Donald J. Trump: "I could stand In the middle of Fifth Avenue and French Kiss Vladimir Putin and I wouldn't lose any votersl”
OK , you got me, he didn't say that, but it certainly sounds like he did, right? Admit it though, for a second there, I had you. And we all know….he was thinking it.
Following the end of the Trump/Putin summit in Helsinki which every clear thinking American appreciated was an unmitigated disaster for numerous reasons which don’t need repeating here, even a large number of Republicans came out and condemned Trump’s performance. Some of the responses were direct and honest (manipulated by Putin...the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory) while others were more muted (not well prepared... misguided).
Still, the weekend poles came in, and to no one’s surprise, 66% of Republicans approved of the president’s handling of the Helsinki Summit, and 88% of Republicans still support this President
Please someone, explain this to me. Who are these people?
It seems like a reasonable thing to ask. Any independent thinker would look at all of his statements, his tweets and his actions regarding both the NATO meetings and the Helsinki Summit and just be completely bewildered. In Helsinki specifically, he had an opportunity to turn this into something positive for the country and more importantly (in his eyes anyway), for himself. The stage was set and the curtain drawn, but instead of showing strength against Vladimir Putin, which would have been a slam dunk win, he self-destructed and wilted like a dying weed, and the worst part was, he didn’t even know it.
So, who are these 80+% of Republicans? And what are they thinking? Don’t they realize the harm he is causing to our allies and the aid he is providing our enemy? Understanding his base, his supporters, is something I have struggled with for some time. And in the absence of clarity from reputable sources, I am left with more questions.
1) Do they just not watch the news at all? This does not make them dumb or deplorable, but it would mean they are uninformed and clearly apathetic.
2) Do they simply focus on domestic policy, but ignore geo-political issues?
3) Is their only source of news, Fox News? And specifically the Fox News of Sean Hannity? Do they essentially only hear, what they want to hear?
4) Do they believe that the summit actually was a complete disaster, but won’t admit it? For them, is it just better to double down and ignore the President's words and actions… because, he is better than Hillary Clinton?
5) Are they so fixated on their personnel single agenda items (pro-life, guns, immigration, taxes, deregulation, trade) that these issues are so paramount to them that nothing else, including treason-like (note, I did not say treasonous) behavior matter
6) Do they perhaps believe that we should make nice with Russia to avoid a possible nuclear confrontation?
7) Are they all just descendants of Russian spies sent to live here a couple of generations back by Nikita Khrushchev and they are just now coming out of the closet to root for the Motherland?
OK, #7 is a bit of stretch, but if you've ever watched The Americans, the thought would hit you too .
It’s just mind boggling that we have a President who can embarrass our country the way he did, and his base will still remain set in their ways, blindlessly convinced that their guy can do wrong. When black football players kneel at the national anthem (not sit or moon or flip the bird, but kneel) as a form of protest, they should be fired, but when Donald Trump acts like he has been compromised by Vladimir Putin, we should stand by our man.
When our country was the victim of surprise attacks at Pearl Harbor and on 9/11 our leaders rallied the country together to fight back. In those defining moments, partisanship was left at the border and we moved forward together. When Russia, according to everyone in our intelligence community, meddled in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump, for his own self-serving purposes that we can’t comprehend, has actually used this attack to divide us. And while the scale of Russia’s attack pales in comparison to those horrific events for there was no loss of life, the disruption it caused was incalculable.
For when Trump was elected President, Russia had to conclude that for its small investment in time and technology, they had hit the mother load.
No comments:
Post a Comment