After consuming as much election analysis as I could bear over the past week, there is not much I can add that hasn’t been exhaustively covered. Obviously, a big win for Donald Trump and for the country, larger than anyone expected and with many implications for the future of U. S. politics.
I just hope that the best elements and tendencies of President Trump will prevail, and I am particularly worried about his foreign policy, where there are already troubling signs of association with the likes of Tucker Carlson and his acolytes from the isolationist wing of populism, not to mention Vice President-Elect J. D. Vance. I am sympathetic with Trump’s America First populist base, but the problem with populism is that it often leads to public policies favoring the tendencies of isolationism and protectionism which are harmful, particularly when they act to undermine America’s role as leader of the free world. Watch closely his appointees in this arena, which will send key indicators.
Meanwhile, all the best to our President. He will need all the help and prayers he can get.
While Trump can be a loose cannon rhetorically, his foreign policy in his first administration was hardly isolationist. He flexed America’s economic power where necessary and the Middle East was much more stable under his watch.
Yes, we must be on guard for extremism of all sorts but America First is not in itself isolationism.
I have a Ukraine flag in front of my house and know that Trump will give in to Putin. He loves Putin and called him a genius for his invasion of Ukraine. Trump will want a Nobel Prize for bring “peace in our time”. You recall that in 1994 Russia, the US, the UK and Ukraine signed the Budapest Agreement saying that the borders of Ukraine would be respected. Thus Putin has violated a written agreement and giving into to him will have consequences. I am old fashioned and a lawyer but there is no argument to support Putin. NATO is a good idea and Ukraine should be a member.
Now that you see Pete Hegseth? in this position you know that Trump has stopped thinking again and is putting people in who will stroke his ego. I hope someone says this is a joke.
Jim, compare this rollout to the Texas Lyceum’s rollout and conferences. You got it right the first time. I considered submitting my resume but I’m not a sex offender. Govt efficiency is a must, including the Pentagon.
Final sunset on the Bush neo-con era, all driven by the military industrial complex.