“At the outset, position yourself at the furthest oppositional point when it costs you nothing; then leverage inward toward your opponent as they expend their resources to meet your stance.” – Donald Trump
Maybe it’s because the complexity is difficult to distill; maybe it’s because some just can’t give President Trump any credit; or maybe it’s because the scope is too challenging to comprehend against the constant belittlement meme du jour; regardless of reason, President Trump is fundamentally realigning international geo-political alliances and almost no-one is connecting the dots.
ht/ C. Steven Tucker
Fur, glad to see you linking to CTH. I enjoy his perspective and I like his enthusiasm for President Trump.
I agree Trump is generally playing Chess while the Leftist MSM struggles with checkers.
The man amazes me. This time next year the USA will geopolitically be much better positioned than we could have expected.
He is forcing the left to fight their way to the center.
It happens every day in the most mundane circumstances. The problem with the GOP is they think that by acting “reasonably” their “good guy” schtick will cause the Left to recognize and reward that reasonableness. The GOP gives up every negotiating advantage available to them and throws in a few other items just for good measure. Trump understands the first rule of negotiating for anything: It is not (about) what is “fair”. Fairness is a highly subjective concept. It is what the parties agree to. Another thing to watch Trump do is he creates value in the minds of his opponents where none previously existed, and/or he shifts the priority of those things that are valued. It’s sorta like currency manipulation in a way. He is a lot of fun (and very instructive) to watch. Love it!
Trump doesn’t mind playing the fool and he allows crazy idiot leaks to dominate the MSM. He gets things done without their interference because he has them chasing rabbits.
@Aggie — Yup. Playing the “dumb ‘ol country boy’ is a great foil. So funny, too, since he is anything but.
The left consistently manages to rope-a-dope themselves. They create a legend of idiocy to belittlement their political opponents, they themselves believe the deception, and then get their bell rung when reality strikes.
We have a guy that calls the shop about twice a month check availability on our 7.62 by 39 AR15 bolts. Caller I.D says UNTD ST GOVT. Area code 571. He just called and I explained to him we’re a DLA contractor and we some DOA1 expedites YADA YADA YADA. So he tells me he works for the State Department. So I asked him how he liked working for TRex. He laughed and said “For the first time in 8 years I smile on the drive into work.” He did get off he phone real fast after he said that though.
I remember when that movie came out and sophisticos were saying it drew parallels to Reagan. And we know how that turned out, don’t we?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H3wGIYhz0Q
One of my favorites of Chauncy Gardner.
annie Go Trump
Read the book. The detail of what goes on in Chauncy’s mind is incredible.
“Trump is fundamentally realigning international geo-political alliances and almost no-one is connecting the dots”. Like so much about Trumps bafoonery, this statement is so patently absurd if redefines the word “hyperbolic”.
Lets recap Trumps foreign policy:
Pissing off our neighbor Mexico over a Wall that even his Homeland Security Cheif admits can’t built, would be too expensive, and most significantly would be ineffective at curbing illegal border crossings.
Pissing off Canida over attacking NFTA, a trade deal that will never be renegotiated. Congress is simply incapable of handling something even more complex and politically fraught in the Republican Congressional Caucus than repealing and replacing Obamacare. Too many Republican States in the farm belt would be harmed by messing with NFTA, given that Mexico and Canada are our two biggest market for US agricultural exports.
China policy: After his rooky comment suggesting the US abandoning the One China policy, Trump was forced to reaffirm US commitment to policy after China warning that to do so would put in jeopardy the US China relations.In fact Trump was out maneuvered by Chinese diplomacy by publicly stating that the US and China were equals and deserved respect on the international stage, a long sought after recognition previous Administration refused to concede. Yet another rookie move. When Trump met with the Chinese leader, there was no mention of naming China a currency manipulator. The big trade breakthrough was a vague pledge to negotiate a time table to negotiate a framework to negotiate a bilateral negotiation to address each countries concerns over trade. Basically a promise to look into the possibility to agreeing to negotiate. No mention of import tariffs or bring back manufacturing jobs from China. Basically a complete abandonment of this key campaign promise to get tough with China. Something that was not going to happen given China’s leverage given its holding hundreds of billions of US. Not to mention the considerable opposition to such a lamebrain policy by US Corporate interest Congressional Republicans.
Realignment with Russia. Complete failure. Ended up bombing Assad and following Obama policy of calling for regime change in Syria. Ironically this reversal might come back to bite Trump, given what Putin holds over Trump about his shady financial ties with Russian Oligarchs and the Trump campaign’s collusions with Russian meddling in the ’16 election.
Other foreign policy flipflops: Reaffirming US commitment to NATO, reversing calls for Japan to become a nuclear power, reversing commitment not to getting involved military in Syrian War, not changing Obama’s ISIS policy, not moving US embassy to Jerusalem,not ripping up the Iranian Nuclear Agreement, not getting a Muslim Ban. Other than some rooky missteps in diplomacy that resulted in Asssad gas his people again, In fact for all campaign talk about abandoning long standing US foreign policies, Trump is policies are virtually to those he inherited from President Obama,including the conduct of the war against ISIS. Policies all shaped by Secretary of States Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.