Replies

“Does US law allow foreign nations to legally contribute to US candidates? If so, why did the FBI warn the president and Hillary about Russia’s intentions to infiltrate their campaigns as soon as they were their parties nominees? Why did Bannon say he’d have never taken the meeting that Jared, Manafort, and Trump Jr. took?”

What about Bill Clinton’s vacuuming of tens of millions of dollars of payments for making foreign speeches, including millions from China - a country where generals who threatened to nuke LA were not immediately cashiered? That’s not even counting Hillary’s Clinton Global Initiative.

I’m not saying Trump’s a choir boy. I personally think he’s a bit of a jerk. But most of the stuff they’ve unearthed about him selling out to foreign powers is purely circumstantial, and related to liberals always having the megaphone so they choose what questions to ask and of whom. So Hillary gets all the softballs, and Trump gets asked why he betrayed his country and for how much money.

You’re getting into the weeds of Trump’s personal conduct and how he’s a horrible person. I agree he’s a scumbag. But my concern was that his scumbaggery would translate to him stabbing us in the back a la Arnold. Instead, he’s mostly stuck with his campaign promises.

As a voter, I far prefer Trump to Romney, McCain, Dole or both Bushes. Compared to Trump, those other men are Boy Scouts. But those Boy Scouts stuck it to us every chance they got. Whereas Trump has kept most of his promises. Whereas Bush I gave us tax increases and a liberal Supreme Court justice and Bush II tried to foist both a liberal Supreme Court justice (Harriet Miers) and amnesty on us. From a GOP voter standpoint, the problem with these other men is that they are faithful to their wives and reserve their infidelities for the people who pulled the lever for them.

That’s why, as disapproving of Trump’s personal conduct as I am, Trump has, in my view, been a far better president for Republicans than any of the last several post-Reagan GOP presidents and presidential contenders. If Trump sticks it out, we might even get a 7-member Supreme Court conservative majority. Then we might kiss Roe v. Wade goodbye.

Trump has really stabbed Steve Bannon in the back and I understand why Bannon wants to get a few licks in. I admire Bannon as much as I dislike Trump. At the same time, I think Trump is indispensable to the GOP for the next 6-1/2 years. He has swept past shibboleths and knocked down any number of totems.

George Shultz, Reagan’s SoS, used to put his newly-minted envoys through this routine:

“George Shultz, for many of us, was like God. He was a really good guy… He’d have all new ambassadors in to his office, one at a time, as they went out for a five, maybe 10 minute chat.

And he’d say, “OK, Mr. Ambassador or Madame Ambassador, you’ve passed all the tests. You’ve been confirmed by the Senate and you’ve passed your security investigation. You’ve done all the things to get the position of ambassador, but you have to pass my test. I have one more for you.” And he’d take them over in the Secretary’s office to where there was this massive globe, and he’d say, “I’m going to spin the globe and I want you to put your hand on your country.”

Shultz would tell this story, and he said, “Every single one of them failed. But I let them go anyway.” Because whenever he spun the globe and he’d say, “I want you to put your hand on your country,” they’d always put their hand on the country that they were going out to. His point was your country is the United States.”

Today, our envoys don’t even pretend to represent the US any more. That needs to change. Trump is ruffling feathers, but he is doing something that is essential - reminding our allies that we will not fight their wars to the last dead American, and that we will not take their passive-aggressive unfair trade policies lying down, and our enemies that they shouldn’t count on Obama-era passivity in response to their challenges.

Besides, I don’t understand why you’re so trusting of the liberals running these stories? Do you really think liberals are worked about about Trump being too dovish? The fact is that Russia is mostly an afterthought, in security terms. And how hawkish was Obama on Russia, really? He talked a lot and did nothing in terms of sending weaponry to Ukraine. Whereas Trump is not only providing light weaponry, we are sending them Javelins. Note also that Trump approved the attack on the Russian unit in Syria that was attacking Kurdish positions near Manbij, where Russian KIA were estimated to be in the hundreds. Would Obama have okayed such an attack?

Putin has big ambitions, but he doesn’t have the conventional forces to work his will. Whereas China does. Much as Nixon went to China to wrest it out of the Soviet orbit, Trump must go to Russia to take it out of the Chinese orbit. The sanctions against Russia are counterproductive. The sanctions we should impose are against China.

The other aspect I don’t get about your animus against Trump - do you realize the liberal media hate him because he is pro-Israel and anti-Iran? Obama would never have moved the embassy to Jerusalem. And he would never have scuttled his own Iran deal/payoff. So apart from Trump’s carrot/stick approach towards Russia, what’s your beef with his policies? Is there any possibility Obama/Hillary wouldn’t have criticized and joined with the world in its criticism of Israel’s role in the 60+ Palestinian deaths from Hamas’s attempt to infiltrate Israel’s border communities?