Pundits continue to discuss quietly whether to take Trump lightly or seriously, literally or figuratively. Their difficulty—our difficulty, too—is what to make of the off-hand remarks by a man without a moral compass or a political ideology, without principles or values, to guide him. Everyone should expect both off-hand and prepared remarks (witness his speech to the UN) of an aging sociopath. My rule of thumb is a pragmatic, preparatory one: take Trump seriously and literally because people do not talk the way in which he does without disclosing their wishes, however apparently implausible or even Constitutionally incorrect.
A question first asked 10 years ago, whether Trump is a Russian agent, is sometimes asked today. If he were, with his sense of self-importance and lack of self-discipline, he would probably boast of that fact—which would immediately terminate him in that role. To some, Trump’s recurrent complaints about the Russian investigations since 2015 might seem to be a tell, if not an implied answer, but I am not persuaded. More likely, his criticisms of intelligence and counterintelligence agencies are his advance effort to discredit any discovery of links between him and his business interests, and Soviet, then Russian, governments. Nevertheless, his attitude toward these agencies does not encourage them in their important and sometimes dangerous work. (I ignore the possibility of blackmail suggested by salacious rumors about Trump’s engagement with more than one Moscow prostitute. I anticipate that the Epstein papers will show his engagement in pedophilia right here in the good old U. S. of A.).
What underlies the question is, I think, an awareness of Trump’s relative indifference to and ineffectuality in advancing America’s interests vis-à-vis Russia’s. Though MAGAistas might deny them, the facts, though they suggest an alignment of Trump’s and Russia’s interests, make merely a circumstantial case for Trump’s affinity for Russian interests, his sympathy for autocrats elsewhere, and his lack of sustained interest in foreign affairs otherwise. Attention to Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict comes and goes.
Still, Trump has done so much to weaken America’s defensive capabilities that suspicion is inevitable. In Trump 1.0, at Helsinki, the President made clear that he believed Putin more than he believed American intelligence agencies; in Trump 2.0, he not only still gives little credit to their reports, but also has reduced or cut funding and personnel at counter-intelligence agencies dealing with Russian disinformation, hacking, and cyberwarfare activities. Trump’s actions provide indirect aid to Putin’s regime whether Trump knows what he is doing or does not. Either way, he is not acting in America’s self-defense interests.
Trump’s choice of leaders for America’s other defense-related departments has further weakened their capabilities. Pete Hegseth, Trump pick for Secretary of Defense, is a man with neither defense nor management experience qualifying him for the tasks of his position. Instead of trying to come up the learning curve of his position, he directs his efforts to developing what he calls “warriors” by waging culture wars against women, diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and LGBTQ+ personnel. His actions not only distract him from DOD’s primary missions and strategies—he recklessly supports the use of military forces in domestic situations—, but also adversely affect both force readiness and unit morale. The increase in DoD’s budget might or might not increase national defense; everything depends on whether the expenditures serve defense strategies to meet present and future threats as Russia becomes more aggressive in eastern Europe and the two polar caps, and China more so in the western Pacific and Antarctica. Putin’s Russia must be pleased that Trump has found in Hegseth someone who brings nothing to the leadership cadre and would prove to be incapable of responding effectively to a serious international crisis. The same can be said of Trump’s pick Kristi Noem for Secretary of Homeland Security. She prefers wardrobe changes for photo ops and acts of performative callousness, now with people instead of dogs. Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, is best known for creating friction among the agencies which she supervises, most recently for cancelling thirty-seven security clearances of ranking officials or Congressional staff without consulting the White House. In sum, Trump’s appointments to lead America’s intelligence and defense agencies are less focused on defending America from its foreign enemies than they are on fighting culture wars and on defending him from his perceived domestic enemies.
The media covered Tom Homan’s acceptance of $50,000 in return for promised contracts, the FBI investigation, and the DOJ decision to bring no charges and drop the case. Yet, despite the famous advice of Deep Throat to follow the money in the Watergate scandal, the media did not follow the money in the Homan case for many days. On 19 September, I asked on a number of nationwide podcasts whether Homan had returned the money. “So where is the $50,000? Homan took it before Trump's election; months later, the case was squelched. Apparently, Homan had the money for months. Does he still have it?” Now the mainstream media are asking the question; they have added one about his taxes. Epstein, Homan—so many scandals.
After a previous blog, a final word about Charlie Kirk, this one on the Right’s two reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Paradoxically, though both reactions are very different, they are compatible with one another. Both are extreme because the Right perceives his assassination as a symbolic threat to them. For Kirk represented the Christian nationalism, a movement based on bigotry of all kinds, which the Right embraces. Regarding Kirk as Jesus-lite (not Jesus-like) makes it possible to combine the two reactions, deification and assassination (i.e., crucifixion).
One reaction is to deify Kirk by extolling him as a family man and a crusader for civic virtues and by ignoring his civic vices. His advocacy of free speech rights went together with his free speech bigotry. He was much less saint than sinner. The other is to avenge his assassination by targeting, not only the actual assassin, but also individuals and organizations on the Left for presumably creating the political environment or activist network which permitted or supported Kirk’s assassination. The Right’s exploitation of Kirk’s assassination has an analogue in Nazis’ exploitation of the Reichstag fire about 90 years ago. Nazis used the attack as a pretext to go after communists; Republicans mean to use the assassination as a pretext to go after Democrats. (Query to Stephen Miller: will you hunt me down as a domestic terrorist for saying so?)
The Right’s reactions lend themselves to obvious criticism for its double standards, hypocrisy, false piety, violent language, violent threats, and more. However, such criticism only preaches to the choir on the Left and annoys the cadres on the Right. So I let what is obvious about that criticism speak for itself.
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