Although policy wise, Trump is actually the opposite of that thinking since he is against globalism. The problem is a lot of countries depend on US security/economy which isn't a good thing.
Although policy wise, Trump is actually the opposite of that thinking since he is against globalism. The problem is a lot of countries depend on US security/economy which isn't a good thing.
He is really more America first, and he's the type who wants to keep his cake and eat it too. So its not so much that he wants America to be isolated and irrelevant, as much as the winning partner of a series of bilateral agreements with the rest of the world. He's very much transactional in his approach.
Selling billions of dollars worth of arms to a country, even if they are not exactly nice people, is a win since America made bank and another country has to be buy into our economy. The idea of America having to give up anything, especially to international institutions, is so anathema that he is willing to scuttle deals that would be otherwise advantageous to America on the principle of it all.
Whether or not this works is separate from whether or not it hold up over time. You may get a few years of boons, but then a lot of small issues overwhelm the advantages. Take the border wall. Regardless of someone's position on the wall, it will be a major undertaking and maybe it will be a small boost to local economies since its a big fuck-all wall. Then twenty years from now the tides of immigration have changed and congrats you have a big chunk of resources you either have to scrap or maintain. Twenty years from now a bilateral agreement with a series of countries may be made irreverent by shifting economic or industrial emphasis. Getting exclusive rights to distribute coal to, lets say, Madagascar may not pan out if in a few years Madagascar swears off coal.
Ultimately all he cares about is the immediate impact, no amount of later blowback will phase him since he'll long be dead or retired by then, and he knows how to deflect and confuse the public argument to the point that it all becomes a bunch of partisan noise rather than anything of substance.
I won't say he makes up shit as he goes, so much as he's instinct-driven. Its a small difference, but he focuses on one thing at a time, makes up his mind on it, and will push that issue until it either isn't a winning deal, succeeds, or something new comes up. The difference, to me, is that he doesn't have an over-arching plan, but he does have a lot of moments where he has a very clear idea of what he wants. He is also inherently theatrical and plays things like a showman. He'll make speeches about speeches on things, knowing they aren't substantial but they play to his base. He'll make up shit all the time because when people counter him, they then play into his arguments regardless of the facts.
Personally, I don't think he's evil incarnate and we're not aligned on political or world views. I don't really care about his demeanor because its Trump, my main concern is more about the legacy. He's done a lot to throw just about every expected outcome out the window and now nothing is for certain, and I do think that it is good that he shook the political establishment in America to the core, but all I can really say is that he's doing a lot of things but there hasn't been the time to really see the consequences of it, even if they are going to be rather obvious.
He panders to his base, not the mainstream politics.
The issue with the characterization of Iran is that to prior to Jimmy Carter installing the Ayatollah (why) as a counter against potential communist influence, Islamism was not a relevent political movement in Iran. Even then, a coup against the ayatollah was imminent until a country backed by the United States, Iraq, invaded and threw the country into complete disarray, and efforts were instead focused on defense, allowing the Ayatollah to entrench himself.
The lifting of sanctions gave moderate factions the foothold they needed, since believe it or not, Iran is Persian, not Arabic, and historically were not under the conservative regimes common to the Arabic region. This also meant that for the most part, Iran does not have an inherent issue against Israel.
With Trump rattling the saber and basically pulling out of an agreement in such a way to torpedo all the work us and other nations put into it and posturing for a hostile regime change (including ties to the son of the former Shah who has also been talking about regime change).
Iran, prior to the reimposition of sanctions, was cutting funds to Hamas since that was the Ayatollah's pet project to ensure his power-base doesn't try to start shit in his own country. They were supportive of the Kurds, and were being set to be a good counter not only to Saudia Arabia, but Turkey and Russia/China influence as well (large swaths of Greater Persia were swallowed up by the Soviet Union and mistreated).
Now you have a president who is basically pandering to the rhetoric the Ayatollah wants and needs to stop dissent in his own country. It also massively undermined faith amongst Iranians looking for their own interests: European economic and social connections are essential for their own sovereignty, but the United States has, and continues, to undermine Iran's sovereignty. Don't forget that we overthrew Morsi, the elected head of state, because he wanted to Nationalize Iran's oil. Its no coincidence that the Iran Oil flowing into the markets and Trump's decision, as part of America First, to stop that flow even though it hurts our allies.
In the long terms, Iran (excluding the Ayatollah) is like any nation: look for regional and international allies. They do not trust Russia and China due to their involvements in a lot of movements that threatened to overthrow them in the past, nor are they interested in being puppets to their interests. Likewise, the US is a distant figure, whether friend or foe, and being friendly with us opens economic barriers. However, this is only valuable if there is stability. The idea that a change in presidency can lead to existing, seemingly set in stone, legal and political treaties being torn apart and that state practically threatening to reinstate their own puppet in your regime makes the US no different than Russia/China, and thus Iran won't go out of their way to antagonize us, but they have little incentive to rely on our word again and are instead focusing entirely on Iran.
Again, the long term results of Trump's decision is up for time to reveal but to me it indicates his America First ideology and disinterest in the ramifications of that policy to places that aren't America, especially when it comes to human rights. Being buddy buddy with Kim is easy to do when you have no interest in crimes against non-Americans.
The problem with the wall is the problem huge fuck-huge walls have had in history: its never economical for the side that raises it over the long term. To me the immigration issues from Mexico are not to the point where we need a wall. Mexico is not a hostile country, nor are they a bunch of steppe nomads who may someday unite and form a great raiding party that will conquer the known world. They are, at the least, a trading partner thanks to the easy access. For a wall to be effective, it has to be complete. Otherwise, congrats, you now have an ugly slab in the middle of nowhere that people can just walk around. As far as major crime goes the big element of corruption and bribery still comes into play. Yes limiting access points will make this harder, but a compromised checkpoint isn't hard to do if there are potentially hundreds to facilitate the move of traffic, unless we reduce trade with Mexico (and South America) since why not.
I mean Europe has open borders with Europe, most states have open borders with most states. Most other barriers tend to be the military kind, with two sides putting a wall on either side of disputed territory and manning it so the other side doesn't try to interfere with their borders. Yes, crime is a major concern, however I do not believe that a wall is effective. To me even with a wall, all the current issues, strengths, and failings in policy that allows for the border to be what it is will still exist and now you have billions of dollars into a development that may or may not ever be complete or work.
This starts to get into the states and native lands. Lets say an Indian Reservation has land where the wall needs to be built and says no. Or private landowners, or federal reserves or other projects. Do you just leave a gap in that place, have to negotiate dozens of settlements for the right to build a wall there, or build it anyways? Then you get into what I consider to be the most pointless of clusterfucks and that is one country or another arguing over where the wall should go. Is that hill part of Mexico, or the US. Is anyone going to care, is anyone in the federal government going to spend the time to settle this, or will they not have the money too and just leave a gap or put up temporary fencing.
So to me I won't say the wall will be a failure, but I think its avoiding the problem that led to its own creation and ultimately the United States will front the cost for its creation and issues. To me that 50 billion dollars can go to defense in ways that matter, like active-protection systems, or in improving border security through training and tactics rather than just throwing money and concrete at a problem.
The idea of a deep state is a pointless term to me. There are unelected people in government, most of which are involved in mundane tasks that need to be done for the government to function. These aren't political positions and to me they are allowed to have political views.
Regarding staff, there is a way to handle issues with staff. As the President of the United States, it is not to me proper etiquette to resort to calling people names and using grade-school insults against opponents. Yes everyone thinks it, but saying that your secretary of state is an idiot one day and praising him the next is not exactly anything that would inspire belief in someone's ability to effectively lead. Firing people via twitter, failure to tell his staff about major changes until after they already happened, making a bunch of baseless or false claims.
People disagree about Reagan, but to me a strong president doesn't say there are good people on both sides of a white-supremacist rally, he strongly condemned the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire. He did not publicly undermine allies even in the midst of major conflicts with them over trade and policy, but instead framed things as a united cause, with America's interests aligned with theirs. Frankly, with things like Iran-Contra, he also did extremely shady shit, but (granted twitter did not exist) he did not constantly bring up the issue, he knew how to wear the Teflon skin to dodge blow-back while still absorbing success. To me, Trump has a masterful ability to have a major positive (the economy) and blow it into the gutter by focusing on something else.
As far as the swamp, have you looked at his administration? I mean you had several major cases of unethical behavior leading to people quitting/resigning, hell, even Trump's father ran the democratic political machine in his time, given Trump a lot of the early connections he used to build his empire. He rails against the idea of chain-immigration, yet his wife's parents were recently given citizenship through the very same process of chain-immigration Trump is against. He spends most of his time at his own place, and he values loyalty over all else. To me this is all signs of him being the same exact sort of politician that every politician is and has been, just with his own crowd. For what its worse, I feel the same about the Clintons.
Related, the idea that a bunch of Hondurans are such a threat to the United States that we need to deploy more troops to the Border than we have stationed in Afghanistan is just hilarity.
As a moderator, Since I know this can to go bad places fast, I'll just get this out of the way now.
Discussing politics is already a tricky thing, but don't go into insults or veiled insults. This is a warning not to engage in any stupidity, insults or attacking other users regardless of how much you agree, disagree or abhor their views.
In the words of famed warlord Humungus, "Just Walk Away."
This site fact checks several statements made by Trump. For everyone who don't know this site, it fact checks many statements/stories made for a variety of things. I think it's pretty great.