The silly answer Nikki Haley gives here in Trump's defense, emphasizing that he only tried to undermine support for Ukraine but didn't succeed (due to the general competence of those around him) reminds me of two themes regarding Trump.Chuck Todd pushes back on Nikki Haley claiming Trump was tough on Russia -- and he has receipts pic.twitter.com/PEhFTYNzdM
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 6, 2022
The first is that he tries to do things (hold up Ukraine aid, extort President Zelenskyy, steal the 2020 election via fraud) that are objectively wrong, but his defenders believe the best comeback is "He didn't succeed, though!" As if the problem isn't that he tried it in the first place.
The second is that Trump and those around him have leaned on his incompetence to dismiss the idea that he can make terrible choice deliberately. We couldn't have colluded with Russia--we're too incompetent! Incompetent people make deliberately terrible choices all the time--that's why a certain kind of collaborator is called a "useful idiot." Trump may have been Putin's useful idiot. Haley is definitely Trump's.
What is astonishing about her defense is that she would support Trump in 2024 knowing what he is. Here's why: I would want a president who is actually competent and decides to do good things on purpose. She for some reason does not.
Take Trump's recent comments at a fundraiser:
NEW ORLEANS — Former president Donald Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and “bomb the s — t out of Russia.”
He also praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “seriously tough,” claimed he was harder on Vladimir Putin than any other president, reiterated his false claims that he won the 2020 election, urged his party to be “tougher” on supposed election fraud, disparaged a range of prominent party opponents and called global warming “a great hoax” that could actually bring a welcome development: more waterfront property.
“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch,” he said of labeling U.S. military planes with Chinese flags and bombing Russia, which was met with laughter from the crowd of donors, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post.
So, a farrago of lies, admiration for dictators, and what might be a joke about using the US military in an act of war via a false flag operation, but then again he might be serious. The donors laughed. Why not send our invisible F-35s and have Russia think it was ghosts?
He isn't pretend incompetent--he's the real thing.
5 comments:
IT's too bad Halley's ComeOn defense doesn't just come around every 76 years...
Her entire posture has struck me from the jump as problematic--she plays the game of "reasonable Republican", but then is anything but. If she was truly angling for 2024, which I think she is pretending to be, she would actually have to confront the poverty of Trump's legacy and vow to do better. She would have to highlight his shortcomings and insert how she would do better. She isn't doing that.
But some 2024 contender needs to. They need to meet Trump's shortcomings head-on,and be willing to fight him to the teeth and claws. All the potential contenders are basically mene mene tekel upharsin--weighed in the balance and found wanting. They are lukewarm and soon to be spitted out. They suck up to Trump, without understanding why this is wrong. Why it is not just wrong politics, but wrong because he sucked at being a president.
I don't know who the 2024 presidential candidate for the GOP will be, but I strongly hope Trump is indicted if not convicted of something by then, for all the disruption to good government he has done. He should not ever be in spitting distance of government again.
The Pretendident.
If, big if, she ends up on the ticket it will be as a token. She ticks off more than a few, and there's nothing she's ever done that dissuades me the notion that she would perfectly willing to play the race card, the gender card, religious nutball card, who knows what card. I don't think she's angling for a '24 presidential run. I think she's angling to play second-fiddle to Trump for four years with an eye an "incumbency" run in'8.
I'm pretty confident that if a female ends up on the ticket it will be Darth's Daughter.
vix, tang the conqueror thinks that stealth fighters are invisible. the f-22 (despite not being a bomber) is a stealth fighter. how the fuck are the russians supposed to SEE the chinese markings?
it's so fucking stupid. he's so fucking stupid. and they WORSHIP him.
Yeah, the Russians are supposed to see the small Chinese flag but not notice that the planes are F-22s which only the US happens to have (nor notice where they took off from)? This from the guy who thinks aircraft carrier jet launchers should go back to steam, that maybe a nuke can dissipate a hurricane (a thing he apparently asked his advisors about more than once), that windmills and energy safe light bulbs cause cancer, and tried to buy Greenland (not for sale). The guy who thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax and that you only get so many heartbeats and if you use them up, you die.
This guy has received classified information and had access to the top minds this country has. And he still got all his information from Fox News and I guess the limitless imagination you can have when you don't know how anything actually works. Somebody once said idiots are entitled to government representation too, but, goddamn, that has to have a limit!
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