It’s not a strategy for effective governance or good relations with, well, anybody, but I don’t think those are his goals. If you are reading the playbook on how to transition from a democracy to an authoritarian regime, however, I think you’ll find he’s hitting all of the key moves with expert precision.
Chaos is their friend. Division is their friend. Destabilize everything, keep your opponents off balance, suss out who’s with you and who’s against you, etc.
Clay
4989
This is pretty much true about the recording of the call.
You know, it’s absolutely preposterous, but if you stop for a moment and start interpreting various things under the assumption this were actually true, it does a disturbingly good job of explaining a lot…
Bannon is way smarter than Trump, though that’s a pretty low bar. I do think he’s pretty sharp, and obviously knows the Breitbart demographic perfectly. And clearly he’s found the way into Trump’s … well not heart, obviously. What’s that new organ connected to the intestines they discovered recently?
But I’m not convinced he’s any kind of a genius at actual politics. (To the extent there is such a person in the Trump White House it’s Kellyanne.) He’s a bombthrower who doesn’t know or care anything about actual governing, a negative force addicted to conflict who can’t see the point of trying to appeal to people who aren’t just as negative as him. Everything he’s done so far is calculated to cause maximum chaos, not control … and to get Bannon (and maybe Trump) kicked out of the White House.
Which is what he wants, I think. He doesn’t want to deal with real shit. He wants to do maximum damage, get canned and go back to Breitbart. Then he’ll get clicks by telling the faithful about how about he almost achieved the Alt-Right Promised Land, but the cabal of RINOs and brown people and gay Muslim thought police tragically stopped him just before perfection was achieved. He’s Trotsky, not Stalin - he’s going to throw bombs until he’s cast out, and then he thinks he’ll retire to (metaphorical) Mexico City and lecture his former comrades on how they were wrong and he was right until the end of his days.
The only problem being that the bombs he’s throwing may destroy the country first.
I pretty much agree with you.
If only he had someone to help him prepare an official statement for Holocaust Remembrance, he wouldn’t have made such a dramatic oversight, right?
"A White House official said there was no ill intent, adding that the White House didn’t see State’s draft until after issuing its own statement and told State not to release its version because it came after 7 p.m. And the official said the White House didn’t ask the State Department to craft their own statement.
Officials at the State Department, however, believed the statement was being drafted for the White House to use, people familiar with the matter said."
vyshka
4994
Except they’ve repeatedly said it was intentional to leave them out of the statement
This morning tweets from Orange Leader
I’m going to bed comforted by knowing that I should survive a Chinese missile strike on Pearl Harbor.
So every time Trump does something stupid and makes headlines, like his angry call to the Australian PM, he will blame it on fake news?
That’s usually what he does, yes.
Sure. Why not? It works with his base.
The issue here is that everything we have about the disastrous call with Australia was an anonymous source, so he can get away with calling it “fake news”. Now, I doubt the NYT and WaPo made it up, but those news outlets are already tainted in the eyes of these idiots.
[quote]
The details of the call were confirmed by a senior administration official with direct knowledge of the exchange who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the diplomatic talks.[/quote]
The fact that Turnbull went on the radio and refused to discuss details, only characterizing it as “frank” and the call ended “courteously” only helps Trump.
In diplo speak “frank” means shouting match.
This is exactly how Commie China discredits protesters in the USA. They say Falun Gong is bankrolled by Western interests that want to keep their country down. (Not that I approve of those kooks personally).
I wanna know when Soros is gonna send me my check.
To be fair, gutting financial regulations is something a lot of Republican presidents would likely do. It’s awful, but not ‘gonna get us all killed/destroy democracy forever’ awful.
Clay
5005
It was his reasoning that was bonkers. Because nice friends of his can’t borrow? WTF?!!? That’s why you change policy for a country of 350 Million people?
The sad part is he will be long gone from office by the time this creates another financial crisis.
I also love they are canning the fiduciary stuff about requiring retirement planners to act in the best interests of their clients. I’m sure there are nuances to that I don’t understand, but geez…
