When the old man goes off the rails, sometimes it’s up to his daughter to sit him down and straighten him out. This is Ivanka Trump’s role in the life of her father, who, despite his faults, she loves dearly. He loves her beyond words, and wants her to be always proud of him. This is the only intervention which matters. If he’s capable of doing it, he’ll do it for her. I’ve developed an unusual admiration for Ivanka. My granddaughter is twelve, and I see her in Ivanka. And I’m crazy about my granddaughter.
The world today is the same as it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow. Anything can happen, because nobody knows anything. What is laughable are predictions about 2020. Trump will have ruined the Republican Party beyond repair, some say. Just like Barry Goldwater ruined the Republican Party four years before Nixon got elected. Nobody saw Trump coming, and yet we’re supposed to believe they can see four years from now? Stop, please.
Don’t lie, don’t quit, and don’t apologize. That’s how John Wayne tried to lead his life, as his father instructed. That’s pretty much how I’ve tried to live mine. But sometimes you do something so stupid you have to make an exception, and admit you screwed up. That’s what Trump did with the Khan family. But he’s too insecure to do it, and will pay the price.
I read pieces by neocons like David French at NRO, and I can’t find any meat. Fearmongering is all they’ve got, and doomsday talk. These people are Russophobes, or something. Russia is an authoritarian, and occasionally brutal state, run by a man with no affection for democracy. As Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger would say, so what?
We’re getting out of NATO. I can feel that wind start to blow. The Russians today are like the Germans after World War I. At Versailles, one of the principles was national self determination, which gave the Poles their own country for the first time in 140 years. All the nations of Europe were given their country, with their people. Except the Germans. There were too many of them, so they split them off into parts of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Hitler wanted those Germans, and the land they lived on, and started World War II to get them.
The breakup of the USSR has left tens of millions of ethnic Russians in former Soviet Republics like the Ukraine and the Baltics. Russia is in a demographic death spiral. In order to avoid virtual extinction, Putin wants all the Russians he can get, regardless of where they live. This is especially important because of the continuing effects of the great loss of life in World War II. He poses no threat to Western Europe. He just wants his Russians back.
America should offer to arbitrate this dispute. And when the results of the arbitration are implemented, we pull all our troops from Europe. Putin knows the impossibility of occupying Western Europe. And his military is far overrated. He has no overwhelming advantage. And why, precisely, would Putin want to invade Western Europe? To steal their gold?
I liked the crowd over at the Pence town hall in Carson City. These people aren’t traditional Republicans, or conservatives. They’re with Trump, and their association with the GOP will end when he exits the stage. They’ve really bonded with this guy.
They’re salt of the earth Americans, and he’s letting them down. He has a responsibility to them, and he’s not living up to it. The way he’s going, he’s going up in smoke. His millions of fans will be disappointed in him, because, even they would know, it would be his own damn fault.
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