Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Saturday, June 9, 2018

The Puke Funnel Turns

So, I took a whole day to assimilate the news of Anthony Bourdain's self-demise, and I've been trying to complete a long list of chores.  The upside is that I've been ignoring the news.

The G-7 Debacle has crept into my consciousness.  As we dive deeper and deeper into Trumpistan, the question becomes what will it take to get out.  Domestic institutions have largely survived, primarily because of the Courts and Trump's own incompetence, but we are one Mueller firing away from a constitutional crisis.  It is perhaps internationally that the institutions will crumble first.

America has been the fulcrum for the Western world since 1942 and the entire world since 1991.  We set up Bretton Woods, which created a network of global trade that has created decades of peace in the developed world.  We created the UN and NATO to establish a collective security network that has preserved that same peace. 

Trump is trying to actively align America with the likes of Erdogan, Duterte, Xi and, yes, Putin.  He has broken American promises in the Paris Accord and JCPOA.  He has proved that American foreign policy can be broken, and that could have an impact for years.

Everything is awful all the time.  Isn't it?

No comments: