PeterS

Of course that's our conservatives dream too!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/trump-is-fulfilling-russias-dream-of-splitting-the-west.html

One of Russia’s principal foreign-policy goals for decades has been to split the United States from is allies. Whether by accident or by design, President Trump appears intent on bringing that dream to fruition.

The most immediate theater of Western disarray is today’s G7 meeting in Canada. Trump has been fomenting a trade war, hurling wild and largely groundless accusations at America’s allies. “Why isn’t the European Union and Canada informing the public that for years they have used massive Trade Tariffs and non-monetary Trade Barriers against the U.S. Totally unfair to our farmers, workers & companies,” he demands. “Take down your tariffs & barriers or we will more than match you!”

Western trade partners have attempted to reason with Trump’s demands, but the problem is that the basis for his beliefs and actions is entirely fantastical. If your neighbor is irate that you let your dog run loose in his yard, you can pacify him. If he’s irate that you are reading his thoughts through his tinfoil hat, there’s nothing you can do except disengage. And that is what they are doing. French president Emmanuel Macron threatened to sign a six-country agreement omitting the U.S. altogether. Canadian prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed “to defend our industries and our workers” and “show the U.S. president that his unacceptable actions are hurting his own citizens.”

But trade is merely a symptom of a larger rearrangement of American alienation from its partners. The West has attempted to prevail upon Trump to retain, in some form, a series of agreements he inherited: the T***s-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate agreement, and the Iran nuclear deal. In every instance the negotiations foundered on Trump’s allergy to compromise and immunity to reason. You can’t negotiate a climate plan with a person who considers climate science a Chinese h**x any more than you can negotiate a trade deal with somebody who believes Canada must be punished for the War of 1812.

The mutual loathing contains both a personality component and a structural component. One by one, Trump’s personal relationship with the leader of each major U.S. ally has been fatally poisoned. Angela Merkel, whom Trump had repeatedly taunted and likened to Hillary Clinton during his campaign, was the first major leader to give up on Trump. “It’s difficult to overstate just how enraged Germany is about Trump,” reports Matthew Karnitschnig. Trump’s allies tell one British newspaper he “has grown frustrated with Theresa May’s ‘school mistress’ tone.” (May publicly corrected Trump’s circulation of f**e videos blaming Muslims for violence.) Trump “has griped periodically both about German Chancellor Angela Merkel — largely because they disagree on many issues and have had an uneasy rapport — as well as British Prime Minister Theresa May, whom he sees as too politically correct,” his advisers tell the Washington Post.

Macron, who has bent over backwards to flatter and placate Trump, has found his efforts unrewarded. A recent phone call between the two was “terrible,” a source tells CNN. “Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticized like that.”

It’s not as if Trump is unable to get along with anybody. He has drawn our country closer to a variety of despots: in the Gulf states, North Korea, China, and of course Russia. There is an element of personality involved here. Trump admires strongmen. “Who are the three guys in the world he most admires?” a Trump adviser told the Post last year. “President Xi [Jinping] of China, [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and Putin. They’re all the same guy.”

Relatedly, strongmen have the ability to deal with Trump in what is euphemistically described as “t***sactional” terms. China spent hundreds of millions of dollars enhancing the value of a Trump property, and in turn was quickly granted a reprieve for a telecommunications firm that had broken American law. “Those regimes take a t***sactional approach. Many American allies have relied on appeals to reason, data and shared values,” reports Politico, which also quotes a former Trump official helpfully explaining, “If you’re not a despot, you can’t really be t***sactional.” This clarifies the euphemism, because of course a democratic leader can be t***sactional. Democratic countries negotiate t***sactions all the time. What they can’t do is hand out bribes.

No country has taken a more “t***sactional” approach toward Trump than Russia, and no country has seen its investment rewarded so richly. As he boarded his plane to the G7 meeting he was about to tear up, Trump told reporters he believed Russia should be readmitted into the group: “It may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run … They should let Russia back in.”

Russia was expelled after invading and seizing territory from its neighbor, among other aggressive actions — including murdering people overseas, menacing other neighbors and, not incidentally, committing cybertheft against the Democratic Party as part of its operation to help elect Trump. Last night, The Wall Street Journal reported Russia has asked Austria — another friendly country with a far-right leader — to organize a meeting between Putin and Trump this summer. The Trump administration “is pondering the offer.”

The rise of Donald Trump has been met with a persistent strain of denial. First domestically, and then abroad, his would-be partners greeted the unfathomable e******n of an uneducable demagogue by convincing themselves he didn’t really mean ravings that passed for his official policies, and that they could reason with, co-opt, or otherwise negotiate with him. Trump’s domestic counterparts grasped reality more quickly than his international partners.

“Senior government officials in Washington, London, Berlin, and other European capitals” tell Susan Glasser “they now worry that Trump may be a greater immediate threat to the alliance than even authoritarian great-power rivals, such as Russia and China.” Trump might be a greater threat to the West than Putin. Worse, he might be, in a sense, the very same threat.

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

I would love to see Mr. Trump open up trade with Russia, if only for their unlimited resources of lumber and hardwoods, in order to keep the spiraling cost of housing down here in the United States.
Go Trump. Make America Greater.

Loki Loc: Georgia

I see our resident realpolitik expert in his own eyes bulls**t artist is hard at work, accessing a left wing pundit who can articulate what you cannot. (Of course, articulating what you cannot is hardly cause for boasting, is it?)
You could put your knowledge of the real world into a shot glass and have plenty of room left for the shot.
You, and people like you, who wish the United States to be a satrapy in some sort of multinational progressive socialist government, denigrate someone who puts America first. Of course a lot of world leaders don't like Trump, he won't kiss their ass. Even worse, he is making nice with Russia and demanding that ingrate Europeans start paying their share and seeing to their own defenses.
I'm so surprised that someone with your self proclaimed expertise in all things could not see this. After all, you've never served in the military but you have no problem castigating those of us who have. You have never held elective office, (unless you count that failed campaign for 3rd grade bathroom monitor so you could look at the other boys' wee wees) you have no grasp of the realities of the world situation, yet you are quick to offer your useless opinion there also.

PeterS

I thought the problem with Canada was they were flooding out market with wood products. So now you want Russia to flood ours too! And I thought you guys wanted to buy American? What a bunch of hypocrites your really are!!!

PeterS

Oh gosh, you always hurt me so bad Loki. You are such a wordsmith--too bad you aren't very good with words. And a Multi-National Progressive Government? WTF are you talking about? Good god man, you and Blade Runner seem to have been living in the same shot glass. And, are you attacking the article because I saw nothing about a Multi-National Progressive Government in it. That can only mean that once again you are simply spinning more fallacies because you are lacking in your ability to read an article and comment on it. You are more like Blade Runner than I thought--hell you two wouldn't take up as much space as you say I would in a shot glass. Now that's what I call pretty pathetic. I know they aren't big words but they [pretty and pathetic] describe you so very well.

Loki Loc: Georgia

I was not referring to the article when I said multi-national government, I was referring to your own druthers, little boy. Go scratch your fleas elsewhere. I'm surprised you even knew a word like fallacy. It probably caught your eye because you confused it with phallic.
When I was a child, I spent quite a bit of time on my grandparents' farm. You remind me of what I used to scrape off my boots after cleaning out the chicken house, except that unlike you,the chicken droppings never pretended to be anything else.

PeterS

You were talking about me? So when did I ever suggest we become a multi-national government? As for the word fallacy--I learned it by reading the druthers of those mentally less endowed mentally such as individuals like yourself. So point our a single thing where I ever suggested a desire for a multi-national government or is this something created by a fallacy riddled brain such as yours. I mean I find it hysterical that the only way you can have a "debate" is by denigrating your opponent in someway or another. I've found that usually when people do that it's a form of projection where you are simply trying to paint others with the problems you yourself face? So are you actually calling yourself names Loki or are you so depraved that you can only converse with other by denigrating them in one way or another?

Loki Loc: Georgia

I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy of someone who calls a veteran a t*****r when he himself has never possessed the requisite gonads to put his own precious ass into a uniform. Your posts are the self-righteous bombast of a back seat driving sniveler. I thought I told you to go scratch your fleas, or continue picking your nose and devouring the results of your nasal strip mining endeavors, or wh**ever it is you do. You should avoid offering opinions on matters about which you know nothing. That would include pretty much everything.

"As for the word fallacy--I learned it by reading the druthers of those mentally less endowed mentally such as individuals like yourself."
*****
I don't think you have a handle on that coherent sentence business yet, Kweeksdraw. Keep practicing.

PeterS

Sorry, but with Vietnam coming to an end those of my ilk didn't see the benefit to enlisting. It had nothing to do with gonads and everything to do with watching one useless war end and having do desire to enlist for the next one. As for calling you a t*****r I am simply stating what knowingly v****g for someone who is accused of treason is. You're the one who v**ed for Trump knowing that it very possible that he colluded with the Russians in order to be elected. I know for certain, if the coin flipped, that you would be calling anyone who v**ed for hillary the same.

As for the coherent sentence, I was just regurgitating yours. Perhaps you aren't the wordsmith you envisioned or at least you haven't figure out how to do so without spinning fallacies--that's for sure...

Loki Loc: Georgia

You obviously have never figured out the difference between "accused" and convicted. You just as obviously have no desire to figure it out. You have let your dislike of Trump lead you into a very bad place, cupcake. I knowingly v**ed for someone who was infinitely better than Hillary the Harpy. You are the spoiled little boy who didn't get his way. There is one difference between us that is glaringly obvious. I really am as smart as I think I am. You, on the other hand, are a simpering little wannabe poseur who never got over having his lunch money stolen. As I said, your practical knowledge of politics is limited to your failed campaign to become third grade bathroom monitor so you could look at the other little boys' wee wees.
I suggest you look up...(Oops! I mean have someone look it up for you) the definition of treason. The only one I see giving aid and comfort to this country's enemies are asswipes like you who never met a wetback you didn't love, or for that matter a C*******t you didn't think was misunderstood until Trump came along. You with your bulls**t patriotism when you were all set to kiss anyone's ass that Obama told you to. Face it, you didn't enlist (I did) because you fancied yourself too righteous and moral and just couldn't be bothered.
As for my being the wordsmith I envisioned, I never claimed to be one. That is a construct of your own frustration at your inability to express yourself. Your "regurgitation" of a sentence I never wrote is just one more example. You incompetent boob, do you realize how inept you are when you screw up a throw up?