This morning’s Presidential tweet storm confirmed a trend I’ve discerned recently.
I’ve had a running (good-natured) argument with other nuke nerds on Twitter about the President’s delusions with regard to North Korea. His tweets and much of the administration action and speech, particularly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s, seem to revolve around an assumption that Kim Jong Un is ready to give up his nuclear weapons.
However, every official statement from North Korea says otherwise. Kim sees those nuclear weapons as the foundation of his country’s security from meddling by outside powers. North Korea has long used the word “denuclearization” to indicate a state in which they no longer fear attack and thus can give up their nuclear arsenal.
This disjunction is dangerous. It appears that Kim is playing Donald Trump, and Trump is responding. It may mean that Trump will give up alliances with South Korea and Japan for meaningless actions from North Korea. It may mean that at some point he will recognize the disjunction and feel that he has been betrayed by Kim and will allow John Bolton his desire for a war.
The nuke-nerd argument is over when and how Trump’s betrayal or disillusionment will occur. I have argued that he can go for a very long time indeed. That is based on his ability to hold beliefs contrary to reality for some long time. Now we see that that characteristic extends across many policy areas.
The commonality is Trump’s gut. He is smarter than anyone; he has the best brain. He is not bound by mere facts or the intelligence agencies. And he will hold that belief for a very long time.
The central principle is that Trump is the best president ever and that everyone bows to his will. He is also the best negotiator ever. Barack Obama was wrong in everything he did as president. When you look at Trump’s tweets and actions through this frame, they are quite consistent.
Syria
Trump this morning: When I became President, ISIS was out of control in Syria & running rampant. Since then tremendous progress made, especially over last 5 weeks. Caliphate will soon be destroyed, unthinkable two years ago.
Reality: With the United States withdrawing, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is strengthening with Russia’s and Iran’s help.
Afghanistan
Trump this morning: Negotiating are proceeding well in Afghanistan after 18 years of fighting.. ….Fighting continues but the people of Afghanistan want peace in this never ending war. We will soon see if talks will be successful?
Reality: Ending the war in Afghanistan is a good thing. Reports I see are that the United States is giving up a lot.
North Korea
Trump this morning: North Korea relationship is best it has ever been with U.S. No testing, getting remains, hostages returned. Decent chance of Denuclearization……Time will tell what will happen with North Korea, but at the end of the previous administration, relationship was horrendous and very bad things were about to happen. Now a whole different story. I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly. Progress being made-big difference!
Intelligence assessment (from the DNI’s statement): North Korea has not conducted any nuclearcapable missile or nuclear tests in more than a year, it has dismantled some of its nuclear infrastructure, and Kim Jong Un continues to demonstrate openness to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.…we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival.
Southern US Border
Trump this morning: If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!
The southern US border is not mentioned in the intelligence assessment as any kind of danger.
Iran
Trump this morning: The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but……..a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!
The Iranian regime will continue pursuing regional ambitions and improved military capabilities, even while its own economy is weakening by the day.
Domestically, regime hardliners will be more emboldened to challenge rival centrists and we expect more unrest in Iran in the months ahead.
Tehran continues to sponsor terrorism as the recent European arrests of Iranian operatives plotting attacks in Europe demonstrate.
We expect Iran will continue supporting the Huthis in Yemen and Shia militants in Iraq, while developing indigenous military capabilities that threaten US forces and allies in the region.
Iran maintains the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East.
And while we do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device, Iranian officials have publicly threatened to push the boundaries of JCPOA restrictions if Iran does not gain the tangible financial benefits it expected from the deal.
Its efforts to consolidate its influence in Syria and arm Hizballah have prompted Israeli airstrikes; these actions underscore our concerns about the long-term trajectory of Iranian influence in the region and the risk of conflict escalation.
Trump did not mention Russia and China, but the threat assessment lists them as the top threats. The threat assessment also mentions global warming, which Trump scoffs at, as a threat. The full threat assessment is here.
What Trump has said today, he has said many times before. He does not believe the intelligence community when it disagrees with his glorification. In the areas in which he is intervening, the progress is great and good. He probably could sustain this kind of fantasy in his business life, because he had toadies whose job it was to make things go well. Still, he had six bankruptcies.
The presidency is open to public eyes. Other agencies of the government require factual input for analysis. We can all see that Trump’s gut is diverging from reality. That is a recipe for several types of disaster, but, for now, Trump seems to be robustly resistant to reality.
The Dangerman
Along with about 30 to 40% of the population.
I hope I live long enough to see the history that’s written about this era (assuming, ya know, we live through it).
ETA: I still feel Muellermas coming; it HAS to be soon or the RWNJ will just say it’s the Deep Sate trying to influence 2020.
bbleh
So what’s the plan then? Keep him in a Truman Show bubble, lose or tangle up or water down his directives in the bureaucracy, assure the rest of the world that there are still adults in the playroom, and when all else fails distract him by chumming the waters with a few criminal tidbits from his business history?
MattF
There’s another factor, at least, wrt to Afghanistan– I think Trump simply believes what Putin tells him. “It’s the terrorists.” And that’s that.
I think it’s generally true that Trump will take Putin’s word as Gospel, but, otoh, we simply don’t know all the disinformation that’s been fed to Trump from that channel.
Cheryl Rofer
@bbleh: I don’t know that there is a plan beyond the various assistants and officials in the government doing what they feel is best for themselves and/or the country. He seems quite resistant to anything but flattery. Certainly to facts that contradict his worldview.
Cheryl Rofer
@MattF: Believing Putin and Kim is a subset of his self-aggrandization. Kim clearly knows how to play to it. Putin probably does too, and there may be more there as well.
Mike in DC
My worry about the Afghanistan negotiations is that we make a bad deal, the Taliban is legitimized, then they wait a year or two for us to leave before restarting and winning the civil war. They kill a bunch of moderates, the rest become refugees and we look awful.
daveNYC
I think as long as Kim keeps inviting Trump over for some quality pomp and circumstance, the concept of betrayal won’t enter Trump’s mind. The dude is pretty shallow.
Yarrow
Except for understanding that Putin owns him. He’s made that pretty clear by his words, actions and even body language when interacting with Putin.
bbleh
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes, my less-than-half-tongue-in-cheek suggestion is entirely about containment and damage control and running out the clock, and nothing about persuading him.
Cheryl Rofer
@Mike in DC: That is a legitimate worry.
FelonyGovt
His publicly contradicting the testimony of our intelligence agencies is very alarming. This situation would be tailor-made for the 25th Amendment, unfortunately, those who would have to act are a bunch of spineless toadies. Can he at least be contained before he blows the world up?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
KJU calls him “your excellency” in those famous letters. I’m convinced that’s more than half of trump’s conviction that his summit was a success, along with “more cameras than the Oscars”.
Didn’t he say, just a couple of weeks ago, words to the effect of “Iran can do whatever they want in Syria”? I’m surprised the mullahs haven’t figured out the “your excellency” gambit. Maybe they’re not cynical enough
Jeffro
This, full stop. Dems, you need to pound this message home: trumpov argues with our IC because the IC’s expertise continues to show how incredibly dumb trumpov is. And in the WH, dumb = dangerous.
Jeffro
And thanks for front-paging this very important issue, Cheryl!
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: I am curious what is the official Russian stance on these issues you have highlighted and how much does it match with the Orange One’s rhetoric.
Yarrow
Cheryl, have you and your fellow nuke nerds taking Trump’s narcissism into consideration when evaluating his actions? I’ve found it enlightening to follow the Hoarse Whisperer’s threads on that. He’s been pretty accurate in predicting Trump’s behavior when looking at it from the view of how a narcissist will respond. So when you say things like:
or
Both of those statements seem to be looking at him as some kind of rational actor with the ability to hold beliefs contrary to reality. I don’t think he is, in a typical sense. I think he’s a toxic narcissist and the best way to understand what he’ll do or not do is through that lens. It’s not his gut, it’s his narcissist personality disorder.
gene108
@Mike in DC:
I think the only way through is to get the Afghan Taliban to put down guns and work within the political process.
The real issue with the Taliban is they were and are heavily funded by Pakistan and probably other Persian Gulf countries. Gulf countries probably view the Taliban as a way to contain Iran, as Afghanistan and Iran share a border.
Even if they lay down guns, all the foreign money and logistical support would help them get ahead of other local political parties.
One of the issues we have not been able to get a handle on is how to cut foreign aid to the Taliban
feebog
Last night’s news that he had an off the record discussion with Putin at the G-20 summit with no translator and no note taker is both troubling and telling. He is a wholly owned asset of the Russian government at this point.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think he flip-flops because one day Putin tells him to pull out of Syria and leave Iran alone, and then John Bolton tells him we must invade Iran, they are terrible.
So depending on who spoke to him last, his policy positions will change
Brachiator
On my way to a seminar.
Anything about Venezuela and why we think it vital to the US?
schrodingers_cat
@feebog: At this point? Probably true since the time he was recruited in the Reagan era.
Kenneth Kohl
Oh, good. Another fanciful, action movie plot for donnienumbnuts,
https://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-wont-rule-sending-troops-colombia-152905694–politics.html
Operation Recoprocity!
rk
@feebog:
I’m not worried. Neither of them can speak English.
Baud
@Mike in DC:
That’s my worry too, but since our side has been clamoring to get out for so long, I’m not sure how much credibility we have on this.
trollhattan
If one proclaims that their relationship with Penelope Cruz has never been better, does Penelope Cruz show up at his door?
Asking for a friend.
FlipYrWhig
@gene108: It’s possible that the president is what educational professionals call “stupid.”
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Dominos. It’s all about the dominos, maaaan.
trollhattan
@FlipYrWhig:
Believe you’ve misspelled “stable genius.”
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: I thought about adding some of that into the post but decided it was long enough already. That could be the subject of another post.
piratedan
well…. here’s something that just came to mind… say that Trump was reasonably well engaged on what the actual realistic threats are… I’m not sure that how he would react and behave with that knowledge would actually be any better than what we’re seeing now.
THAT’S pretty damn scary…..
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Did Imran Khan winning in Pakistan change the dynamics in Afghanistan? IK is a Pathan, and am not sure if that changed the calculus.
ETA: During the partition the Pathans of NWFP did not want to become a part of Pakistan. Their leader, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, also popularly known as Frontier Gandhi was treated poorly by the TPTB in Pakistan. TPTB in Pak were the Punjabi military honchos and the Urdu speaking elite who had migrated from northern India.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: There will always be something.
Cheryl Rofer
@Yarrow: I like to look at what he’s said and done and tried to discern a pattern. Starting from an assumption of toxic narcissism is the opposite of that, but if one concludes that that is the basis of his actions, then one might use that to predict future actions. But a question of when he will break is very individual, so the actions are the best measure of that. And Trump’s history suggests he can go for a very long time.
Cheryl Rofer
@Brachiator: John Bolton said yesterday that it would be good if the US controlled the oil. Or, as Trump put it a while back,
TAKE THE OIL!
Cheryl Rofer
@rk: Putin actually speaks a little English. Melania was with them, and she speaks Russian. A Russian interpreter was also with them.
The Dangerman
@piratedan:
I’ve been pondering something similar on the second cuppa Joe.
Trump can’t really believe he’s smarter than the generals (can he?) or that he’s smarter than the climate scientists (can he?)…
…but he has to keep up this “he’s the smartest, he’s the strongest, he has the biggest (whatever)” to keep the base happy. You know the base. Common clay of the new west and all.
Eventually, he’s gonna be exposed (ewwww) as the Emperor without clothes (ewwww) … and it might be over the wall thing in a couple weeks. His base thinks he is going to go the emergency route and I don’t think he will (and the base will go apeshit again).
jc
Trump will destroy NATO, but it won’t be his fault. Trump will destabilize world peace, but it won’t be his fault. Trump will wreck the economy, but it won’t be his fault. The Russians will help Trump secretly loot millions, but nothing will ever turn out to be his fault, according to half of our political culture. The tax-avoiding billionaire class will never admit blame for anything — the oligarchs operate in the shadows. This has been Reason #567 why America should *never* allow ignorant, narcissistic real estate developers to cheat their way into high public office.
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Based on our success running Iraq’s oil infrastructure? Seem to recall that war totally paying for itself with a little left over, adding to the GWBush budget surplus as he left office. Yup, we should do that again. Democracy, whisky, sexy.
catclub
@gene108:
world’s longest mis-spelling of Saudi Arabia
catclub
@jc:
have nice things.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: Based on his past history I’m not sure Trump will “break.” Look at the recent shutdown. Nancy Pelsoi won that battle decisively. Trump got nothing. He even had to go out to the Rose Garden and make a speech about how much nothing he got. He didn’t look happy about it, but he regroups and goes forward. Whatever lies he has to tell himself to do that, that’s what he’ll do. He got the best deal. He’s still getting his wall. He’s the best negotiator.
I agree with you that he can go on a long time. My take is that whatever he does will be some combination of what he has to do for Putin and feeding his toxic narcissist gaping empty hole of need. Carrots and sticks will play into that. Putin threatens to make something public–stick. Kim flatters him–carrot.
Edit:
@Cheryl Rofer:
Forgot to add that I appreciate your more scientific approach and analysis. It’s helpful to look at it that way.
catclub
@The Dangerman:
1. when did they first go apeshit? How much did they break then? Who did they depose?
2. how long will it take to re-charge their hoverrounds?
Yarrow
@The Dangerman:
Yes. That’s what narcissists do.
catclub
@Mike in DC: I think this will happen almost whenever we withdraw, so why not withdraw and get it over with? There is no trend in news that this is becoming less likely with time.
hilts
Trump’s national security posture summed up in one gif
https://twitter.com/AllanMargolin/status/1090662663833702400
Cheryl Rofer
@trollhattan: The neocons, including Bolton, also seem unable to get beyond their intensely held convictions.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Please, Saint Mueller, ora pro nobis. Keep us from being nuked into a sheet of glass until thy work on earth is most thoroughly and irreversibly done. Amen.
bbleh
@The Dangerman: Now we’re into psychology, but I don’t think he cares much about actually being “smarter than” the military or the scientists, nor about the ultimate effects of whether his view or theirs actually controls events, so long as he appears to be in control, both to the base and to himself. It’s central not just to his political standing but to his own self-esteem. And of course his major guide to how he appears is the media, and Fox in particular, which is why he obsesses so much over them.
I concur that he’s reluctant to use the national-emergency thing, if only because he hasn’t used it already: if he thought it was a winner, he would have pushed that button weeks ago. So if Congress are smart, they will give him just enough of a crack to wiggle through and declare victory. Certainly if he believes he has won, and Fox doesn’t undermine him for some reason (which they have every incentive not to do — talk about codependent!), he can sell the base, and all is well. So I think the question is, what can they come up with that allows everyone to declare victory? That committee is a barrel of catfish — if they can’t come up with something sufficiently slippery, I don’t know who can.
trollhattan
@Yarrow:
You’re right of course–He, Trump cannot fail, he can only be failed.
An added important component is surrounding himself with people constantly telling him how smart he is, such a winnah. I suspect he didn’t appreciate the Mooch, poetically telling him that he’s the best ball-kisser he’s ever seen. The best!
Yarrow
@trollhattan: I found this thread interesting. Click through for more.
Adam L Silverman
The negotiations do not include the Afghan government we’ve been supporting because the Taliban considers them illegitimate. Basically we are negotiating terms for both our surrender and that of the Afghan government without any inputs from the Afghan government. Getting out of Afghanistan makes sense, or, at least, severely reducing our military role, especially if it is done in a smart manner in conjunction with the Afghan government and our NATO allies. However, what the President is doing through his representatives is the opposite of this.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: That sounds terrible. This is going to have negative consequences for Pakistan and India too. So what happens to the government in power in Afghanistan.
The Moar You Know
@schrodingers_cat: The few who are not in the pay of the Taliban already end up getting murdered in videos available for viewing on such cesspits of the internet as “Awesome Gore”.
PJ
@Adam L Silverman: What do you think the odds are this will look like Vietnam in 74/75 and the Taliban will have an easy push to take control again?
JaySinWA
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: We can’t rely solely on Mueller. There has to be preparation for dealing with Trump no matter what comes out of the Mueller investigation. Trump is problematic in ways that are not all criminal.
ETA In fact we may be force by crisis to deal with Trump’s failure before the investigation ends.
Steve in the ATL
@gene108:
Eliminate the internal combustion engine
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: Afghanistan has no petroleum reserves AFAIK. But their Arab sponsors do and they are the bestest friends of Kushie and Orange.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Yep. I didn’t go there because I wanted to stay close to the Worldwide Threat Assessment, and that’s much more recent. But I agree.
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat: precisely.
catclub
@Adam L Silverman:
I do not know if it is still the case, but for a good long while, we were spending twice as much on our military in Afghanistan than the entire GDP of Afghanistan. The numbers I remember are GDP=$25B/yr USMil=$60B/yr
It seems like an awful large spend.
I bet if we had offered the Iraqis $200B to kick out Saddam, they would have.
And that is about 1/10th of what we ended up spending there.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan:
As someone who was there, we never really did. We basically tried to deregulate it, so that the big oil companies could and would come in and do it as a privatized system. It didn’t work really well,
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-ambassador-to-afghanistan-this-deal-is-a-surrender/2019/01/29/8700ed68-2409-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.823c4aee1129
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: @The Moar You Know: Correct. Exile or death. That’s basically it. Normally we’d bring them here to protect them, but given this would make Stephen Miller feel icky, it won’t happen. We’ll just leave them to be slaughtered. And it won’t just be recognizable government officials. The Taliban know every person that’s entered the Afghan military and police. Every school teacher and principle. Every girl whose gone to school and their parents. Every women who’s been working as a professional in government, the military, the police, as physicians or civil servants. Every one of these people, especially the women, girls, and their families, will be targeted. And it will be violent and horrible and completely preventable.
Ruckus
@The Dangerman:
drumpf does think that he is smarter than the generals, the intelligence community, and everyone else. Full stop.
No matter how much proof anyone provides, that is not going to change. No one should work from the position that it might.
PJ
@catclub: Iraq had appx. 25MM people in 2003, Afghanistan had appx. 21 MM. If we took just $1 trillion of the money we spent on both wars and distributed it equally to every citizen of those countries, they would each be $21,700 richer (and I bet that would go a long way in each country).
Adam L Silverman
@PJ: It will look exactly like that.
Timurid
@schrodingers_cat:
The Americans can’t win the war. The Afghan government can’t win. The Taliban can’t win, either. They can cause disruption and disorder indefinitely. They can keep anybody else from winning and governing the country effectively. But if they renege on a peace treaty/power-sharing deal and try to impose one party rule, the war will restart immediately, with many of their former allies turning on them. Especially without a common, foreign enemy to fight against. And if the Taliban manage to hold a commanding position, even for a moment, their deep factional divides will erupt to the surface. (My first question about negotiations with the Taliban is “which Taliban?”) That’s what the whole ISIS in Afghanistan thing was all about. It was never a bunch of Iraqi Baathist agents parachuting into Afghanistan or Afghans waiting around the red phone for orders from Raqqa. It was Taliban factions unhappy with the course of their movement who acted out and appropriated a distinctive and popular brand for themselves.
When people ask me what the future end game is in Afghanistan, I tell them to look at Guatemala and El Salvador right now. A civil war coasting to a halt, a rough power sharing arrangement in which the warring factions retreat to their own enclaves/power bases and agree not to govern, a feeble, nearly powerless state, military and foreign aid money leaving the economy as drug money and resource-plundering corporations/oligarchs flood in. Jobless veterans from both sides becoming gangsters and their foot soldiers.
I’d actually be very happy to be wrong about this, but…
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I saw that op-ed in WashPost but I hadn’t read it, yet.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: No worries. I had pulled the pdf of the assessment and hadn’t had a chance to read it yet today.
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: Operations there are very expensive. And Afghan GDP is very low.
Brachiator
@Timurid:
I don’t see this as a model at all. I don’t think that anyone can predict what might happen.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: What role if any is Pakistan playing in all this. Is Taliban the only show in town who is their local opposition?
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I haven’t been into the granular details on this for a while now as I’ve not been providing support to anyone deployed in Afghanistan, so my general sense is the same as always: Pakistan is playing all sides. More specifically, different parts of the Pakistani government are playing different sides in regards to their own interests. So ISI is doing its thing. The Prime Minister and his office are doing theirs. Etc, etc, etc.
hoodie
It goes without saying that this kind of motivated reasoning is just another example of Trump’s malignant narcissism. Look at Trump’s nearly comical treatment of the Russian collusion issue. A normal person who knew he colluded with the Russians would not have taken a lot of the actions that Trump’s taken, such as firing Comey, that are obviously obstructive and evidence of consciousness of legal jeopardy. Rather, a more normal person who knew he was exposed in this manner would try legal maneuvers and other, more subtle, techniques to avoid legal consequences, irrespective of the internal shame he might experience. However, with a narcissist like Trump, the key is to avoid shame, i.e., feeling bad about oneself in some way (for example, “I’m stupid,” “I’m evil”, etc.). This does not perfectly align with avoiding legal consequences. For example, avoiding legal consequences may be a way to avoid public shame, but often that requires the ability to tolerate a certain amount of private shame (for example, telling yourself that, yes, I screwed up and probably broke the law and need to figure out how to get out of trouble) in the pursuit of avoiding public shame. Hence, Trump at times acts like he thinks that, even if he had colluded with Russia, that would not have been wrong or might even have been the right thing to do. That comes from his impulse to avoid feeling bad about himself, probably because colluding with the Russians was, above all, an incredibly stupid thing to do if you want to be a great president. I can only imagine how much this aspect of his personality drives his lawyers crazy.
in the Great Shutdown Cave, you can see that Trump finessed the public shame of failing to get the wall appropriation by convincing himself that he wasn’t a loser because he was only “temporarily” backing off. He constantly is engaged in this kind of dialog with himself, much of which plays out on Twitter. In this case, he doesn’t believe selected parts of the intelligence community’s findings because he would have to admit his initial (stupid, ill-informed) gut instinct is wrong, which would make him feel like he is stupid. So he doubles down on stupid to avoid the pain. Putting a guy like this in the White House is incredibly dangerous because he is psychically incapable of suppressing his own psychic needs in the interest of the greater good.
M31
@Adam L Silverman:
I think I see the problem here.
catclub
@PJ: Even though I started it, I also know that the problem with ‘taking the money we spent on the military there and doing something better’ is that most of that money spent is spent in the US on military contractors and military healthcare in the US.
Also the salaries of the military are also spent mostly back in the US.
And THOSE people want to get paid.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: @Timurid: Thanks for your assessments. I appreciate it.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard will never ever get a clue. First he would fire Dan Coats and replace him with Jared, while Ivanka would have plenty of time on her hands to run both the FBI and CIA.
dww44
I get almost unbearably angry when I read anything re Trump and his machinations in the foreign policy realm. Given how he downplays the role of diplomacy and undermines his intelligence and military folks, it’s just a matter of time before something goes horribly wrong.
Last night’s reporting on the heretofore unknown meeting in December between Putin and Trump at the G20 with, once again, no other American present proves that, at the very least, he’s a bought and paid for asset of Putin and Russia.
He’s not only not representing America’s interests, he’s selling out our allies. IMO he’s guilty of treason. and should be removed from office, posthaste. The previous President would have long since been removed and thrown into a maximum security prison for any such acts as Trump has committed.
While I can laugh at some of his tweeting and goofs in the domestic arena. he’s seriously dangerous and out of his depth in the foreign one.
Bobby Thomson
I don’t know why anyone would assume Trump is an honest broker about literally anything.
catbirdman
@hoodie: Very good analysis. I agree with everyone here who’s making these points about how fully Trump’s actions are explained via the lens of malignant narcissism. All of his energy is geared toward image-upkeep, and preventing people from seeing the underlying void. One additional point I think relevant is that DT knows that 60% of Americans see through him, and this explains why he explicitly devalues *everyone* in that 60%. Whether it’s Democrats, scientists, the FBI, the State Department, etc. He devalues all of us. The other 40% maintains the fiction of DT as Strong Leader, and thus, in the terminology of narcissistic Personality Disorder, they represent all of his precious “supply.” So long as they either remain enthralled or keep up the charade of being enthralled, he will direct all of his actions toward keeping them in line. Evangelicals have done exceptionally well by limiting their criticism to the quietest “tut-tut” — and Pence himself has been the very caricature of a yes-man. Seth Myers was asking the author of “Team of Vipers” why Kellyanne Conway was allowed to get away with repeatedly bad-mouthing DT to members of the media off-camera, and the simple answer was that she did the opposite on-camera. And that’s literally all that matters to him. He will shut down the government again in two weeks if he thinks that will play the best with his 40%, especially given that he believes this will punish and further devalue the rest of us.
debbie
The nerve of that asshole to call the IC leaders “naive”!
boatboy_srq
@daveNYC: Kim’s pomp and circumstance is Lord Dampnut’s symbology of success.