in an arch conspiracy with a foreign intelligence agency. The campaign was a typically disorganized, free-form, low-budget Trump production. People came and went with head-spinning speed while having distressingly little effect on the candidate.
.. Russia relations were a specific case of the general Trumpian pitch. He is a strong leader who, with his amazing personality, would transform bad situations into good ones... If the Trump campaign directed or cooperated in illegal acts by Russia, that would be collusion in the sense of contributing to a crime... Mr. Trump is many things, but he’s not an idiot. He has a deep, instinctive understanding of New York political, real estate and media culture, and, like many presidents, now is struggling to apply his mostly irrelevant knowledge to a job he is poorly prepared for. He still strikes us as a good bet not to finish his term—his age, his temperament, the anti-synergy between his business interests and his White House life, the latter not helped by his classy in-laws... the seminal fact of Mr. Trump’s time was how quickly his critics sank to his conspiracy-mongering level and worse.
A Turning Point for Trumpinology
A headline in Politico Monday read: “ Trump national security team blindsided by NATO speech.” If this report is correct, President Trump left his top team—national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson —in the dark regarding his May 25 speech at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels. All three officials, Politico reports, believed the president’s address would explicitly affirm his commitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is an attack on all. Only when Mr. Trump began speaking did they realize he had removed the crucial sentence, reportedly with encouragement from chief strategist Steve Bannon.
.. The president withheld information from his top advisers and then forced them to offer “awkward, unconvincing, after-the-fact claims that the speech really did amount to a commitment they knew it did not make.”
.. veteran national-security scholars and officials who regard this as a turning point in their assessment of the administration. Until now they believed Mr. Trump’s experienced advisers would be able to run American foreign policy along more or less conventional postwar lines
.. They no longer believe this. Instead, they say, his modus operandi will be transactional.
.. a highly placed Asian official who said Washington “is now the epicenter of instability in the world.”
.. Lt. Gen. McMaster and Gary Cohn, the head of the National Economic Council, teamed up to publish a startling defense of Mr. Trump’s crockery-breaking European tour. The key doctrinal sentence runs: “The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”
.. Lest the reader conclude that the authors regard this as a disagreeable reality, they declare: “Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.” Hooray for the war of all against all!
.. There is a lot of daylight between Hobbes and Kant. Anarchy is not the only alternative to World Federalism.
.. Lt. Gen. McMaster and Mr. Cohn continue, “we delivered a clear message to our friends and partners: Where our interests align, we are open to working together.” The implication is that where they do not, we aren’t.
.. What about doing the right thing for its own sake, as President George W. Bush did when he placed America’s moral authority and material resources behind the global struggle against AIDS?
.. President Truman and Secretary of State George Marshall had learned the answer to these questions from Franklin Roosevelt : In the long run, the U.S. will not survive as an island of democracy in a sea of autocracy.
.. By contrast, Mr. Trump embraces self-interest wrongly understood, and his enablers, who surely know better, are helping him peddle this poison as medicine.
.. Yes, NATO partners should contribute more to the common defense. But even if they paid nothing, a free and democratic Europe would still serve the interests of the U.S.
Why Russia Supports Assad
They have vital interests in the region. Appealing to the moral high ground won’t change their position.
Russia is not supporting the Syrian regime with considerable military power because they like Assad or his despicable policies.
Their objective is to enhance their ability to exert influence in the region, stabilize areas near their own borders that contain large Muslim populations, and ensure continued access to their Mediterranean port at Tartus.
.. Russia is not supporting the Syrian regime with considerable military power because they like Assad or his despicable policies.
Their objective is to enhance their ability to exert influence in the region, stabilize areas near their own borders that contain large Muslim populations, and ensure continued access to their Mediterranean port at Tartus.
.. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was dismissive of Tillerson’s advice: “I believe everyone realized a long time ago that there is no use in giving us ultimatums. This is simply counterproductive,” she said.
.. Russia is acting in ways consistent with how it sees its national-security interests in the region. Until senior U.S. leaders recognize this fact and order our own behavior accordingly, we can count on a continual worsening of relations with Russia and other competing powers.
.. In 1971 the USSR signed an agreement with then-dictator Hafaz al-Assad for access to the Syrian naval base at Tartus, which is still in effect today. It is Russia’s only naval access to the Mediterranean, and they are not going to give it up. There is no rational basis upon which to expect Russia to renounce its support for Syria.
.. It can be assumed, however, that Putin will not support any outcome that results in a Syrian government that is not friendly with Moscow.
Why the white working class votes against itself
Hillary Clinton’s unexpected loss, particularly in traditionally blue strongholds, has led to lots of rumination about what the Democrats must do to reclaim their political territory. Smarter marketing, smoother organization, greater outreach and fresher faces are among the most commonly cited remedies.
But there seems to be universal agreement, at least among the Democratic politicians and strategists I’ve interviewed, that the party’s actual ideas are the right ones.
- expansion of health-insurance subsidies for low- and middle-income Americans;
- investments in education and retraining;
- middle-class tax cuts; and a higher minimum wage.
.. raising the minimum wage would unfairly narrow the pay gap between diligent folks such as themselves and people who’d made worse life choices.
“That son of a b—- is making $10 an hour! I’m making $13.13. I feel like s— because he’s making almost as much as I am, and I have never been in trouble with the law and I have a clean record, I can pass a drug test,” said one participant... Americans (A) generally associate government spending with undeserving, nonworking, nonwhite people; and (B) are really bad at recognizing when they personally benefit from government programs... it’s no wonder that Trump’s promises — to re-create millions of (technologically displaced) jobs and to punish all those non-self-sufficient moochers — seem much more enticing.No American likes the idea of getting a “handout” — especially if they believe that handout is secretly being rerouted to their layabout neighbor anyway.