Trump’s been back in the States for just a few days, and he’s tweeting again. Now he tweets that he wants to end the filibuster in the Senate. Or something. Tweets aren’t long enough for much subtlety.
He apparently didn’t get the memo. You don’t need to “go nuclear” on the filibuster to get health care reform and tax reform. You just have to use an expansive interpretation of what can fit in a reconciliation bill. As I’ve been advocating for some time, you solve all your problems in one big Monster Reconciliation Bill of 2017.
Tax reform and repatriation, Obamacare repeal and replacement, the budget, an infrastructure package, and a debt ceiling increase can all be rolled into one bill, not subject to filibuster. It comes to the floor of the House and Senate just as the fiscal year ends, on September 30th. Either vote for it or shut down the government and run out of borrowing authority.
Voting no could cause an economic recession, and who wants to do that?
(The debt ceiling must be raised in July, but Congress could just kick the can down the road to the end of September by a stop gap increase.)
NATO was formed to keep the Russians out of western Europe, the Americans in, and the Germans down. But we will no longer fight to keep the Russians out, or the Germans down, so NATO is obsolete. When Trump pointedly refused to embrace NATO’s Article V in Brussels last week, the fat lady started singing. The Germans understand what this means.
On Fox Special Report today, Charles Krauthammer said that we may rue the day when we allowed the Germans to assume their natural, leading role in Europe. What, does he think Merkel wants lebensraum? Does he think the German people, with their ramshackle military, are going to invade Poland?
History is starting over, and just because the Germans were ultimately responsible for the 20th centuries two world wars doesn’t mean they’re ready for a third. Far from it, they don’t seem to really want a powerful military at all.
I think the Germans have come to resemble the Swedes, who will avoid armed conflict if at all possible. If they won’t defend themselves, no one else will. Their choice.
The French understand all this, and are already cozying up to the Russians. It’s a centuries long French strategy. Peter the Great visited Paris 300 years ago, and Putin is there now in commemoration. This is all natural and to be expected. We’re getting out of Europe, and the Europeans are making adjustments.
Aside from a few old fogey Atlanticists like Krauthammer, who else is objecting to Trump’s implicit disavowal of NATO Article V? A rabid militarist like John McCain, maybe, but who else?
I’ve been searching the internet since Trump spoke, or failed to speak, in Brussels, and I’m still waiting for a Democratic politician, anywhere, who is criticizing Trump for backing off from our military commitment to fight in Europe. The silence is deafening.
And easily explained. The American people are sick of war, in Afghanistan, Iraq, or anywhere else. No American politician is going to win votes championing a greater willingness to fight in Europe. Trump’s pivot away from Europe is bipartisan American foreign policy at its finest.
This is a very big deal, the most significant geopolitical development since the USSR imploded, but nobody seems to want to acknowledge it. Trump has put his brand on this policy, so the media can’t celebrate it. In my opinion, Trump’s Presidency heralds a profound revolution in American foreign policy — bye bye globalism, hello American nationalism. George Soros must be shedding a tear.
Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize because of his good intentions. Trump should win it for getting his country on the way out of NATO.
If it wants, the rest of the world can go to war. We’re going to sit it out.
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