The Failed Trump Presidency

by Alex Rounds

1/22/18

Some of my friends voted for The Donald, others for Bernie, but most of them voted for Hilary. There are those who believed the lies the GOP told about Ms. Clinton, and worse yet, believed the lies pushed by the Russian Blog Machine (RBM.) This irritates the daylights out of me. And of course that was the point of the RBM. Get us arguing with each other on the least important details of our political positions.

So what is it the RBM succeeded in doing, and what were it’s goals? It succeeded in giving our own home-grown trolls and conspiracy theorists ammo for their attack on ‘the left’ and ‘the middle’ and even members of ‘the right.’ This, their primary goal, was to foster discord against each other, and it worked wonderfully for them. I have friends who quoted the postings of what now turns out to be the RBM with its lies, half-truths, and provocations. Even after the truth of the RBM came out, these friends still believe the lies.

But it went farther than that. Trump and his minions actively solicited help from that foreign power – they got much more help than they expected, at first meeting with Trump campaign team members (and Trump family members) in an active bid to eliminate the onerous sanctions placed on Putin and the other oligarchs who conspired to seize Crimea from Ukraine. They are again actively acting against the interests of the United States by meddling in internal politics.

Putin may have bitten off more than he can chew, here. Trump is unpredictable, a thing he holds as an advantage in negotiating with business partners. Negotiating with world leaders is a whole different thing, though. We shouldn’t leave them guessing whether we will stiff them like our president stiffed Americans who worked for him. We shouldn’t convince the rest of the world that the US is a bumbling giant, who unknowing and uncaring, steps on countries that can’t get out of the way in time. We shouldn’t, by the way, leave our foreign allies wondering if we will support them in time of crisis (a crisis, by the by, fostered by the unpredictable nature of our Commander in Chief.)

So the RBM now gets to try to reverse its positions – almost. Putin still fears Clinton. Maybe she will be our version of Churchill – be the right person to replace a highly ineffective predecessor (in Churchill’s case it was Neville Chamberlain.) Perhaps Mrs. Clinton will be exactly what we need as Putin and his oligarchs in the old Soviet ……er…Russia, continue to attempt to undermine our democracy. Let’s see.