Skip to main content

Baby Trump




What have we learned about Trump on his latest European trip?  He doesn't like women, at least those who would be consider his peers.  He doesn't like immigrants, especially Pakistanis who become important mayors.  He doesn't understand that you are supposed to come before tea time, leaving the Queen checking her watch on the royal stand.  And, he hates to be mocked, but then we already knew that.

Trump left a lot of persons scratching their heads this time around.  Determined not to be a wallflower again, which he was when he attended the NATO summit last year, he immediately ripped into Germany at breakfast the first day, claiming that it was "captive" to Russia because of the Nordstream pipeline.  This had less to do with Germany's reliance on cheap Russian natural gas than it did his animosity toward Angela Merkel, who had stolen all his thunder at the last NATO summit.  He was determined not to let that happen again.

Then came the infamous Sun interview, which he now discredits as "fake news."  In it, he lambasted Theresa May's Brexit deal, offered Boris Johnson as an alternative PM and lashed out Sadiq Khan for allowing the Baby Trump blimp to fly over London.  If that wasn't enough, he lamented that immigrants were destroying Europe's culture, a rather thinly disguised attack at first generation Pakistani-Briton Khan becoming the mayor of London.

Trump walked back most of what he said in that notorious interview during his press conference at Chequers, but stuck with his harsh stance on immigration, calling it "a very negative thing."  To her credit, Theresa May challenged him on this, saying immigration is what makes Britain great, but Trump was having none of it.

These incendiary comments are a direct reflection of the extreme right-wing populist parties in Europe.  Steve Bannon was also in town stoking this rhetoric among those who would listen to it.  Trump and Bannon are stirring the embers of these national parties, hoping to get similar election results to what happened in Italy recently.

All this feeds into Vladimir Putin's hands, whom he is scheduled to meet with on Monday in Helsinki, despite an ever growing chorus that he should cancel this "summit."  The reason being that Trump's DOJ issued a scathing indictment on 12 Russian GRU agents it held directly responsible for hacking into the DNC and other servers, as well as attempting to influence the 2016 election with fake social media sites.  The Republican response is to condemn Rod Rosenstein.

Trump's response is to put all the blame on Obama for not responding what it was first suspected Russia was tampering with the 2016 election, but as Joe Biden points out, Mitch McConnell was unwilling to be part of a bipartisan statement condemning Russia, so Obama chose to publicly scold Putin instead.  Trump has taken virtually no action against Russia other than expelling some low level diplomats in the wake of the Novichok poisoning in Great Britain, which Russia responded in turn by expelling low level American diplomats.  Trump still regards the ongoing FBI investigation into Russian election meddling as a witch hunt, repeating it in his press conference with Theresa May.

Our President has repeatedly shown his admiration for autocratic leaders over democratic ones.  What's worse, he has particular scorn for democratic women leaders.  Why caught our first glimpse of this the way he treated Hillary Clinton during the campaign, particularly in the town hall debate, where he literally stalked her around the stage.  It seemed so crudely comical at the time, but here he is now stalking Merkel and May.

We all know his scorn for Muslims, so it is not surprising that he would have little regard for Sadiq Khan.  This feud has been ongoing since the 2016 election campaign when Khan spoke out against Trump's proposed Muslim ban.  But, Trump took it to a whole new level by publicly condemning immigration in Europe, claiming it has led to an increase in crime and terrorism in Germany and Britain.  Trump promotes the idea of a White Europe as he does as a White America.  In his mind, Muslims need not apply.  They have irreparably "changed the fabric" of Europe, namely by running for public office.

In his mind, Britain would be much better off with Boris Johnson than it would Theresa May or Sadiq Khan.  He tried to walk this back somewhat in his press conference, but still lavished praise on Johnson at Theresa May's expense.  Johnson is part of the Russian propaganda effort that led to the Brexit vote, having been a frequent contributor to RT, as was his comrade-in-arms Nigel Farage.

And you wonder why so many Britons mock him.

Comments

  1. Scots took it a bit deeper by referring to him as "shit gibbon". I'm still laughing over that one.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!