Former US president Donald Trump is continuing his reactionary nostalgia tour, giving a mammoth 84-minute address to about 250 of the Republican Party’s biggest donors at the Four Seasons in New Orleans over the weekend. But like every consummate entertainer, he didn’t just play the hits: he found new places to take his act.
First, the classics. The 2020 election was “stolen” and the Republican Party has to be “tougher” on electoral fraud. There was climate change denial (“a great hoax”). The barely veiled admiration for tyrants: North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is “seriously tough” and Trump was jealous of the way his aides “cowered” in his presence. It got a laugh. Insults scattered like a shotgun blast at every perceived slight and betrayal, like “stupid, corrupt Mitch McConnell”.
And, of course, the fact that none of this would have happened if Trump were still in charge: “I knew Putin very well. He would not have done it. He would have never done it.” The phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that initiated his impeachment — in which he appeared to threaten to withhold aid until Ukrainian authorities investigated his political opponents — didn’t get a mention.
But he also came up with some new material. Most striking was the suggestion the US should put Chinese flags on its F-22s, “bomb the shit out of Russia … 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”. Apart from sounding a bit war-crimey, you may recognise “bring about a major conflict by framing one world power for an attack on another” as a big element of at least three Bond villains’ world-domination plots.
Trump makes those other Americans from the early part of the twentieth century, Larry, Curly and Moe seem like normal, well adjusted individuals.
Most of Trumps speeches are comedic – Putin probably attacked because he thought the US was terminally stupid in electing him. If he’s reelected Taiwan is doomed.
Depends what you mean by ‘doomed’ – the mainland relies on Formosa for cutting edge chips (hi, Lex – get in your order!) and as an entrepôt for other Western goodies, not least purblind financial scams from & to the Olde Worlde.
Honkers used to perform the latter function until the US instigated those demokracy idiots.
“I knew Putin very well. He would not have done it. He would have never done it.”
But he did. And whether Donny was still in the White House or not he would still have done so.
Nevertheless, I’m sure Trump’s ‘base’ (no pun intended – oh wait.. yes there is) will believe every word that falls out of his facial sphincter. As usual.
Trump base is in the basement. Donald Trump must be suffering from dementia to come up with all the crap he spouts. Only the gullible could vote for him – he’s a One Nation type and anyone who supports that lot should consider the mess that Trump left in his woke nightmare.
“Only the gullible could vote for him” – er, have you had much to do with your average American?
his false-flag fighter jet idea is so f*cking dumb … I doubt it would’ve worked in the days of Sopwith Camels, but in this day an age … he’s dumber than Putin and just as crazy
Fish in a barrel but you did it well. With Putin and Trump we now seem to have two Bond villains. Whereas Reagan was a dangerous clown in need of a villain, And George W was a bland dim monster who made Graham Greene’s quiet American look insightful.
Elitist. It’s all right for Trump to whacks lyrical about ‘starting a war between Russia and China’. He can go back to whatever planet sent him here and watch from a safe distance …. presuming they want him back of course?