{"id":10240,"date":"2018-07-17T11:30:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T17:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=10240"},"modified":"2018-07-17T11:30:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T17:30:43","slug":"do-you-want-to-talk-about-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2018\/07\/do-you-want-to-talk-about-trump.html","title":{"rendered":"Do you want to talk about Trump?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Personally, I just want the whole thing to go away.<\/p>\n

Does Trump\u2019s refusal to condemn Russian meddling in yesterday\u2019s press conference mean that he is secretly a Russian agent, doing their bidding?\u00a0 Some big-name twitter accounts have been suggesting this, with theories even suggesting that he was recruited decades ago by the KGB playing a very, very long game.<\/p>\n

Is he a stooge, who has been suckered into Putin\u2019s orbit by flattery, and his inability to see Russia\u2019s actions as anything other than \u201call governments are corrupt and power-hungry in their own way\u201d?<\/p>\n

If so, what\u2019s Russia\u2019s\/Trump\u2019s agenda?\u00a0 Will he, in fact, refuse to harden US cyber-defenses against Russian (or other) hackers, so that vote totals in future elections are meddled-with?\u00a0 Will he refuse to defend the Baltic countries, or defend them in a Sitzkrieg sort of way, if they are attacked by Russia?\u00a0 (And, if so, will Europe likewise sit on their hands?)<\/p>\n

Is he simply, as a knee-jerk response, defending Russia publicly because he hears accusations of Russian meddling as accusations that he is not the true president, but without any consequence in terms of actual US policy, which is not visibly pro-Russian \u2014 sanctions are still in place, we\u2019re still willing to attack Russians in Syria, etc.?<\/p>\n

I see a lot of calls on Twitter from Democrats for Republicans to \u201cdo something\u201d but I\u2019m not sure what can be done.\u00a0 Is it treason to say nice words to a world leader?\u00a0 We are not, in fact, at war with Russia.\u00a0 Trump has not engaged in actions that demonstrate that he clearly and unambiguously is advancing another country\u2019s interests to the harm of our own.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not seeing anything that suggests that impeachment is a realistic option \u2014 this isn\u2019t like a recall election at the state or local level where all you need are enough voters unhappy with the state of affairs.<\/p>\n

And this is where one\u2019s thoughts turn to 2020.\u00a0 Granted, it\u2019s two years away, but from all appearances, the Democrats will be nominating someone who has signed off on a Bernie Sanders agenda:\u00a0 \u201cwe want to become what we imagine Sweden to be\u201d \u2014 with massive increases in government social welfare spending (free college, free medical treatment, free daycare, free parental leave, free expanded Social Security \u2014 am I forgetting any of the \u201cfrees\u201d?) paid for with taxes on the \u201cmillionaires and billionaires\u201d or, in the new line of thinking, simply by deficit spending and money-printing, the so-called MMT (see this twitter thread by Jeffrey Brown<\/a>) which claims that government spenders will be able to successfully generously spend money while skillfully avoiding inflation because smarts.\u00a0 (Never mind that in Sweden, all of the \u201cfrees\u201d are paid for with high taxes for everyone.)\u00a0 And unfortunately I suspect this will likely kill any likelihood of an independent or third-party challenge to Trump, since the stakes would be too high for Republicans, in a way that they wouldn\u2019t be if an acceptable, moderate, out-reaching Democrat came to the fore.<\/p>\n

Which means that I\u2019m inclined to think that the only way forward is this:\u00a0 the conventional wisdom on Trump is that he\u2019s very susceptible, too susceptible, to flattery, but digs his heels in when he is criticized.\u00a0 So the only solution I really see is to hire some top-notch professional flatterers, to tell Trump, \u201cyou\u2019re the best president, the very best, everyone who criticizes you is jealous, and by the way, all of the best presidents choose not to run for a second term because they\u2019re so great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ADonald_Trump_(8567813820)_(2).jpg; By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Donald Trump) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personally, I just want the whole thing to go away. Does Trump\u2019s refusal to condemn Russian meddling in yesterday\u2019s press conference mean that he is secretly a Russian agent, doing their bidding?\u00a0 Some big-name twitter accounts have been suggesting this, with theories even suggesting that he was recruited decades ago by the KGB playing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":4514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[325],"class_list":["post-10240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\nDo you want to talk about Trump?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Personally, I just want the whole thing to go away. 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