The two headlines don’t seem to go together: North Korea Says It Tested a Hydrogen Bomb Meant for Missiles and Trump Preparing Withdrawal from South Korea Trade Deal, a Move Opposed by Top Aides.
But there’s a fairly simple explanation:
[President Trump has] become increasingly focused on the prospect of losing support among his core supporters — the voters he once said would stick with him even if he shot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue.
“I don’t think it’s a worry or a concern as much as it’s a reality,” Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to the president, said of Trump’s preoccupation with his base. “It’s a reality that he understands politically.”
Polls show Trump losing a bit of ground with some of his core constituencies. A Fox News survey released last week put Trump’s overall approval rating at 41 percent, and notably cited a 7 percentage point drop among conservatives and a 9 point drop among whites without a college degree, one of Trump’s strongest voting groups.
He thinks he needs to attack the trade deal with South Korea to maintain the support of his base. But an actual sane person would be putting that idea on indefinite hold or actually shelving it permanently considering the much more important things we need to be working on with the South Koreans.
But an actual sane person would be putting that idea on indefinite hold or actually shelving it permanently considering the much more important things we need to be working on with the South Koreans.
Yep
On top of that there’s an ongoing genocide happening in Myanmar.
And then when the people fight back they’ll be (already are) referenced as terrorists.
link.
What can I say? We come here for a reason.
Thanks for the link, I can’t remember if I saw this one when it first published.
Yeah, we definitely need a new president.
And a new Secretary of State who doesn’t destroy their own department and understands their job. Trump just threatened to cut off all “business” with anyone trading with North Korea. Then when he inevitably walks that back because he can’t back up such a threat, and we have no State Department negotiating behind the scenes, war becomes more likely.
Then when he inevitably walks that back because he can’t back up such a threat, and we have no State Department negotiating behind the scenes, war becomes more likely.
That’s its own problem though. Would you really trust anyone Trump, or his minions, would want to hire to work at the State Department?
I think the real danger Trump poses is if the insanity worsens and the generals need to intervene/ refuse to carry out an order.
IOW, the Korean threat does not worry me as much as the precedent the generals may have to set to save the country from it’s unhinged leader. Does Mattis/Tillerson lead the pack on a 25th Amendment remedy? Do they put Trump in a coma to facilitate it? Does the government have a plan to mitigate the damage if a traitor is elected? RAND has to have developed something for this type of scenario. Do they use stroke inducing drugs to replace him? Or do they just stroke him out altogether? And just move on?
I think the military is obligated to trigger the events but cannot lead the ‘certification’ of Trump as unfit – it can’t look like a military coup. But once a precedent (public or secret) has been set what does that mean for practical civilian control of the military?
To me that’s the scariest consequence of Trump because it’s already clear that his cabinet, Congress, and other world leaders basically see him as a danger to established order – incompetent at best and a saboteur at worst.
Just to be clear, when this situation occurs in Latin America the generals have already pinpointed the action that will trigger the coup.
And they’re working out the logistics with the CIA.
Never thought, before Bush, that a group of Americans (Republicans) could hate their own values and privileged position in the world to the point they would destroy it out of spite.
But it’s clear Republicans have no qualms about doing so.
Small comfort but the false halo around Suu Kyi is gone.
We had a video conference with her when I was in college when she was still under house arrest. Yeah, that’s a very very small comfort.
For a person who told the world how he liked to be unpredictable he has shown himself to be flatly predictable, even to the deniers.
Hey, Trump’s not worried about Kim what’s-his-name; we’ll just drop a nuke or two on him and his stupid missile sites, and there ya go — problem solved!
Except for the nuclear winter it will cause.
Details, details — and anyway, wouldn’t that make all the libtards happy, what with counteracting their fake global warming? No? Ingrates!
When Trump began campaigning, he and his team of advisers set up his plans for chaos. Their choices for administration posts were all the opposites of who the departments needed: unqualified, uninformed, and ready to chop rules and regulations.
So he cultivated a base of hardcore Republican fanatics. He fed into the White Supremacists as well as the fiscally strict Wall Street types and he managed to garner the support of Evangelicals with promises of ending Planned Parenthood. And he threw in promises of building a bigger military…and all of his promises were couched in lies.
I expect that when more of the lies are exposed, Trump will see a few of the faithful drop away. One would hope that his support of Nazis would have made more fans take note, but there are always going to be those who defend his every move. And his attack on North Korea is something that his solid base will rally behind. It’s Trump as Commander in Chief. He’s their guy.
Any Victim in a Storm.
Trump is trying once again to threaten NK and China. He seems to think this will work. Browbeat everyone to get what he wants. Problem is it isn’t working. So what now? This could turn badly for the world. Any miscalculation and Kaboom! shit breaks loose.
Bush/Cheney tried the ‘Axis of Evil’ gambit which put all the members on high alert to develop nuclear weapons or we’d invade them. So guess what differentiates the remaining uninvaded two from the one we did invade?
The Republicans have devolved from Teddy R’s ‘talk softly and carry a big stick’ to ‘run your fucking mouth about how big your dick is without a semblance of a plan to back it up.’
You could take everything that ever came out of Cheney’s mouth and run it through Trump’s without any alteration. The style and substance are exactly the same, it’s just that Cheney could deliver it sounding like an adult while Trump sounds like a child.
Both are scary as Hell.
the donald has no idea how to use that bully pulpit. The entire administration is clueless as to what to do next. Time to accept NK is a nuclear country and deal with it. If you can accept that reality, then it is time to start negotiating a non aggression treaty.
He gets the bully part
So now he threatens China with trade retaliation. That raises a question. When will China or some other country ( even a friendly) decide it is time to take some precautions? And what will that be? Will it lead to further escalation? Can we really stand whatever it is? We may find our friends are moving away. And Big Hands won’t have a lie to tell them.
After listening to the war mongering news this morning, repeating in large part what we already knew, I am wondering if a long vacation in Canada is not warranted? DerTumpster thinks he can talk the bomb out of Kim with threats of sanctions against him, china and apparently even SK, and if that doesn’t work lets threaten annihilation. Someone, not NK, is not going to like all of that. Would be nice if he sorta said he wanted to talk to lil Kim just to cool down the hate machine for a bit.
Trump doesn’t inspire any confidence that he can contribute to a resolution, let alone lead one. The only confidence he has inspired is that he will make a bad situation worse.
That said, the US has long had a general policy approach of not talking to leaders of nations when it should. This is to show “toughness” that supposedly would scare the hell out of opposing leaders and make them run back and negotiate on our terms. This does not always work, especially when we communicate things like “axis of evil” and unilaterally attack the country that does not have any nuclear capacity. Its like we’re telling them the opposite: please build nuclear weapons.
Bush II decided, out of “toughness,” to rescind the deal Clinton had previously negotiated with North Korea that allowed monitors in to ensure it adhered to non nuclear proliferation, and stop talking to them. And it was rescinded for no good reason, other than it had been negotiated by Clinton. And today they have nuclear weapons and the ability to hit the mainland with them.
We need to open up a dialog, but unfortunately we’re saddled with an immature “child king” who is ill equipped to be a leader on this. Continuing to trade rhetoric and insults, while NK improves its capabilities with each test is going to lead to disaster.
His ego won’t allow him to search for solutions. But he might accept one offered by someone else so long as he can steal the credit for it. But he has stepped off a good deal on this one. Here’s hoping he or someone can find a way to talk him and Kim down.
I am fearful he may use this as an excuse to take it out on China. That move won’t end well. It may be comforting for him to spout nonsense about China stealing jobs but in the end that will net him about zero and the economy will be hurt. And trade wars have also broken out with guns.
He sees the entire world through the lens of winning and losing. And he must win no matter what the cost.
May I point out, just for the record, what a total prick Roger Stone is.
“Sane”
I think you can see your unrealistic expectations right there.
Trump is just mainstream Republican nihilist on steroids. He didn’t think of attacking the South Korean trade deal himself. He’s just not that well informed enough to know that. Somebody else is feeding him this insanity. And it’s just as likely it’s a freedom caucus member as it is Bannon or Alex Jones.
At some point you can also see that Trump is providing cover for all sorts of insanity the Republicans wouldn’t be able to even try with a dunce like Bush II.
At some point you can also see that Trump is providing cover for all sorts of insanity the Republicans wouldn’t be able to even try with a dunce like Bush II.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? I’m old enough to remember when Bush II wanted to do immigration reform and the GOP House caucus wouldn’t hear of it. They were pissed Bush II wasn’t sending more people back to Mexico, Honduras and the rest of Central America. The whole DACA thing tonight isn’t just Trump. It’s a GOP thing.
Bush II is Einstein compared to our Trump.
American tweet: “What’s the difference between a ballistic missile and an ICBM?”
Weep because IC=intercontinental. And there’s that level of cluelessness now. I-See-Bee-Em was much more salient publicly in 1961-1962.
We’ve forgotten much we learned at some cost before. Time to dust off those old RAND Corporation binders on deterrence and game-theory.
Patriotism in the age of Trump:
“Hand me the football.”
“No, Mr. President.”
For the moment, we are counting on the fact that Trump likes the back and forth insult trading and Twitter bullying more than the actual action. And he puts the decision for implementing action on others by delegating. Thus, the military gets to decide the fate of Afghanistan. And Ben Carson gets to tear apart HUD. And the Trade Represtentative likely will have to do the diplomacy with South Korea.
He will not set up clear and unambiguous accountability but at the same time Trump want total loyalty and immediate obedience.
Let’s leave the abnormal psychology characterizations behind; the media and the public find them irrelevant. The problems are more practical in the potential consequences. I’m not sure who the sane people are in DC anymore; it’s clearer who are destructive of the interests of the residents of the US.
On the South Korean trade agreements, the most helpful realization is that it is US corporations that have benefited from those agreements not helping American jobs and workers.