Tuesday, October 15, 2019

This time it's different?

It could be. Trump's violation of norms? Meh! Not reading briefing books? Who does? Circumventing diplomatic protocols? Who cares! Vulgar behavior? Just locker room stuff. Cussing?  Get over it, for @#$% sake. One after another, these instances of unprecedentedly terrible behavior have been brushed aside.

But this time Trump's capitulation to Erdogan's request to "get out of the way or be run over" (imagining and paraphrasing the phone call, Sunday October 6th), to be crudely cynical, has the makings of some real "made for TV" moments, and is right in Trump's reality-game-show wheelhouse. Except this doesn't look good for him and he can't stage manage the consequences.

Images of fleeing refugees, shelling, burning buildings, and troop convoys flying flags from 'mainly Muslim countries', all unleashed by an ill-considered spur-of-the-moment decision, made without consultation with military experts, show clearly enough for even the most willfully blind Trump supporter the appalling consequences of a having a fake president, one who refuses to take his enormous responsibilities seriously, who treats experts with contempt and who, astonishingly, thinks himself a "stable genius" with "great and unmatched wisdom". If this isn't enough to change minds, nothing will be.           

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