Bolton is twice as smart as Trump but not half as clever as a post. I think congress will dull his worst inclinations and the career administrators will check the rest. It’s all down to damage control until November 2018 and beyond.
More to the point, it might also mean people in the current administration who are perceived as even remotely sympathizing and agreeing with their predecessors.
One of the most disturbing chapters in Bolton’s history is not merely his bellicose rhetoric, but the fact that he has a tendency to play loose with facts. He has a tendency to bend facts to fit his narrative, which is actually remarkably similar to the tendencies of the first of Trump’s NSC advisors, Michael Flynn. I think Bolton’s appointment increases the likelihood of a very major war with someone.
The Republican majority in Congress is enabling the Trump administration and now they’re trying to clear out the career administrators.
We used to think 2016 was a horrible year because Trump got elected President. Then 2017 came along and Trump became President. So in retrospect, 2016 didn’t look so bad.
I’m worried the same thing will happen again. Maybe 2018 will be the year Trump starts actually following through on some of the stupid things he’s been blustering about. We might end up looking back on 2017 and saying “Remember the good old days when Trump was just fumbling around and it was still kind of funny?”
Nobody will be saying that in 2019. Because we’ll all be afraid to criticize the Great Leader. You don’t want to be one of the people who gets sent away.
And people today are saying they miss George the lessor. This is the problem. A narcissistic, racist moron in the WH is simply NOT acceptable. And as I have said, we must put out the fire NOW and worry about the water damage later (Pence). If we don’t, it will become the new norm.
We must kick these assholes to the curb before the run for ANY elected position.
Colour me a failed cynic, but I see signs of cracks in Trump’s determination to break every toy in the toy box. He signed a bill which doesn’t fund a wall. He started a trade ware but excluded everyone but China. He threatened to end NAFTA but it’s being renegotiated. Withdrawing from the Paris accord will take longer than he’ll be a president (or alive, I hope). He’s incompetence is exceeded only by his stupidity.
I believe the center will hold and we’ll get through this relatively whole, having learned a lesson about the importance of elections and about giving conservatives more power than they deserve or be trusted to yield responsibly.
He has only temporarily delayed tariffs against everyone else, but how long that will last will depend on the perceived success or lack of immediate consequences. This administration moves in only one direction: it hasn’t progressed, it just keeps moving closer and closer toward the bottom of the septic tank. He simply hasn’t had enough time to do the damage we suspect that he ultimately will.
I see that as further evidence that guard rails do exists in the system of government. They are being tested and dented to be sure, but they remain in place.
I’m not saying I sleep soundly at night. But I’m not packing my bags back to Canada just yet.
Guard rails won’t be within the Trump administration; the guard rails will be the American public that has finally had enough of Trump.
But those guard rails won’t be raised until Trump has, in the minds of an overwhelming majority of Americans, fucked them personally up the ass.
At this moment, Trump horrifies intellectuals and people with enough knowledge of history and civics to understand what he could do to the country if given sufficient time. For everyone else, he’s either their man, or he’s just an entertaining spectacle who makes news and politics another form or reality TV. They still have their jobs, their electricity is still on, and they’ve got food on the table and the rent gets paid. Not much different than when Obama was president.
The Onion. Again.
“… newly appointed National Security Advisor John Bolton promised the American public Friday that the upcoming war with North Korea certainly won’t be a cakewalk like Iraq.”
It’s The Onion today, but could be The Washington Post or The New York Times next month.
Stranger
The satire gap is closing. Fast.
Boy did I get the subject wrong. I thought this guy had messed up!
”We must not allow a satire gap!”
Stranger
The satire gap is long gone. In the past year alone there have been dozens of headlines in major news publications that only could have been imagined by The Onion just a few years ago.
Imagined, floated, and shot down by an editor boss as “too damned ridiculous”, even for a satire publication.
You know what? This is one of those cases where I wholeheartedly hope conservatives are right. I hope the National Review is right that this guy isn’t a neocon warmonger, but a pragmatic mind for uncertain times that will lend some order to the chaos in the Trump White House. I really do.
Wasn’t that Kelly’s role?
He also failed to exclude Japan, because if you’re going to go face down the North Koreans, it’s really important to shove your middle finger in the face of your Japanese allies just before you do.
Well, I already expect progressives to say they’re wrong. 