As much as I despise Trump, his mastery of stunts and political theatre is second to none.
Suddenly the Democratic Debate is off the news headlines because all we can talk about is Trump’s extraordinary decision to turn up at the DMZ to not only shake Kim’s hand but to enter North Korea.
This may be one of the first times Trump has consensually entered anything.
The academics gasp.
The activists scream.
The military choke.
And Trump sails on.
Put aside the brutality of the North Korean regime (because America’s invasion helped build that), and appreciate how Trump’s ability to do something very few American Presidents would even contemplate will be bloody mana from heaven for his supporters.
Trump’s stunt follows his hilarious meeting with Putin and again brings that odd relationship into focus.
Many critics suggest that Trump’s near subservience to Putin is proof positive the Russian leader has dirt on him.
While I certainly suspect Trump is donkey deep in deeply questionable business arrangements with various oligarchs, I don’t think people appreciate the reason why Trump doesn’t see Putin as a threat and why he will cut through protocol to shake Kim’s hand.
The alt-rights total religious suspicion of the American Deep State.
For Trump and his alt-right fanatics, the real enemy of the American people is it’s own Military Industrial Complex Deep State. They and their private contractor paramilitary goon squads are the true driver of American foreign policy and Trump sees Putin and Kim as leaders who have been demonised by the Deep State for the Military Industrial Complex’s own objectives and interests.
For Trump, his enemy is the establishment, not foreign leaders and I think the power in Trump’s values is because they contain a seed of truth.
The American Military Industrial Complex Deep State IS an enormous threat not only to the American people, but the planet as well. Its corporate driven motives for war and conflict is what powers the entire American industry so Trump’s acquiescence towards Putin and Kim needs to be understood from that perspective.
Trump’s maverick foreign policy combined with his deep suspicion of the establishment mimics the fears of his base, so instead of trying to demonise Russia and North Korea, Democrats need to acknowledge the fears empowering Trump if they wish to disarm them.
As extraordinary as it seems, I think Trump is set to win a second term because we on the Left continue to underrate him and write him off as a buffoon rather than understand he has hit a genuine nerve that runs deep within the American political psyche.
If you don’t understand why Trump won and continues to win, you can’t defeat him.
What I think has been going on in the US, and leaking out into the rest of the world at least in Britain, is that Russia and Putin is being demonised purely to delegitimise Trump. And setting up a situation that might well lead to WW3 in the process. The irresponsibility is dumbfounding.
Having said that Trump must do more for the DPRK than visit and score some photo opps. Kim is not going to denuke unilaterally, especially while his country is being strangled economically just for the sake of publicity.
The deneuclearisation started out as being bilateral. US was to withdraw it’s nukes from the peninsular and DPRK was going to follow suit. That concept seems to have been forgotten but I doubt it has been forgotten in DPRK.
D J S
Y’know what about this WW3 bullshit is when you tell China to do this or that with 5G or what as a first move in a new global war is a precept to planning to fail. We have to understand that we are in the middle of America and China and that we have to be interoperable with both of them to different degrees. So if you think it was wrong for the NZ police to have such a close relationship with the FBI in colluding to extradite Dotcom then it’s wrong in general for foreigners to have undue enfluence over our judiciary.
Nothing will change.
North Korea gets to have its nukes and missiles that can reach across the Pacific. And its state is legitimised by inter-head of state meetings.
Trump gets to sell his good relationshp with their NK leader as keeping the USA safe (what does his Democratic opponent in 2020 have to match that). And to maintain sanctions to demonstrate he is tough.
I think both parties accept their wins. North Korea strategic (both diplomatic acceptance and securing its capability to defend itself) and for the US, well Trump gets to characterise his personal relationship with the NK leader as vital to the security of the USA.
It’s really just an accommodation of North Korea realising nuclear weapons capability while preserving the status quo. A divided Korea, no end to the cease-fire and continuing American military presence.
Good to see a bit more thought put into Trump and why he has been successful to his supporters, and interesting if Boris Johnson becomes leader of the conservatives, he appears to be a similar Trump like character too! Why are they spreading in the west?
I think there are a number of factors to their success.
Firstly these leaders are out of the mainstream and mocked by a lot of media. This then makes many members of the public more sympathetic to them because more and more people distrust the media and ordinary people are often subjected to humiliation by power interests too, so strikes a chord .
Secondly they are figures who are often stabbed in the back by their own organisations and the public are often stabbed in the back too, by mainstream organisations so again feel sympathy for them.
(example rudeness about Avanka Trump at the G20, most of world leaders are appalling in their jobs anyway (think about climate change and pollution and growing inequality in their own countries, that they can’t be bothered addressing for long term good), so to be mean spirited to a youngish women trying to fit in seemed more like ‘mean girls’ than respected public figures MSM has also made it to look meaner with all the add on commentators and twitter users piling in …
It is the same with Corbyn, (a left example) who is mocked by the MSM, hated by many in his own party, and he has massive public followings who do not care what the MSM are saying or Labour, in fact we like him more because the media and Blairite Labour are not trusted.
Lets face it, most media are now sell out shits who rip off their own journalists and staff and are owned by private equity and billionaires, so therefore are not a source to turn to for ethics, understand ordinary people or local affairs, or to trust as an authority on good character.
In the old days if a journalist was arrested doing their job, the paper/news would not rest until they were safe. Nowadays the journalists are on contracts and just left to die, if they cover political, war crimes or human rights abuses and get arrested.
Another reason Trump like figures are successful as world leaders, is that they are backed by interests who just want a public figure who distracts from the day to day robbing of ordinary people that they do behind the scenes making inequality worse, aka keep neoliberalism going.
Therefore international power interests want to back world leaders who are both popular, ineffective and without much understanding of ethics or practical life and are not actually going to change anything while appearing to be a change by just having them in charge.
In a context of strategy between Putin, Xi Jinping and Trump and May (possibly replaced by Boris) who is gaining power and who is losing it?
Look at how NZ is no longer independent, and is happy to sell off the country to other countries through blind ideology and stupidity that is not changing with the change of government.
So +1 against democracy while the keyboard warriors on Twitter go on about Ivanka rather than holding the leaders to account!
He runs government the way a producer runs a reality TV programme.
Trump is tough on China/a-z list of nations and its threat to the American economy. Sanctions and more sanctions. Then Trump and the leader of China/a-z list of nations cuddle. Trump is dominant and China/a-z list of nations has been brought into line. A worldwide duck triumph.
N Korea has nuclear weapons and missiles that can take them to the American continent. Trump maintains historic sanctions and talks tough. Then Trump goes into the N Korean leaders home for tea. Trump and the N Korean leader are in a relationship. Thanks to the duck there is peace in our time and N Korea will not be a threat while the duck is in power. Saved by the duck.
What exactly is “alt-right”? I see it all the time, but only on left-leaning sites, so i presume it’s a derogatory term. Still, I honestly don’t know how it is currently defined. Can someone please explain the term to me – i.e. both what it is and isn’t (I think it isn’t a synonym for “Nazi” for example, but I just don’t know).
Economically we have the left represented along the horizontel axis by Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao.
Way on the other side of the horizontal axis, to the far right we have Pinochet, Hitler, Goerge Bush Snr / Jr.
Then along the vertical axis, Gandi is at the bottom representing the moral superiority of the left, and at the top is Milton Freedmen.
And the woke and alt-right have carved out there own little universes on the other side of the moral compass where feelings and emotions are a substitute for economics, science and commen sense.
So imagine if Ghandi took his pacifist ideology to far. You’d end up not being able to kill anything even if possums was threatening New Zealand’s ecosystem.
Or that commen sense free market ideology could replace science, innovation and prosperity.
But don’t be fooled. The woke and alt-right are just as loony as Hitler or Stalin.
Ba Ha ! @ NITRIUM.
‘Alt-right’ and ‘woke-left’ are equally mysterious to me. Where did ‘ woke-left’ come from for example? Is the use of ‘woke’ in this instance like some kind of hillbilly? “ I done woke!” That there’s what I done did! I woke! ”
Alt-right is, as opposed to Alt-right Right? As in an alternative to Right?? Right is right, right?
I’m laughing as I write that, and now I’m worried that I’m laughing…!? Am I bad @ NITRIUM??
I’m trying to work out if Trump is either an orange idiot or the greatest fellow to have ever lived? He’s in North Korea having happy times with kim jong un and Kim Jong Un looks like he’s met his match! WTF?
I’ve worked with Korean people and I have to say, they’re more like me than they’re like, say, the ‘Rolleston. Town of the Future’ people. They hoik and spit and eat firey formented cabbage and smoke fags and gamble… And I like that! That! Is what I expect of people.” To LIVE ! That, is the answer. Most people merely exist” Oscar Wilde’.
When we look down our noses at Trump and Kim and etc? We must remember that we do so from our own shitty little fucked up POV. ( Point of View)
The alt-Right are the antithesis of the cntrl-Left…who are also mirror images of extremist authoritarist intolerance.
Slap on the back for the more astute and observant. Tulsi. We have been saying for three years forget Russian nonsense, beat Trump electorally. She is the only one who can beat Trump.
It’s all about how he makes deals. Verbally abuse the other party, act crazy, create some nothing to trade away, finance it at no risk, the parties end up on friendly terms. New Trump hotels in Pyonyang, Tehran and Moscow within a decade.
No new wars yet. He’s not in that business and doesn’t like paying the taxes war requires.
“For Trump and his alt-right fanatics, the real enemy of the American people is it’s own Military Industrial Complex Deep State.”
Except that Trump’s closest advisers are two of the biggest military/industrial complex war hawks in the United States – John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.
Trump is the joker in the pack. The military/industrial complex, Republicans, Christian fascists and everyone else with something to gain from having him as President, will let him carry on his show as long as he furthers their own particular aims.
America’s invasion??? What are you on about? When you are countering an enemy invasion of another country entering their territory to beat them is not usually described as an invasion
It’s an invasion if your not invited by the government of the country concerned Gosman. And it is not up to the “invading ” power to judge who is the legitimate government even if the invading power does not approve of that government . And it doesn’t help defend the “invaded” country to destroy their crops and leave no two bricks standing on each other to bomb in defending them from the earlier alleged invasion. Also leaving the relationship with that country in a technical state of war with the second invader clarifies the position without ambiguity .
D J S
Umm… North Korea INVADED the South. They STARTED the Korean war. The US (under the auspices of the U.N.) went to Korea to DEFEND against North Korea aggression. Did this involve then fighting in North Korea? Yes it did. As you would expect.
On the one hand you complain about not being challenged by debate and then retreat as soon as that challenge is accepted. Then on the other you’re like war, fuck yeah. Remember the goal has always been to freeze North Koreas Nukclear weapons program.
As you perceptively perceive, Bomber.
A STUNT.
Well! We are talking, politics!
Your much vaunted insight is lacking here, Martyn. Trump’s enemies ARE foreign leaders — those of Germany, France, the UK, Canada, all allies. In digging for the politically profound you have elevated a street bully to a genius and forgotten the simple truism that birds of a feather… You haven’t wondered that Putin, Kim, Bolsonaro, Duterte, the Saudi prince, down to the least significant tinpot dictators/thugs are all his favourite role models?
That’s true, but with all due respect, American Presidents have ALWAYS rubbed shoulders with dictators.
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