Trump Surrenders (Again)
In my initial remarks on Donald Trump’s failed second summit with Kim Jong-un, I quipped that no deal could be reached because the two sides couldn’t find anything else for Trump to concede to Kim after last year’s summit. Of course, I was only joking — there is naturally plenty for Trump to concede, and in spite of reaching no deal this week, which is another way of saying Kim was forced to give up nothing, Trump has decided of his own accord to make yet another gratuitous concession to a tyrannical maniac.
Specifically, the joint military exercises conducted by U.S. and South Korean forces have been cancelled permanently. Why? Because North Korea — which, you may recall, used to be regarded as a somewhat hostile nation, before Trump solved that problem by rebranding Kim Jong-un his personal friend and a great leader beloved by his people — finds the exercises “provocative.”
Really? Well, I sort of thought the whole point of such exercises was to be provocative, in the sense of letting the North Korean (and Chinese) communists know that South Korea and its ally The United States of America were ready and willing to repel any aggression from the heavily-armed and highly aggressive communist dictatorship. Apparently, the days of showing strength to one’s adversaries is over; it’s all surrender all the time in the Trump White House.
Oh, but of course Trump, unlike his predecessor, has nothing but respect for the military and its priorities, as anyone can see by reading his opinion about these joint exercises, expressed during his post-failure press conference on Thursday:
“Those exercises are very expensive,” Trump said. “And I was telling the generals, I said: Look, you know, exercising is fun and it’s nice and they play the war games. And I’m not saying it’s not necessary, because, at some levels, it is, but at other levels, it’s not. But it’s a very, very expensive thing. And, you know, we do have to think about that too.”
“Look, you know, exercising is fun and it’s nice and they play the war games.”
Still with the program, cultists? Still making America great again, are you?
History’s great debate about Donald Trump will be: Was Trump more of an idiot or more of a coward? Too close to call at this stage, perhaps, but these days his white flag undies are definitely showing.
And by the way, I enjoy a good Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joke as much as the next guy; but if you are a Trump supporter, whether of the cultist or the “But Hillary!” variety, I suggest you stick your AOC jokes where the sun don’t shine. Your guy makes AOC look like Sappho and Margaret Thatcher rolled into one.
