Tuesday, July 17, 2018

And Then Trump Said:. Or On the Helsinki Meeting And Its Aftermath.


There's a reason
 for treason
and a season, 
too

That's as far as I have gotten with my political ditty for yesterday, to celebrate the Helsinki* meeting (Putin looking like a sleek gray cat playing with a large tufted orange cat-toy, enjoying its squealing and its skittering, moving a firm paw to redirect it when needed).

Now, treason is a strong word to use, a word we should handle carefully, a word like a red-hot rain of doom, not to be splashed over all the Internet in cat-sized letters.  Let's keep the powder dry for the day when it's really needed... 

And if we keep screaming that the sky is falling, who will believe us when it actually does fall?

By the way, did you notice when it fell?  That might have been some time in 2016.  We may not have a proper word for what happened, a word strong enough, but we all felt that seismic shift.

So take it for granted that I was joking about treason in the above paragraphs, or not**.  Besides,  Trump is still loyal to himself and for him loyalty to himself is loyalty to the country  (" l'état, c'est moi").

After the debriefing with Putin, Trump tweeted this:




And in the meeting itself:

... Mr Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to allegations of meddling in the 2016 presidential vote.
"President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," he replied.

Who are you gonna believe?  Your own intelligence agencies or Vlad the Impaler?

This is such fun (of the sinister kind):  Now Trump tells us that he misspoke, 24 hours ago,  and had meant to say he saw no reason why it was not Russia that meddled.

His aides got to him, to get that correction,  though it will be fun to see how long that restraining hold might stick.  Or perhaps (I'm bending over backward to be kind here), Trump decided to wait a full day before correcting a mistake that completely changed the meaning of the sentence, one with great political significance, too?

Trump's antics are like a newly-formed scab on a scratch or a cut.  I can never keep my paws off that scab, even though I know that I shouldn't remove it, just to see what's happening under it. 

But I always do.  And so I write about the Trump Reich when there's no real value in such writing.




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*  Helsinki is pronounced HELsinki, not HelSINKi.  That was the one informative bit in this post.  You are welcome.

**  I'm learning from the master of manipulation here, our Dear Leader.  Meaning is always whatever one means at a particular moment, truth is what makes one feel good, and every opinion and value can change in the blink of an eye.  The later is why other countries love our Donnie:  He keeps things fresh, life exciting,  and people on their toe tips.