I predict that after about a year of Trump, helped along by a horde of abjectly ignorant, incompetent ambassadors around the world, America’s international reputation will hit an unprecedented new low. MAGAts won’t know or care, but it will seriously undermine America’s influence and soft power. You can’t just send your favourite incompetent loyalists to diplomatic posts all over the world without repercussions.
Keep in mind, in a lot of cases or most cases, the Ambassador is just a fancy title for a rich donor/supporter and they do very little work. It is the staff that takes care of most stuff.
A complete incompetent and/or someone that ignores their staff can cause problems, but generally they don’t make a big difference.
And this is what we have to hope for.
Besides, Trump is more than capable of doing most of the damage himself.
Clipped some text on Trump from David French
NYT Opinion Columnist
Trump has isolationist instincts. His son Donald Jr. and closest allies mock Ukraine. At the same time, however, Trump is far more self-interested than he is ideological, and an American retreat in Syria, or the sight of Russian troops marching in Kyiv, or an Iranian nuclear bomb would all be deeply humiliating to him. They would signal American weakness, which would signal Trump’s weakness.In other words, Trump’s vanity may save us from Trump’s isolationism, but vanity is a poor proxy for a coherent national security strategy.
Trump is a fortunate man: He’s inheriting the conditions for profound foreign policy success. But he’s also inheriting the possibility of failure, and the troubling reality is that his instincts are wrong, his national security picks are flawed, and he may well snatch a series of terrible defeats from the jaws of extraordinary military and diplomatic success.
The problem is, Trump has no idea how to prevent any of that stuff from happening. An Iranian bomb? He already fucked up our best chance of preventing that by withdrawing from the Iran Deal, and then going out of his way to antagonize them. Nothing he says or does will slow down their program by even a second. They’ll continue to work on their bomb when and where they choose to. They have no reason at all to engage with Trump in a serious manner.
trump 2.0: Let’s hope the bull is too old and tired to break too much china.
I fear Iran is now greatly weakened courtesy of Israel…it’s proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah have been greatly weakened if not totally defeated. It’s influence in Syria (via Assad) is hugely reduced and its own ability to wage war on Israel/other countries is now viewed doubtfully by experts.
So Trump is in an advantageous position vis-a-vis Iran. I’m pretty sure Trump will further squeeze Iran with sanctions (he did it in his previous term and almost dared Iran to show up it’s nuclear threat and Iran chickened out). Now Israel dared Iran carrying out high profile assassinations on it’s soil and aerial attacks on its capital and critical infrastructure but there was no nuclear threat by Iran. Also reports speak of internal turmoil in Iran, infiltration of Israeli spies in the counter intelligence agency of Iran and supposedly it’s supreme leader is on the death bed and the grip of the ayatollahs is weakening.
Whatever his foreign policy may be, Trump has been handed a very fortuitous position vs Iran as he takes office (mainly due to Israel). Let’s see how Trump uses this advantage.
I’m not sure if has been mentioned already but Trump is likely to gut the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. “Delete CFPB”, said Musk. The result will give financial institutions the ability to screw over customers with little or no accountability. The rich will get richer and the swamp will swampier.
Just to add to the tale of woe:
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services,
Kennedy, who accepted the offer Thursday, has been one of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists for years and has frequently spread false conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Trump picks RFK Jr. to be his Department of Health and Human Services secretary | CNN Politics
So America can look forward to outbreaks of polio etc.
Although I didn’t see it in that particular article (I might have missed it) I read elsewhere that Kennedy is opposed to the polio vaccine. The man is a dangerous lunatic.
His lawyer has petitioned the government to revoke approval of the polio vaccine, among others.
So we should buy shares in ABC Iron Lung Manufacturing Inc.? 
Seriously, all of Trump’s picks seem to be woefully unsuited for the jobs they’ve been tapped for. An anti-vaxxer for Health and Human Services. A drunk for Defense who thinks that “trans” and “woke” are destroying the military. And over all, an unelected billionaire whose only claim to fame is making electric cars and space vehicles, in charge of “government efficiency,” whatever that is, and however he defines it.
I think the US will make it through the next few years—it has survived many challenges in 248 years, and Trump will likely be no more than a hiccup in its history. But in what shape will it emerge? I have no idea, and given his nature and his picks for important departments, I cannot even begin to speculate.
It makes it look like Marco Rubio as SoS is a GENIUS choice.
Therefore, he will almost certainly be withdrawn and replaced with Laura Loomer.
For the record, Leon Musk did NOT invent or “make” either of those things. He used his father’s fortune, mostly from owning emerald mines in South Africa, to buy up those technologies and hire competent people to develop and run those companies.
So a better record than DJT but no more of a “self-made-billionaire”.
Just last week Trump said his retribution would be through success. Oh well, guess not.
It seems it would be a hard sell to say he was harmed (election interference!) when he won anyway but it obviously can’t hurt him to try.
Trump Steps Up Revenge Tour on Media With New Threats to Sue Ann Selzer, Bob Woodward and 60 Minutes
I was wondering how he was harmed to the tune of $15 mill by Stephanopolous saying rape instead of sexual assault, but there you have it. Will be - um - interesting to see how aggressive and how successful they are in targeting - and silencing - critics in the media.
Doesn’t the Stephanopolous example already imply the answer to both questions is “very”?
Rachel Maddow last night flat-out stated that Musk bought himself a presidency. And no one seems particularly alarmed about it.
In exchange for his millions, he’s getting (and I’m sure the list won’t stop here) repeal of the requirement for reporting of crashes involving self-driving cars.
What’s the point of being alarmed? Everyone except the MAGAts knew that a second Trump presidency would be for sale to the highest bidder. What Musk is doing is nothing more than what we expected, being “alarmed” about it will change nothing. Until the GOP Congress grows a spine and stands up to Trump, or half the voters grow a brain and stop voting for these people, this is just how the US runs now.
Do what you can to protect yourself, but don’t waste time and effort “being alarmed”.
Trump’s casual and probably baseless tariff threat against Canada, made as one of his typical late-night tweets while probably sitting on the toilet, is having major ramifications in politics here. If actually carried out it would crash Canada’s economy and put thousands of companies out of business. So far the following has happened:
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Trudeau flew down for a meeting with the Orange Felon at Mar-a-Lago, which apparently achieved nothing but did prompt the Orange Peril to amuse himself with more tweets insulting the PM.
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All the provincial premiers met for an emergency meeting a few days ago, saying that responding to the tariff threat if implemented was as much up to the provinces as to the federal government. Several premiers have called for cutting off gas, oil, and electricity to the US. It’s starting to sound less like a trade war and more like actual warfare.
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Christia Freeland, Minister of Finance, Deputy Prime Minister, and probably the most senior member of Cabinet, resigned recently over differences with Trudeau over how to handle the tariff threat. Many MPs are calling for Trudeau himself to resign, and rumours are swirling that Trudeau is considering it.
The Orange Peril – spreading joy wherever he goes.
Too late to edit, but this is directly pertinent to the post above. No need for in-depth analysis, the Orange Peril is just a complete and total asshole.