- How did you react when you learned that Donald Trump, had said this?
Trump added that, if elected, the U.S. would not automatically guarantee security to the 28 members of NATO. Russia recently started a review of the terms of Baltic countries' independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.
The GOP presidential candidate told the Times he would decide to go to the aid of small Baltic states only once he reviewed whether they had "fulfilled their obligations to us."
He added, "If they fulfill their obligations to us, the answer is yes."
My blood froze. Honest. That's because the man treats the large and complicated diplomatic pyramids as a toy from which he can pull out one of the bottom slabs and not have the pyramid collapse. He believes the United States can simply disregard any contract it has entered, with no repercussions.
A "rookie mistake,' this was called. But if you aim for the presidency of the most powerful country on earth you shouldn't be a rookie in understanding how NATO works, and you certainly shouldn't be forgiven for such a gross ignorance of the duties of the job you are applying for.
- The whole RNC reminded me of a clown circus, to be honest. There were the noisy clowns, in the pews, yelling "Lock Her Up", the grumpy clowns (Ted Cruz), the sinister clowns (Alt Right and Milo Yiannopoulos with their extreme bigotry, racism and sexism). And then there were the merely stupid clowns:
Susan, a single mother of three, said Trump has given her confidence to speak up about political issues. “I think that as a woman, I’ve always felt my First Amendment rights have been inhibited,” she said. “He’s made it OK for people like me, Middle America, single moms, to speak their minds. He’s done more for me personally than the feminist movement.”Mm. Feminists got Susan the right to vote, better pay and all such trivial things. -- As an aside, I find it hilarious when women such as Susan (and Margaret Thatcher) say they owe nothing to the feminist movement. It's a bit like the anti-vaccination folks who don't see that it's vaccinations which have caused certain infectious diseases to have become rare enough so that people now believe they can experiment with their children's health.
- Speaking of feminism, Trump's campaign chair lives the middle class Victorian life of 1880s America:
The permanent foot-in-the-mouth disease of the Republicans sadly has no preventative vaccinations. Really, men like Paul Manafort should simply stay quiet. Then we might suspect that he is a sexist. Now we know for sure.
- It's hard to enjoy this clown circus, given that it's also the gathering where the Republican candidate to destroy the world is nominated:
Trump’s nomination was inevitable, but it’s worth dwelling on for a moment. The Republican Party has nominated a man who is openly racist, sexist, and nativist and has normalized racist, sexist, and nativist political discourse, who has promised to order the military to commit war crimes, who knows nothing about domestic or foreign policy and has no political experience, who has promised to deport millions of people living in this country, who is, in short, totally unfit to be president of the United Sates.
While it should be noted that a number of party elites stayed home, Trump’s nomination is the result of the party’s voters, not its leadership: These voters, who have overwhelmingly chosen Trump as their nominee, will guide the party’s future, regardless of what happens in November. This is a historic and possibly cataclysmic moment for the Republican Party and for America.
When we add to that list of characteristics (openly racist, sexist and nativist) the possibility that he has the attention span of a teething eighteen-month-old, well, my blood runs cold again.