It's amazing. After 7 and a half years of allusions and aspersions at the POTUS for allegedly not loving this country like 'we do' of maybe not even being an American, but some sort of Manchurian candidate; after years of claiming that the Preisdent was 'leading from behind' of emboldening our enemies and not standing up for our friends they've nominated the real Manchurian candidate.
What he has said about not honoring NATO is the most reckelss thing yet.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/clinton-trump-putin-nato/492332/
By the way, even intelligent leftists who are critical of NATO find this idea of Trump's appalling.
"I opposed NATO expansion in the 1990s & later, seeing it as needlessly provocative. But even I'm scared of Trump's downgrading of NATO."
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/755968691297214464
GOP cognitive dissonance: "Lead from behind" is weak-kneed appeasement. "Throw our NATO allies to the dogs" is statesmanship."
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/756118896512372736
Now the GOPers are admitting this idea of Trump's is 'mistaken.' Both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have said so.
"This should — theoretically, at least — pose a very difficult dilemma for Republicans supporting Trump. Some Republicans have already condemned Trump’s new remarks. In so doing, however, they only underscored how untenable their own support for him is becoming."
"As Jeffrey Goldberg writes today, with these comments, Trump “openly questioned whether the U.S., under his leadership, would keep its commitments” to NATO, putting us in “uncharted waters.” Goldberg concludes that Trump’s election “would immediately trigger a wave of global instability — much worse than anything we are seeing today — because America’s allies understand that Trump would likely dismantle the post-World War II U.S.-created international order.” This would “liberate dictators, first and foremost his ally Vladimir Putin, to advance their own interests,” setting the world on a path to more “despotism and darkness.”
"This conclusion was echoed by retired admiral James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO who is thought to be on Hillary Clinton’s shortlist of potential Veep candidates. Stavridis wrote today that Trump’s proposals “would deeply damage the underpinnings of the global system and work to America’s profound disadvantage,” undermining the “postwar security infrastructure that has bound Western democracies to one another.”
"In his interview with the Times, Trump stressed that considerations about whether to defend NATO allies would primarily be evaluated as economic decisions. “The idea that Trump would begin by carefully scrutinizing the balance sheet,” Stavridis wrote, “would undermine every principle of the alliance creating deep uncertainty in the hearts of our allies and giving immense good cheer to Vladimir Putin.” The upshot: This would “create enormous uncertainty in the world.”
"Meanwhile, Politico reports: “Trump’s comments were especially unnerving to smaller NATO countries, such as the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who in recent years have begun to fear Russia’s military aims.” This led some to joke morbidly on twitter that Trump has only been the nominee for around a day or so, but he is already causing an international incident.
"Republicans, too, broke with Trump’s remarks. Senator Tom Cotton, a rising-star representative of the GOP’s neocon wing, told CNN that he disagreed with Trump and found his remarks “counterproductive.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger ripped them as “ill-informed” and “dangerous.”
AshLee Strong, a spokesperson for Paul Ryan, emailed me this: “The speaker believes the U.S. should defend our NATO allies.”
"But the most noteworthy response of all came from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In an interview with Politico’s Seung Min Kim, McConnell broke with Trump. But note what came next:
“I disagree with that,” McConnell said in an interview with POLITICO on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. “NATO is the most important military alliance in world history. I want to reassure our NATO allies that if any of them get attacked, we’ll be there to defend them.”…
"Though he said he disagreed with those remarks, McConnell said the NATO comments didn’t give him concern about Trump’s fitness to be commander in chief."
“I think he’s wrong on that,” McConnell said. “I don’t think that view would be prevalent or held by anybody he might make secretary of state or secretary of defense.”
"That is remarkable. McConnell is actually saying that even though Trump’s comments require him to reassure our allies in service of preserving “the most important military alliance in world history,” this should not raise concerns about his fitness to serve as president, because the leading foreign policy and national security officials that Trump will choose as president will disagree with him!"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/21/trumps-new-nato-comments-should-put-republicans-in-an-untenable-spot/
Yes, Trump is going to hire advisers who disagree with him. He's certainly shown his nack for hiring the best people this week like Meredith McIver or that he knows how to vet people.
When you look at the Trumpster fire that was this convention how can anyone trust him to hire good people to handle domestic and foreign issues?
What he has said about not honoring NATO is the most reckelss thing yet.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/clinton-trump-putin-nato/492332/
By the way, even intelligent leftists who are critical of NATO find this idea of Trump's appalling.
"I opposed NATO expansion in the 1990s & later, seeing it as needlessly provocative. But even I'm scared of Trump's downgrading of NATO."
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/755968691297214464
GOP cognitive dissonance: "Lead from behind" is weak-kneed appeasement. "Throw our NATO allies to the dogs" is statesmanship."
https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/756118896512372736
Now the GOPers are admitting this idea of Trump's is 'mistaken.' Both Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have said so.
"This should — theoretically, at least — pose a very difficult dilemma for Republicans supporting Trump. Some Republicans have already condemned Trump’s new remarks. In so doing, however, they only underscored how untenable their own support for him is becoming."
"As Jeffrey Goldberg writes today, with these comments, Trump “openly questioned whether the U.S., under his leadership, would keep its commitments” to NATO, putting us in “uncharted waters.” Goldberg concludes that Trump’s election “would immediately trigger a wave of global instability — much worse than anything we are seeing today — because America’s allies understand that Trump would likely dismantle the post-World War II U.S.-created international order.” This would “liberate dictators, first and foremost his ally Vladimir Putin, to advance their own interests,” setting the world on a path to more “despotism and darkness.”
"This conclusion was echoed by retired admiral James Stavridis, a former supreme allied commander of NATO who is thought to be on Hillary Clinton’s shortlist of potential Veep candidates. Stavridis wrote today that Trump’s proposals “would deeply damage the underpinnings of the global system and work to America’s profound disadvantage,” undermining the “postwar security infrastructure that has bound Western democracies to one another.”
"In his interview with the Times, Trump stressed that considerations about whether to defend NATO allies would primarily be evaluated as economic decisions. “The idea that Trump would begin by carefully scrutinizing the balance sheet,” Stavridis wrote, “would undermine every principle of the alliance creating deep uncertainty in the hearts of our allies and giving immense good cheer to Vladimir Putin.” The upshot: This would “create enormous uncertainty in the world.”
"Meanwhile, Politico reports: “Trump’s comments were especially unnerving to smaller NATO countries, such as the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who in recent years have begun to fear Russia’s military aims.” This led some to joke morbidly on twitter that Trump has only been the nominee for around a day or so, but he is already causing an international incident.
"Republicans, too, broke with Trump’s remarks. Senator Tom Cotton, a rising-star representative of the GOP’s neocon wing, told CNN that he disagreed with Trump and found his remarks “counterproductive.” Rep. Adam Kinzinger ripped them as “ill-informed” and “dangerous.”
AshLee Strong, a spokesperson for Paul Ryan, emailed me this: “The speaker believes the U.S. should defend our NATO allies.”
"But the most noteworthy response of all came from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In an interview with Politico’s Seung Min Kim, McConnell broke with Trump. But note what came next:
“I disagree with that,” McConnell said in an interview with POLITICO on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. “NATO is the most important military alliance in world history. I want to reassure our NATO allies that if any of them get attacked, we’ll be there to defend them.”…
"Though he said he disagreed with those remarks, McConnell said the NATO comments didn’t give him concern about Trump’s fitness to be commander in chief."
“I think he’s wrong on that,” McConnell said. “I don’t think that view would be prevalent or held by anybody he might make secretary of state or secretary of defense.”
"That is remarkable. McConnell is actually saying that even though Trump’s comments require him to reassure our allies in service of preserving “the most important military alliance in world history,” this should not raise concerns about his fitness to serve as president, because the leading foreign policy and national security officials that Trump will choose as president will disagree with him!"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/21/trumps-new-nato-comments-should-put-republicans-in-an-untenable-spot/
Yes, Trump is going to hire advisers who disagree with him. He's certainly shown his nack for hiring the best people this week like Meredith McIver or that he knows how to vet people.
When you look at the Trumpster fire that was this convention how can anyone trust him to hire good people to handle domestic and foreign issues?
Who will advise him? Chris Christie who led a show trial over Hillary's emails the other day? And who shutdown the GWB to punish his poliitcal enemies? Newt Gingrich?
His kids? Paul Manafort?
Trump has shown he lacks the acumen to hire the right people to run a lemonade stand. Yet we're going to trust foreign policy to him after what he said about NATO?
To simply give Putin a greenlight for aggression in Eastern Europe is absurd. If NATO fears we will roll back our support then they will start considering obtaining nuclear weapons.
Yet after all they've said about Obama leading from behind, and how Hillary was so reckless as Secretary of State, they are trying to tell us with a straight face to give this charlatan the nuclear codes?
Glenn Beck will probably vote for Johnson:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2016/07/21/glenn-beck-probably-going-vote-gary-johnson/
Interesting read from Noah: Trumpism because conservatism utterly failed:
ReplyDeletehttp://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/trump-happened-because-conservatism.html