Democracy Is Not Your Plaything
When the circus comes to Washington, it consumes everything, absorbs all energy.
I seriously do not see the point of arguing about the bows when the Saudis are trying to buy Trumps policy with this military deal.
I would much rather have the discussion about whether or not this deal represents a win for the US (this is problematic because I think most people here would think no)
Whoâs tired of all the winning?
Hey man, I just posted a picture. Then Androgenoid decided to use words he doesnât know, so had to intervene because #WordsMatter EDIT: Believe Me.
Itâs a continuation of support that Britain / US has given to the Saudis since before The First World War. Nothing new here.
I donât think itâs a good deal for the US. It is for defense industry magnates and Saudi royalty, but not for the US. While the Gulf countries saw Obama as weak (for good reason, in many instances), Obama did begin to create some separation from that area in terms of security guarantees and the like. That was a good development. We have needed for some time to put some distance between the US and Gulf countries.
Trump wants to double down on our commitment there on a purported theory the Gulf countries (here, the Saudis) will be robust counterterrorism partners. I donât buy it, and I think thatâs mostly a pretext to what is primarily a trade and industry deal, not a national security one.
Politically, itâs also odd for Trump - he spends a lot of time bashing NATO and Europe for abusing the US security guaranty (although he backtracked some after he got elected), but heâs more than happy to further extend it to Gulf countries? The âAmerica Firstâ wing of Trump supporters should be very confused and angry about this.
All in, this deal doesnât make the US all that safer and certainly doesnât make us more independent- it enriches some industries and companies in exchange for having to (over)commit to intervening in the Gulf.
Totally different now - that was just Game back then. Now Trump has done the electric slide with the woman enslavers and the gay haters, and, uh, MAGA.
Jared Kushner selling green cards to Chinese moguls. Absolutely gross. This is fully indefensible.
I have been more than willing to give the Trump admin the benefit of the doubt, but not if this is how it will proceed.
Speaking of âTotally Differentâ, TB:
" In his speech in Riyadh; the President did not utter the phrase âradical Islamic terrorism,â; words former President Obama declined to use during his time in office, but that Mr. Trump not only used frequently on the campaign trail; but frequently criticized President Obama for not using".
(Must all be part of âThe Gameâ I guess, TBâŠ)
Foreign donors control US foreign policy.
Those foreign donors arenât Russians
Why would he do that in Saudi Arabia? Thatâs inappropriate
OhâŠmy badâŠ
Trump never does or says anything inappropriateâŠ
âŠPutin and the Saudi Crown?
Nah, I wasnât diggin on you mate. I was speaking in general about the situationâto me a bow is not something I am happy the President would do (especially being the leader of the most powerful nation in the world) but the formalism matters less to me than whether our policy choices hurt or help us.
Apologies that wasnât clear.
Is there a point youâre trying to make?
Itâs a continuation of support that Britain / US has given to the Saudis since before The First World War. Nothing new here
Sure, but do you think this new evolution is a change in quality?
Most of you know I like Peggy Noonan. You may not know that she won the Pulitzer Prize for her commentary on the Trump campaign. I liked this Op. Ed.
When the circus comes to Washington, it consumes everything, absorbs all energy.
Paywalled - Long Block of Text.
Democracy Is Not Your Plaything
This will be unpleasantly earnest, but having witnessed the atmospherics the past 10 days itâs what I think needs saying:
Everyone, get serious.
Democracy is not your plaything.
This is not a game.
The president of the United States has produced a building crisis that is unprecedented in our history. The question, at bottom, is whether Donald Trump has demonstrated, in his first four months, that he is unfit for the presidencyâwholly unsuited in terms of judgment, knowledge, mental capacity, personal stability. That epic question is then broken down into discrete and specific questions: Did he improperly attempt to interfere with an FBI criminal investigation, did his presidential campaign collude with a foreign government, etc.
But the epic question underlies all. It couldnât be more consequential and will take time to resolve. The sheer gravity of the drama will demand the best from all of us. Are we up to it?
Mr. Trumpâs longtime foes, especially Democrats and progressives, are in the throes of a kind of obsessive delight. Every new blunder, every suggestion of an illegality, gives them pleasure. âHeâll be gone by autumn.â
But he was duly and legally elected by tens of millions of Americans who had legitimate reasons to support him, who knew they were throwing the long ball, and who, polls suggest, continue to support him. They believe the press is trying to kill him. âHeâs new, not a politician, give him a chance.â What would it do to them, what would it say to them, to have him brusquely removed by his enemies after so little time? Would it tell them democracy is a con, the swamp always wins, you nobodies can make your little choices but weâre in control? What will that do to their faith in our institutions, in democracy itself?
These are wrenching questions.
But if Mr. Trump is truly unfitâif he has demonstrated already, so quickly, that he cannot competently perform the role, and that his drama will only get more dangerous and chaotic, how much time should pass to let him prove it? And how dangerous will the proving get?
Again, wrenching questions. So this is no time for blood lust and delight. Because democracy is not your plaything.
The presidentâs staffers seem to spend most of their time on the phone, leaking and seeking advantage, trying not to be named in the next White House Shake-Up story. A reliable anonymous source who gives good quote will be protectedâfor a while. The president spends his time tweeting his inane, bizarre messagesâheâs the victim of a âwitch huntââfrom his bed, with his iPad. And giving speeches, as he did this week at the Coast Guard Academy: âNo politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.â Actually Lincoln got secession, civil war and a daily pounding from an abolitionist press that thought he didnât go far enough and moderates who slammed his brutalist pursuit of victory. Then someone shot him in the head. So he had his challenges.
Journalists on fire with the great story of their livesâthe most bizarre presidency in U.S. history and the breaking news of its daily misstepsâcheer when their scoop that could bring down a president gets more hits then the previous record holder, the scoop that could bring down the candidate.
Stop leaking, tweeting, cheering. Democracy is not your plaything.
Thereâs a sense nobodyâs in charge, that thereâs no power center thatâs holding, that in Washington theyâre all randomly slamming into each other.
Which is not good in a crisis.
For Capitol Hill Democrats the crisis appears to be primarily a chance to showboat. Republicans are evolving, some starting to use the word âunfitâ and some, as a congressman told me, âtalking like theyâre in a shelter for abused women. âHe didnât mean to throw me down the stairs.â âHe promised not to punch me again.â â
Weâre chasing so many rabbits, we canât keep trackâComey, FBI, memoranda; Russia, Flynn, the Trump campaign; Lavrov, indiscretions with intelligence. Itâs become a blur.
But thereâs an emerging sense of tragedy, isnât there? Crucially needed reforms in taxing, regulation and infrastructureâchanges the country needs!âare thwarted, all momentum killed. Markets are nervous.
The world sees the U.S. political system once again as a circus. Once the circus comes to town, it consumes everything, absorbs all energy.
I asked the ambassador to the U.S. from one of our greatest allies: âWhat does Europe say now when America leaves the room?â Youâre still great, he said, but âwe think youâre having a nervous breakdown.â
It is absurd to think the president can solve his problems by firing his staff. They are not the problem. He is the problem. Theyâre not the A-Team, theyâre not the counselors youâd want, experienced and wise. Theyâre the island of misfit toys. But they could function adequately if he could lead adequately. For months heâs told friends heâs about to make big changes, and doesnât. Why? Maybe because talented people on the outside donât want to enter a poisonous staff environment just for the joy of committing career suicide. So heâs stuck, surrounded by people who increasingly resent him, who fear his unpredictability and pique and will surely one day begin to speak on the record.
A mystery: Why is the president never careful? He doesnât act as if heâs picking his way through a minefield every day, which he is. He acts like heâs gamboling through safe terrain. Thus he indulges himself with strange claims, statements, tweets. He comports himself as if he has a buffer of deep support. He doesnât. Nationally his approval numbers are in the mid to high 30s.
His position is not secure. And yet he gambols on, both paranoid and oblivious.
History is going to judge us by how we comported ourselves in this murky time. It will see who cared first for the country and who didnât, who kept his head and did not, who remained true and calm and played it straight.
Now there will be a special prosecutor. In the short term this buys the White House time.
Hereâs an idea.
It would be good if top Hill Republicans went en masse to the president and said: âStop it. Clean up your act. Shut your mouth. Do your job. Stop tweeting. Stop seething. Stop wasting time. You lost the thread and donât even know what you were elected to do anymore. Get a grip. Grow up and look at the terrain, see it for what it is. We have limited time. Every day you undercut yourself, you undercut us. More important, you keep from happening the good policy things we could have done together. If you donât grow up fast, youâll wind up abandoned and alone. Act like a president or leave the presidency.â
Could it help? For a minute. But it would be constructiveânot just carping, leaking, posing, cheering and tweeting but actually trying to lead.
The president needs to be told: Democracy is not your plaything.
Outstanding article. Just awesome.
Russia? Nah
At least 18 C.I.A. sources were killed or imprisoned in China between 2010 and 2012, one of the worst intelligence breaches in decades. Investigators still disagree about how it happened.