Dear America,
The irony of the administrative maelstrom Trump has created and is perpetuating is that most of what he is doing would have netted him some credibility and perhaps even support if he just hadn't allowed his hubristic delusions of grandeur and narcissism to get in the way. For example, most every American adult would support any effort to make the government more efficient if it were executed by rational adults in a prudent and appropriately circumspect way. But rather than using some sort of sane approach employing sober and competent people, he put the effort into the hands of a fellow narcissist who happens to be, by some accounts at least, an irrational martinet on the autism spectrum who in turn retained a bunch of barely post-adolescent bullies who wear their most egregious quality, a preposterously excessive self-esteem, stamped on their foreheads like gang tattoos. The result has been inhumane chaos and dislocation of workers and programs, many if not most of which have merit and value to us all...we American people.
And then there are the wars, at least one of which he said he would end the first day he was in office; It was an absurd boast when he made it and now it just adds impossibility to its absurdity. Compound his conspicuously inept appraisal of Vladimir Putin's viability as a partner in the quest for peace in Ukraine with his exaggeration of the effectiveness of his one half to two hour phone conversation with that would-be Tsar in Moscow and you have a profound demonstration of Trump's over-wrought self-esteem, which seems to be emblematic of all of his efforts. But again, if he had skipped the braggadocio and kept his commitments to making a diligent and prompt effort to bring the Russian tyrant into reason, everyone would have applauded the effort, and maybe even given him an electoral pat on the back come 2026. But such restraint would have been so un-Trump that it could not have been expected, and indeed wasn't delivered. Nor for that matter was the one day success in pacification of the conflict, even after two months of blathering about it and showing himself to still be the bully he's always been, especially after retaining Roy Cohn as his attorney back when he was a self-proclaimed real estate baron. Then there's Gaza and the Panama Canal.
He couldn't just posit the need for negotiated treaties with Panama and Greenland through the Danish government so as to solidify the American defense posture. That would have been reasonable and even applaudable, but no-o-o-o. Trump's will is not subordinate to the insistence on its own sovereignty of any country, least of all two small ones like Denmark and Panama. The rule for all purposes is, "What Trump wants, Trump gets...period." There can be no, "But what if..." or "that is contrary to international law, not just the American ethos." No...Trump wants, so Trump gets, even if it would require military action, and Trump isn't afraid to say so, or at least imply it. Once again, Trump snatched ridicule and ignominy from the jaws of policy wisdom and credibility. And finally we have Netanyahu and Israel.
As a predicate to my observations about the Trump-Netanyahu nexus let me observe something that I think is profoundly necessary to acknowledge at this time in history. Israel is a political entity. It is not Jewry. It is not the Jewish people of the entire middle-east. It certainly is not the Jewish religion or the philosophy that it entails. Israel is a country existing within the international community of nations. So criticism of Israel or of Netanyahu and his government is not anti-Semitism. It is simply criticism of the nation of Israel and its leadership and its decisions. So declaiming that anyone who supports the right of Palestinians to achieve the autonomy that Israel manifests for Jews is absolutely insane, and if not insane, at least wildly irrational. I, for example, am the son of a Jew and the idea of anti-Semitism--just the idea of it--offends me to my core as it would have my father, who was my one Jewish parent. But I concur with the proposition that the only solution to the millennially long strife in the middle-east is a separate state for the Palestinians: the two-state solution. I do not condone and certainly do not support Hamas and its anti-Israel animus. But as for the Palestinians in the area that Israel has taken to calling "Judea and Samaria" in support of its claim to title to the West Bank of the Jordan River...an area currently inhabited by Palestinians and about 750,000 Israeli interlopers and usurpers, many of whom may be Jews but all of whom are certainly interlopers and usurpers...the Israeli claim of right is as justifiable as would be the claim of a Lenape tribe to ownership of Manhattan. The claim might have some moral credibility, but as to viability, legal or otherwise, it has none. The claim that support for Palestinian rights of sovereignty is tantamount to anti-Semitism is just as outlandish.
For Trump, a pitcher in the annals of history, that's not strike three. It's ball four.
Your friend,
Mike
The irony of the administrative maelstrom Trump has created and is perpetuating is that most of what he is doing would have netted him some credibility and perhaps even support if he just hadn't allowed his hubristic delusions of grandeur and narcissism to get in the way. For example, most every American adult would support any effort to make the government more efficient if it were executed by rational adults in a prudent and appropriately circumspect way. But rather than using some sort of sane approach employing sober and competent people, he put the effort into the hands of a fellow narcissist who happens to be, by some accounts at least, an irrational martinet on the autism spectrum who in turn retained a bunch of barely post-adolescent bullies who wear their most egregious quality, a preposterously excessive self-esteem, stamped on their foreheads like gang tattoos. The result has been inhumane chaos and dislocation of workers and programs, many if not most of which have merit and value to us all...we American people.
And then there are the wars, at least one of which he said he would end the first day he was in office; It was an absurd boast when he made it and now it just adds impossibility to its absurdity. Compound his conspicuously inept appraisal of Vladimir Putin's viability as a partner in the quest for peace in Ukraine with his exaggeration of the effectiveness of his one half to two hour phone conversation with that would-be Tsar in Moscow and you have a profound demonstration of Trump's over-wrought self-esteem, which seems to be emblematic of all of his efforts. But again, if he had skipped the braggadocio and kept his commitments to making a diligent and prompt effort to bring the Russian tyrant into reason, everyone would have applauded the effort, and maybe even given him an electoral pat on the back come 2026. But such restraint would have been so un-Trump that it could not have been expected, and indeed wasn't delivered. Nor for that matter was the one day success in pacification of the conflict, even after two months of blathering about it and showing himself to still be the bully he's always been, especially after retaining Roy Cohn as his attorney back when he was a self-proclaimed real estate baron. Then there's Gaza and the Panama Canal.
He couldn't just posit the need for negotiated treaties with Panama and Greenland through the Danish government so as to solidify the American defense posture. That would have been reasonable and even applaudable, but no-o-o-o. Trump's will is not subordinate to the insistence on its own sovereignty of any country, least of all two small ones like Denmark and Panama. The rule for all purposes is, "What Trump wants, Trump gets...period." There can be no, "But what if..." or "that is contrary to international law, not just the American ethos." No...Trump wants, so Trump gets, even if it would require military action, and Trump isn't afraid to say so, or at least imply it. Once again, Trump snatched ridicule and ignominy from the jaws of policy wisdom and credibility. And finally we have Netanyahu and Israel.
As a predicate to my observations about the Trump-Netanyahu nexus let me observe something that I think is profoundly necessary to acknowledge at this time in history. Israel is a political entity. It is not Jewry. It is not the Jewish people of the entire middle-east. It certainly is not the Jewish religion or the philosophy that it entails. Israel is a country existing within the international community of nations. So criticism of Israel or of Netanyahu and his government is not anti-Semitism. It is simply criticism of the nation of Israel and its leadership and its decisions. So declaiming that anyone who supports the right of Palestinians to achieve the autonomy that Israel manifests for Jews is absolutely insane, and if not insane, at least wildly irrational. I, for example, am the son of a Jew and the idea of anti-Semitism--just the idea of it--offends me to my core as it would have my father, who was my one Jewish parent. But I concur with the proposition that the only solution to the millennially long strife in the middle-east is a separate state for the Palestinians: the two-state solution. I do not condone and certainly do not support Hamas and its anti-Israel animus. But as for the Palestinians in the area that Israel has taken to calling "Judea and Samaria" in support of its claim to title to the West Bank of the Jordan River...an area currently inhabited by Palestinians and about 750,000 Israeli interlopers and usurpers, many of whom may be Jews but all of whom are certainly interlopers and usurpers...the Israeli claim of right is as justifiable as would be the claim of a Lenape tribe to ownership of Manhattan. The claim might have some moral credibility, but as to viability, legal or otherwise, it has none. The claim that support for Palestinian rights of sovereignty is tantamount to anti-Semitism is just as outlandish.
For Trump, a pitcher in the annals of history, that's not strike three. It's ball four.
Your friend,
Mike
