It’s apparent that Erick Erickson doesn’t really understand high level international maneuvering, as he tries to justify backing Mr Trump:
The truth is that Russia was not advancing in Ukraine when Trump was President — pausing their Obama-era gains in that country until Trump left. And Hamas was not killing Americans under the streets of Gaza when Trump was President.
It is precisely why I can support the man even as I am clear-eyed about him. The press and Democrats lack clear eyes to see that our dementia patient-in-chief cannot do his job.
This is a shallow analysis of the situation, akin to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, although I might prefer to call it overly-simplistic analysis. As I see a proper analysis, we need to take into account the fact that we’re a republic/democracy that suffers the usual range of defects inherent in such a governmental form, along with being a capitalist country with a moral foundation that has been crumbling for a good fifty years, at least. The Republicans are a bunch of fourth-rater mixture of hacks, religious zealots, and grifters who can often be bought, mislead, or otherwise manipulated, while the Democrats are second- and third-raters who have a tendency to forget about the basics of the country’s governance, but they are more aware of the international adversaries we face than are the Republicans, and less isolationist – the same isolationism that got us into World War II late.
So, if you’re an adversary, what to do? Evaluation: Put the weakest Party in charge of your adversary. Not an easy thing to do, but when a Party leader as weak and malleable as Mr Trump appears, it’s a Godsend. The game plan:
- Engage in violence when the Democrats are in charge in order to stamp them with the appearance of weakness.
- Get Mr Trump and his Party into power (note how Russian government officials applauded his election), even engaging in electoral interference, which, despite Mr Trump’s denials, seems to have occurred according to Mr. Mueller’s report.
- Make Mr Trump look better by desisting from aggression while he’s in office. This isn’t wasting time, since President Putin had invaded and taken control of Crimea, and that consumed resources that needed to be replaced. Such replacement, especially in a weak economy like Russia’s, takes time, and, with President Obama’s undeclared war on Russia’s oil exports, even more time.
- Make kissy-face with Mr Trump while he’s the President, as if the guy has any influence over President Putin. Note that the independent analyses I read indicated Mr Trump showed all the flags of a very weak negotiator, keeping all information, that should have been shared, private, and making ridiculous statements as a distraction.
- Once Mr Trump is out of power, engage in some easy aggression again in order to make the Democrats look weak.
Of course, Americans do tend to be short-sighted – it’s the economy, stupid! being the best example, and that makes Russia’s plans actually harder to implement. Mr Trump’s glaring inadequacies can be difficult to overlook when they’re on blatant display, and I suspect Mr Trump, a man-child, takes poorly to direction from President Putin. That, however, is only speculation.
President Biden also didn’t put troops in Ukraine. Instead, he sent arms, many of which were scheduled for replacement, to Ukraine, and, much to Putin’s horror, the Ukrainians have used them to devastating effect. The “easy victory” may, instead, be President Putin’s epitaph. President Biden has taken a great deal of criticism from all sides, from faux-peaceniks like Rep Greene (R-GA) to more war-like members of the Democrats, who generally seem to forget that the Russians are nuclear-armed and must be handled with care. I think that President Biden isn’t some dementia-riddled body, but a tired, but still effective, political strategist and tactician.
So, in effect, I’m rather horrified that Erickson will use that sort of shallow reasoning to justify backing his own demented candidate for Christmas, just because, as a political convenience, Mr Trump is against abortion. Sort of. Maybe. If it suits his political position.
And Democrats back abortion as a principled right.
