It’s been three weeks since I wrote my last piece. My wife and I just returned from spending two weeks in Vietnam. It was an amazing experience. I could write an entire piece on its wonders, but for now, with so much going on, I will just include some photos at the end to whet your appetite.
I would like to say that when I was in Vietnam I blocked the news out. The fact is, that in between visiting a thousand year old Pagoda, going on street food tours, kayaking in the exquisite waters of Halong Bay, taking a boat ride down the Mekong Delta, crawling through a tunnel system that was created during the Vietnam War by the Vietcong to hide from American troops during the war, I couldn’t help myself
So what happened since I was away. So many things, but with a few core things driving it all.
I saw some whacky Truth Social posts and thought I would use these posts as a way of summarizing the craziness of it all.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me,”
What is happening in Minnesota is chilling to its core. And it will only get worse. To that point here are a few statements or actions by The Don’s administration that back that up.
The administration has opted to associate its immigration agenda with a Nazi slogan: Adolf Hitler’s regime famously advertised its rule with the tagline “One people, one realm, one leader.” Three days after Renee Good’s killing, Trump’s Department of Labor tweeted, “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.
ICE has plans to spend $100 Million on recruitment targeting gun-shows, and other paramilitary venues, looking for those MAGA supporters who are licking their chops for at a chance to be elevated to position of one of The Don’s goons. They are using ads targeting people who have attended U.F.C. fights, listened to patriotic podcasts or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.” The big beautiful bill has allocated enough money to triple the size of ICE.
They are also offering a frightening immunity to prosecution for egregious acts. Basically, they are selling :“You too can live out your cowboy, super-hero fantasies while making America great again by ridding our country of all the vermin. If you kill someone, we’ve got your back!” (The Renee Good tragedy exemplifies this.) They are hawking: “Want your Mojo back? Want a testosterone-high? You came to the right place!” In essence, The Don is creating his own paramilitary group that, like the January 6th insurrectionists, who he pardoned as heroes, will do his bidding. He is elevating these men, who are seeking relevance, an opportunity to strut their stuff in the name of patriotism. Scary stuff.
How about what he said about Iran? “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!”
I guess it’s pretty obvious how beyond ironic this bluster is. When people in this country protest for the rights of immigrants or stand up to The Don, they face the possibility of violence or investigations. In Iran ,it’s power to the people.
Regarding Venezuela: “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned,” The Donroe doctrine.
In The Don’s ego maniacal desire to make Greenland part of the U.S, he texted Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.
The Don has had his eye on Greenland for a while, but his ire at not winning the Nobel Peace Prize and then receiving it from Maria Machado (who used it as a bribe to get his support to be president of Venezuela) only intensified his desire for Greenland. in fact, despite his stated pleasure in receiving it, at his core he must have been humiliated by not getting it officially. Sloppy seconds don’t really hold any weight in The Don’s world Her’s an idea Don. Maybe you should be going after Norway as the Nobel Committee is stationed there, though the government has nothing to do with the results of the Nobel Prizes. You could do a CVS twofer: take over one, and get one free!
In an interview with the New York Times The Don actually said the quiet part out loud, that taking Greenland was “psychologically important to me.”
Add that statement to the harrowing recent comment that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by “his own morality” and we have the potent frightening elixir of what drives The Don.
The problem is The Don has no morality. We have an amoral man who pursues things that are psychologically gratifying to him. It’s not about making America great. It’s never been about that. It’s about a man with an insatiable desire for power and control creating his own universe where the only thing that matters is him. Power feeds the desire to have more power: it’s like a drug; the more you attain, the more you want. In his desire for conquest, he bullies others to get what he needs and wants. After all, how does blowing up our alliance with NATO make us more safe? How does impulsively hurling more tariffs at allies make us more economically secure? Doesn’t taking over an independent sovereign state encourage Russia and China to do the same thing? How does turning allies from trading with us to other sources (China?) make us economically stronger?
As I have said over and over since I began this blog in 2015, putting an amoral malignant narcissist in charge of the most powerful nation in the world could lead to this. It matters little to him that 85% of the U.S. citizens are opposed to his annexing Greenland, The only way to stop him is for Republicans to decide that his promises are lies and the biggest lie is that The Don is interested in making America great.
At this point, all the behind-closed-doors outrage and freak-outs on the part of the spineless Republican Party mean nothing. This can all be stopped now before it is too late. They have the power to remove him from office. The Don is the Don is ‘he Don. He will never change, and will get even worse if unrestrained. Ultimately, the fault of the destruction of our democracy, the breaking of our alliances and his unchecked reckless lawlessness is the responsibility of the Republicans in congress.
Since I have little faith in the Republicans in congress, I was so pleased that NATO members joined together and stood up to the bully. As a result, he has backed down from imposing additional tariffs and took the use of the military off the table. Let’s stop for a moment and reflect on that last statement. Until the meeting at Davos. The Don was threatening to use the military against its own NATO ally. It takes your breath away. The Don’s reckless threats and ability to bring NATO to a point where they were making military plans to combat U.S. troops has broken things. To quote Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, during his speech at Davos: “The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it,” he said. “Nostalgia is not a strategy.” “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” “The middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
He is absolutely right. The Don is like an evil Pac Man whose insatiable hunger leads him to desire to devour the world and remake it in his image. He’s like the cat who gets limitless pleasure out of toying with the mouse he has captured before he kills it. Whatever happens with Greenland one thing is for sure: The Don has broken something invaluable that we may never be able to fix and with three more years left in his presidency more is yet to come.
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Now for some photos from Vietnam:
The Grand Offal Party 