Jim Geraghty rounds up the reaction from Trump's normal supporters to his effort in Helsinki.
Do let me add: Try to set aside the cognitive dissonance of watching the Blame America First crowd pose as uber-hawks. Try to ignore the years of "Bush lied, people died" morphing into "The CIA said it so it must be so". if you want to, hold onto the idea of a Deep State alliance of both party establishments playing political games with this Russian thing in order to undermine Trump's hostile takeover of the Republican Party.
Despite all that, many of Trump's supporters didn't like what they saw and heard. But not Sean Hannity!
This is an odd story from last spring by Jonathan Swan of Axios as reporters circle for the Trump-Putin meeting:
Scoop: The time Putin actually enraged Trump
Earlier this year in the thick of his election campaign, Vladimir Putin released a propaganda video promoting Russia's "invincible" new generation of nuclear weapons.
Why it matters: One scene in particular caught President Trump's attention, according to sources with direct knowledge. The motion graphic in Putin's video appeared to show missiles raining down on Florida — the home of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club.
Apparently in a phone call Trump told Putin what he really thought:
In the source's recollection, Trump told Putin he thought it was "outrageous" that he'd put out the nuclear weapons video.
Trump said, "I called up Theresa [May] and Angela [Merkel] and they agree with me," the source recalled.
"And the other day, I saw you sayyou need a new arms deal," Trump told Putin, in the source's recollection. "So I guess that was just election talk. I'm glad to hear you weren't serious about it."
Then Trump added: "I’ve already increased defense spending, modernized our nuclear weapons...We can do more, so if you want to do an arms race you’ll lose."
OK, this is a friendly leak intended to reassure us that Trump can be a tough guy. I'm delighted to get some reassurance.
Based on reactions people are watching two entirely different Strzok hearings with different casts and directors.
I take special umbrage to this:
“I understand we are living in a political era in which insults and insinuation often drown out honesty and integrity,” Mr. Strzok said, continuing: “I have the utmost respect for Congress’s oversight role, but I truly believe that today’s hearing is just another victory notch in Putin’s belt and another milestone in our enemies’ campaign to tear America apart.”
Yeah, yeah - sort of like how anti-war protestors were pro-Saddam, or pro-ISIS.
Or, more to the point, the original Russian plan seemed to be to divide the US electorate and de-legitimize the eventual winner, whomever that might have been. So one might just as well say that every time some member of The Resistance denounces Trump as a Russian pawn, Putin laughs. Does Strzok truly believe that this FBI 'investigation' is a victory notch in Putin's belt? Probably not.
Wow. Al the kids and the coach are out. Once the rescuers complete their own exit it is Mission Accomplished.
England is still alive in the World Cup so the Brits may have several Finest Hours this week (as their government unravels) but still - I would start these guys off with a ticker tape parade while I figured out how to really give them a show.
And the Thai Royal Navy SEALs deserve a nod. I do like this, from the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page:
“We are not sure if this is a miracle, a science, or what. All the thirteen Wild Boars are now out of the cave.”
In other news, fun Resistance Porn from Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine - what if the Russians co-opted Trump all the way back in 1987? No, I'm serious, he is serious:
It is often said that Donald Trump has had the same nationalistic, zero-sum worldview forever. But that isn’t exactly true. Yes, his racism and mendacity have been evident since his youth, but those who have traced the evolution of his hypernationalism all settle on one year in particular: 1987. Trump “came onto the political stage in 1987 with a full-page ad in the New York Times attacking the Japanese for relying on the United States to defend it militarily,” reported Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The president has believed for 30 years that these alliance commitments are a drain on our finite national treasure,” a White House official told the Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin. Tom Wright, another scholar who has delved into Trump’s history, reached the same conclusion. “1987 is Trump’s breakout year. There are only a couple of examples of him commenting on world politics before then.”
And what happened in 1987? Trump went to Moscow to talk about hotel deals, stayed in a room that was surely bugged and then... and then...
Trump returned from Moscow fired up with political ambition. He began the first of a long series of presidential flirtations, which included a flashy trip to New Hampshire. Two months after his Moscow visit, Trump spent almost $100,000 on a series of full-page newspaper ads that published a political manifesto. “An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves,” as Trump labeled it, launched angry populist charges against the allies that benefited from the umbrella of American military protection. “Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests?”
Trump’s letter avoided the question of whom the U.S. was protecting those countries from. The primary answer, of course, was the Soviet Union. After World War II, the U.S. had created a liberal international order and underwritten its safety by maintaining the world’s strongest military. A central goal of Soviet, and later Russian, foreign policy was to split the U.S. from its allies.
The safest assumption is that it’s entirely coincidental that Trump launched a national campaign, with himself as spokesman, built around themes that dovetailed closely with Soviet foreign-policy goals shortly after his Moscow stay. Indeed, it seems slightly insane to contemplate the possibility that a secret relationship between Trump and Russia dates back this far. But it can’t be dismissed completely. How do you even think about the small but real chance — 10 percent? 20 percent? — that the president of the United States has been covertly influenced or personally compromised by a hostile foreign power for decades?
So Trump went into the tank for the Soviets in 1987 based on controversies about our trade deficit with Japan and the ongoing Reagan defense budgets. OK, wow. Chait really missed the lead here - Reagan's defense budgets were controversial from Day One of his Administration, our trade deficit with Japan was a problem from Day One, and it as if as if the entire US government had been co-opted by the Soviets. Here is the WaPo, Sept 1981:
Japan's 'Free Ride'
[T]he amazing strength of Japan's economy is reflected in the prospect of a $15 billion trade surplus with the United States this year, despite "voluntary" quotas that have been placed on shipments of Japanese cars.
President Reagan's trade ambassador, William Brock, has been warning the Japanese government at top levels that such a surplus is "unacceptable," and his point has been driven home by a number of influential senators and congressmen who have given Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki something new to think about:
Unless Japan pitches in more money for global defense--giving up what the Americans like to call a "free ride"-- American protectionist sentiments will be deepened even further.
This trade-defense "link" has brought Japanese-American relations to a low ebb in an up-and-down cycle.
More from the CSM in 1982, this time with Democratic Congressman involved. I should add that the author, Robert W. Barnett, was denounced by Joe McCarthy as a Communist sympathizer; he was eventually exonerated but maybe McCarthy and Chait are onto something:
Ways to end Japan's 'free ride'
ByRobert W. Barnett, Robert W. Barnett, former US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is a resident associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Japan hears Americans, particularly US congressmen, harping on Japan's free ride on America's defense investment. That charge flashed like lightning through all Japan last November when North Carolina Congressman Stephen Neal proposed that Washington tax 2 percent of Japan's GNP to help pay the Pentagon's bills. It recurs constantly, as is now the case in Congressman Stephen Solarz's hearings on Capitol Hill.
Let's flash forward to 1987 when Trump bursts onto the scene, to mockery here:
A Little Backbone Would Help U.s. End Japan`s Free Ride As Defense Dependent
COMMENTARY
September 7, 1987|By RICHARD REEVES, Universal Press Syndicate
It`s always fun to laugh at a billionaire, especially at an egomaniac like Donald J. Trump. It seems to be our only revenge as he tears apart the city to build towering monuments to his young self.
However, after the laughter...
To give Trump some credit, he chose an idea whose talking time has come -- at least as attractive political rhetoric. Only a few days before, I listened to another political overreacher, Rep. Pat Schroeder, say just about the same thing. Her little presidential campaign, as far as I could tell, is based on the idea that the United States` greatest problem is the need for more day-care centers and that can be solved by having the Japanese volunteer to pay for them in exchange for the protection of U.S. ships and planes.
Hmm, Trump echoing liberal talking points - who knew?
Finally, in 1988 the Rolling Stone claimed everyone was getting in on the act, although the author only cites Reagan Hawk Richard Perle and liberal darling Pat Schroeder:
Why Can’t Our Allies Defend Themselves?
While America pours billions into defense, our NATO allies and Japan are getting a free ride. But how can we get them to pay for protection they think is unnecessary?
By William Greider
Aside from denouncing drug smugglers, the most popular new theme of this year’s presidential campaign is bashing our allies – the feckless Germans and Japanese, even the Danes, Norwegians and Spanish. Every candidate, including the squishy vice-president, has demanded or at least suggested that our NATO allies and Japan pay for a larger share of our mutual defense.
“The Japanese case is scandalous,” says one authority in the field. “The political and psychological excuses that Japan has sold a succession of American administrations, including this one, for not sharing the defense burden equitably are little more than a gloss on a policy of chronic freeloading. “It is galling to be lectured by those whom we defend about the need to control our budget deficit. Indeed, if we were to reduce our defense effort to, say, the level of Germany, we could balance the American budget this year.”
Spoiler alert - he is quoting Richard Perle there:
This is the historic contradiction facing the American empire: The United States is financing the defense of its economic competitors, assuming costs and risks that they refuse to accept. Meanwhile, they are trafficking with the ‘enemy,’ even selling the reds high-tech hardware for modern weapons systems. The long-term consequences for America are clearly visible: The economy gets steadily weaker, deeper in debt and less competitive while our supposed allies ride the advantage by investing their capital in productive enterprises. The allies, it seems, do not take the Cold War “threat” as seriously as American political leaders do. For the Europeans and the Japanese, it’s a good deal, and they have no incentive to change. For Americans, it’s not such a good deal. As Representative Patricia Schroeder first observed long ago, “We have all the burdens of empire and none of the benefits.”
Some of the harshest observations about our allies, such as those quoted above, do not come from Pat Schroeder, Jesse Jackson or dovish left-wing wimps but from Mr. Hawk himself – Richard Perle. Recently retired as assistant secretary of defense for international security, Perle was the bristling intellect of Reagan’s Pentagon. No one believes more fervently in the Cold War struggle. No one plotted more skillfully for the Reagan arms buildup. Now Perle acknowledges that when he was in government, he spent a lot of energy hiding the freeloading of our allies.
Well. Trump's 1987 idea was hardly original and if it was Soviet influenced then we have a serious problem with American governance since a lot of the local had (and have) problems with trade deficits going side-by-side with lax defense spending by our allies.
BENTSEN: Well, I've told you what I'd do about trade and trying to help turn that situation around. But what we also should do is get them to give us more burden sharing when it comes to national defense. We have a situation today where, on a per capita basis, people in Western Europe are spending about one-third as much as we are in our country. And then when you go to Japan, where we're spending 6-1/2 percent on defense of the democracies, they're spending one percent. I met with some of the Japanese business leaders, talking to them about it. And I said, you know, we have 50,000 troops here in Japan, protecting the democracies of Asia. And it costs $3.5 billion a year. You're the number two economic power in the world. You ought to measure up to that responsibility and carry some of that cost. I said, if we were not doing what we're doing, we'd have a big budget surplus. And I said, you'd have chaos, because you get 55 percent of your oil from the Persian Gulf, and you wouldn't have the U.S. Navy down there to take care of that. Now, the Senator from Indiana, when we passed a resolution in the United States Senate to ask for burden sharing on that cost to keep those sea lanes open from the Japanese, he votes against that. I don't understand that.
Another very encouraging jobs report, with just one quibble - if the job market is so tight, why aren't wages rising? One factor - formerly discouraged workers are re-entering the work force (good!) but that holds down wage increases and actually raised the reported unemployment rate this month.
Tick tock. Democrats hoping for a bad economy to bolster their inevitable Blue Wave might want to start working on a fresh fantasy.
Good golly, this story about the boys soccer team trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand for nearly two weeks (and counting) is amazing.
Finding them was one thing. Getting boys with no diving experience out of a tricky flooded underground cave is another. And the caves will probably be flooded for the rest of the rainy season, so another four months.
“Even if they can’t swim, a rescue diver should be able to guide them along,” Dr. Lavonas said. “The diver will have lights. Obviously, these are young boys and they’re terrified. It’s not going to be an easy rescue, but it should be O.K.”
"They're terrified"? Has he met any boys, because this sounds like adult logic to me. C'mon, they're invincible, immortal, and incapable of guessing just how difficult an underwater scuba dive can be. So don't tell 'em! Project confidence and make it work.
Fortunately, they are not in America, where, after listening to to the mandatory full disclosure of everything that could possibly go wrong I am afraid to let my dentist clean my teeth. And why I still walk across the street without demanding police assistance remains a mystery...
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