Would it Have Made A Difference?

 

When most people hear that Trump was thinking of firing missiles into Mexico to take out the cartels and then act as if maybe some other country did it, I'd like to think they would see all the many problems with the plan right off the bat. Like. leaving aside the moral or legal questions (which never would occur to Trump, anyway), we are firing over what border with what missiles, now? It wouldn't exactly take Sherlock Holmes to sort out what had taken place. Are we sure we could pin-point the location of cartels without so-called "collateral damage"? 

It's bad because it violated international law, sure, but it's also really fucking stupid. And yet, from the stable genius mind that wanted to make a moat next to the border wall and booby-trap it, is it so hard to believe? That's right--we heard crazy-ass shit from behind the scenes of the Trump Administration quite a few times. We already knew he wanted to shoot immigrants in the legs (they did get tear gassed). It's not, then, a shock to also know he wanted George Floyd protesters shot in the legs, as well. (They also got tear gassed. Apparently, Trump's bloodlust is mollified by having a little chemical warfare, as a treat.) 

Trump fans knew what he was when they picked him up. I don't think they would have been put off by those things at the time, any more than they were put off by the prospect of extortion of other world leaders or some light treason. Not when Trump could point to the wreckage and say "See? I was doing something."

That may sound incredibly pessimistic, and it is. We can criticize Esper for saving it for the book, but unlike with journalists whose principal duty should be getting these things out, I can appreciate what Esper saw his duty as being (swatting these sorts of things down--weekly!?) at the time. 

I just know that if there is a next time, Trump will find people less inclined to swat him down. He will have his own Lavrovs, Peskovs and Shoigus. 

I don't think we can say how things would be different for sure if Esper told the world then. It's like conservatives pointing out the violation of the Alito leak rather than looking at the scope of the argument. The real horror is that Trump is a mad idiot--but we knew that. The real horror is also that a large part of the population still likes their mad idiot. That's the bit to organize against. Everything else is theater criticism.