… but it’s nervous laughter. Via commentor EBT, a report from Reuters:
One day before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japanese officials said they had not finalized when or where in New York it would take place, who would be invited, or in some cases whom to call for answers…
Japanese and U.S. officials said on Wednesday the State Department had not been involved in planning the meeting, leaving the logistical and protocol details that normally would be settled far in advance still to be determined.
“There has been a lot of confusion,” said one Japanese official.
The meeting was only agreed to last week and Trump and his advisers have been busy in meetings at his headquarters in Manhattan’s Trump Tower in recent days to work out who gets which job in the new administration.
While world leaders sometimes hold loosely planned bilateral meetings at regional summits, it is unusual for foreign leaders to hold high-level diplomatic talks in the United States without detailed planning. Abe is on his way to an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that to his knowledge, Trump’s transition team had not been in contact with the department either to discuss the transition of government or to seek information ahead of his meetings with foreign leaders…
Trump on Wednesday denounced reports of disorganization in the team, singling out the New York Times for saying world leaders have had trouble getting in touch with him since his upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 presidential election.
The Republican real estate magnate said on Twitter he had taken “calls from many foreign leaders despite what the failing @nytimes said. Russia, U.K., China, Saudi Arabia, Japan.”
The Times, a frequent target of Trump’s Twitter blasts, said on Tuesday that U.S. allies were “scrambling to figure out how and when to contact Mr. Trump” and blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach him…
Trump and Pence had spoken to 29 foreign leaders, the transition team said on Wednesday…
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, an army general who seized power three years ago, appears to have been the first leader to speak to Trump after the election, ahead of closer allies like the leaders of Britain and Germany…
Australian media reported that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was the second leader Trump spoke to, after the Australian ambassador to the United States got Trump’s personal phone number from Australian golfer and Trump friend Greg Norman.
Trump also talked on the phone to the leaders of Britain, Germany, Turkey and other allies.
But a phone call on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which the two men agreed to aim for “constructive cooperation,” raised eyebrows among Democrats and traditionalist Republicans worried about a resurgent Moscow.
Trump also met Britain’s anti-EU Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage at Trump Tower last weekend, ahead of any meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
State Department spokesman Kirby said: “There’s been no outreach to date” from Trump’s transition aides. “But it’s not for us to approve or disapprove of conversations that the president-elect is having or may have in the future with foreign leaders.”…
President-Elect Smallgloves thinks he can run the country the way he’s run his businesses — gladhanding other machers, networking a non-stop round of ‘incidental’ meetings where his peers / temporary allies can be schmoozed or bullied into the best yooooge deals for Donald Trump, and maybe secondarily Trump’s temporary associates. Apart from all the normal problems with that approach to international diplomacy, there’s the very real issue that Trump’s business history shows that he can be rolled by any half-competent challenger — his only ‘success’ has been in fleecing the vulnerable and siphoning unearned profits through semi-legal shell corporations. Although he had a pretty good career as a reality-show figurehead, if only his handlers could convince him to stick with that role while the serious people do the backstage work.
Prime Minister Abe has a reputation for his “light touch with geopolitical strongmen.” Assuming Thursday’s meeting even takes place (it’s certainly not past imagining that Trump’s “team” might be too busy infighting or just too incompetent to get their man in the right place at an appointed time, an error they would no doubt defend as ‘keeping the foreigners guessing’), it’ll be… instructive to hear what the two sides say afterwards.
Major Major Major Major
Slate has a good piece about how Sanders and Warren are fucking up the anti-Trump resistance: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_democrats_are_already_screwing_up_the_trump_resistance.html
Ian
What could possibly go wrong with spurning or ignoring global leaders?
Equally scarily, they say the Russian Trolls are going to go full after Merkel next.
kdaug
Everyone look at your hands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjPau5QYtYs#t=166.836073
John Revolta
Sadly, it’s not just Trump that’s the global fucking laughingstock.
MisterForkbeard
I’m starting to think Trump will be less awful than previously feared, if just because he doesn’t have the basic competence to actually follow through on his horrible policies and promises.
I mean, it’ll still be amazingly bad. But it looks like he’s being treated as an incompetent buffoon/aberration rather than other countries saying “This is America going forward”, so at least there’s that. And he can’t even get his transition team together, let alone the cabinet.
I suppose he doesn’t need to be organized to rubber-stamp the stuff McConnell and Ryan send him, though.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: Until proven otherwise I’m assuming these rules apply.
Calming Influence
Possibly prissy liberals need to get their heads around things like going to the supermarket wearing a “Trump has a tiny dick!” t-shirts, and not fainting when a Democrat says something crude, because this is going to be a street fight. These are the new rules. Suck it up and be thankful we’re not in an actual shooting civil war (yet).
dogwood
@Major Major Major Major:
Are you really shocked by that?
Major Major Major Major
@dogwood: Warren, a little.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: I’m not betting on either 2 or 3 – it’s basically just that Trump hasn’t displayed any ability to actually get his shit together yet. He’s failing at what’s supposed to be the EASY part of the job, which is getting people to work for you and showing up to do the work.
I fully expect him to try and be awful, and for congress/military/Supreme Court/media to roll over for him. But I suspect he’ll be less effective than he’d want if just because he’s a gigantic fuckup and can’t be arsed to do the work. So instead we’ll get garden-variety conservatism when he signs off on Ryan’s wet dream legislation, but he’ll just suck too much at the job to really do well.
And in terms of America’s global standing, I think he’ll be treated like Bush was once he’s out in 4-8 years: Almost universally recognized as horrible, and hopefully a one-off thing while Democrats repair the damage he caused.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Yes, I’m surprised by Warren. So disappointed in her, but not surprised by Bernie, sadly.
Calming Influence
I of course promote civil discourse when appropriate. I just don’t think that right now, with a narcissistic authoritarian about to take the top leadership position in our government, civil discourse is appropriate.
BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: Agreed.
NR
@Major Major Major Major: Except Sanders already explicitly said that if Trump hurts nonwhite Americans, he would vigorously oppose him, so I’m not sure what this Slate writer is bitching about here.
Ian
@MisterForkbeard:
I don’t see how the inability to get things done and rubber stamp congress are considered different. Bush 2 couldn’t complete anything to save his life, but could still rubberstamp gooper bullshit. Getting things done is long gone in the hallmark of what gooper voters want. Burning it down is more accurate.
jenn
Hey, I wanted to share Hillary’s speech for the Children’s Defense Fund. What a good woman. I admit to some tears!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH8asjCdvc0
CarolDuhart2
Just as I said elsewhere-Trump has the Leaden Touch. Everything he touches turns to shit-I almost said literally-but real shit could at least become compost. I just wish America wasn’t going along for the ride with him. And so far, everyone with even minimal competence seem to not want to work with him or for him. They sense that life working with him and his appointees would be an everlasting river of suck-temper tantrums, high drama, et cetera. Yes, the pay isn’t bad, but it doesn’t help if you spend all your extra money on ulcer and migraine medication.
SWMBO
My daughter sent me this and I thought it was worth posting on LTG Flynn thread.
First, other countries have folks that think like we do.
https://www.facebook.com/AodhanORiordain/videos/1188963984497158/?autoplay_reason=gatekeeper&video_container_type=0&video_creator_product_type=2&app_id=2392950137&live_video_guests=0
This is what she sent to help me (and others) get organized and have a coherent message on each topic. Beats having to make it up as you go.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/174f0WBSVNSdcQ5_S6rWPGB3pNCsruyyM_ZRQ6QUhGmo/htmlview?usp=embed_facebook&sle=true
CarolDuhart2
@Ian: But Bush could at least get semi-competent people to work with him, like Cheney and some others. Bush, through his father, had some connections to draw on as well. Trump isn’t a long-established member of the elite who could draw on school chums, old governmental contacts (as Governor of Texas). He has no track record in getting these people, or many people on board.
dogwood
@opiejeanne:
People fall in love with politicians before they know much about them. I think the internet encourages it.
dogwood
@jenn:
I teared up a bit at that speech too. As I heard her tell the story of her mother on the train I was sad that she didn’t speak that way during the campaign. Those types of stories are what people remember when they leave a campaign event. You need to draw people in emotionally as well as intellectually.
Juice Box
I imagine that the Donald will wipe the smile off the world’s face pretty damn quick, once he takes over. They may be smiling now….
dogwood
@CarolDuhart2:
This isn’t even remotely comparable to Bush. He had a very smoothe transition, and they had a shorter time to do it. Plenty of bad things happened during the Bush years, but the White House wasn’t a giant clusterfuck. Obama had a smoothe transition in the middle of a financial crisis that was aided by complete cooperation from the Bush administration. That’s how it is supposed to work. That’s how professionals do things. This mess we’re seeing now is unprecedented and shouldn’t be tolerated.
Also too. Sorry Carol I was replying to Ian.
WarMunchkin
@dogwood: It’s just horrible how Bush is “vindicated by history” simply because the future got so bad. I think Bush is a goddamn war criminal who irreparably damaged our national values and integrity, not to mention the lives lost because of Iraq. But I will gladly take a third term of him over this horror.
magurakurin
@Major Major Major Major: fuck those two. Old white people. I’m done with old white people. I’ll be 54 in a couple weeks. I want someone younger than me leading the charge. Where are the youth?
Smitty
@Calming Influence: Mock Trump-Barnum and his followers at every opportunity. No normalcy for them. Make it an embarrassment to be on their side. Make them hide in their basements. Use a pointy stick whenever possible. Forget reason. Throw sand in their eyes. Do not relent until their lizard brains tell them to retreat back under their bridges. Expose Trump Tower as the world’s chintziest toilet.
Steeplejack (phone)
Read this earlier, and I’m still laughing about:
It’s gonna be Rat Pack diplomacy all the way.
weaselone
@MisterForkbeard:
1. Trump doesn’t need to be competent to be a complete disaster. The National Socialists were actually in large part incompetent, as was Hitler. Without their mistakes during the war, allied victory may have been more difficult to achieve.
2. Even if we could disregard Trump due to incompetence, there are more than enough congressional Republicans who are equally frightening. There’s already a bill that essentially criminalizes protest as “economic terrorism”, it’s almost guaranteed we’ll see federal level voting restrictions put in place and that’s in addition to the generic garbage policies Republicans always push when they’re in power.
Tokyokie
Face saving is a YUUUUUUGE part of Japanese culture, and were Trump to essentially blow off a meeting with Abe, it would catastrophically affect U.S.-Japanese relations for the entirety of his term of office. And I doubt he cares. Or has anybody close to that know dick about Japan. And I doubt he cares about that, either. Yikes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MisterForkbeard:
That assumes Trump doesn’t just attack them for not being under Trump’s personal control. Trump is a narcissists after all.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@weaselone:
The Nazis were very competent about tactics and had a lot of skilled people in their party. It was strategy they utterly sucked at.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Major Major Major Major: Like I said, you want liberals and Democrats to be in the wilderness for the next 16 to 20 years put Bernie in charge and apparently Warrant too. No surprise at all.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap: Goddamn autocorrect.
eyelessgame
I’ll tell you what keeps me up at night.
It isn’t that Putin wanted Trump as president.
It’s why Putin wanted Trump as president.
I think about that, and I get the willies.
Calouste
@eyelessgame: Putin wanted Trump as President to weaken the West. He wants Russia back where it was at its greatest extend, and have all its neighbors, as far as they haven’t been “reunited” with Mother Russia, under its influence. He might have more ambitions than that (Russia’s eternal quest for a warm water port, for example), but I think he regards those as unlikely to happen within his lifetime. But he has to strike a careful balance between weakening the West and weakening their democracies, because having right-wing autocrats in power in the West is sooner or later going to lead to war.
morfydd
@weaselone:
Chill on at least one thing: That proposed legislation is for Washington State, not federal: http://www.king5.com/news/politics/wash-gop-senator-to-introduce-bill-that-criminalizes-protests/353329433
At least for now, I guess.
Vhh
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Heydrich and Eichmann were incredibly effective in setting up the Final Solution. See the dramatization of the Wannsee Conference (based in the notes) for a real chill. Speer organized huge building projects, incl the Autobahns. Krupp, Messerschmitt, Henkel and others made the world’s best weapons. The Nazis may have been loony, but they were also German.
Ab_Normal
@morfydd: Dang. I’m represented by an asshole who will enthusiastically approve of the proposed legislation. Sigh.