Karl's Bog

The murky world of politics (and other things) as seen from the Bog

Time to read:

4–6 minutes

Tag: Political dysfunction

  • Embarrassment at Davos

    Trump’s presentation at Davos was embarrassing. I began drafting this essay thinking I would direct blame for some of this administration’s self-inflicted chaos to Republicans in congress, cabinet members, and both official and unofficial advisors.  It’s not that they deserve more blame than the Don for the costs, chaos and corruption of the government but I don’t think they get enough.  I kept coming back to the fact that Donald J. Trump is president of the United States of America and they are not.  The buck stops with him no matter how hard he tries to redirect it.  So here it is, focused on the main driver.

    I was embarrassed by the POTUS display at Davos.  What I found most embarrassing was the fact that this man-child elected by my fellow citizens has virtually no understanding of the world.  He may know how to make business deals that enrich him but he doesn’t know much else. Take geography for example.  He appears to believe that the Mercator flat map projection gives an accurate perception of the size of continents.  In fact, it makes everything nearer the poles appear much larger than they really are.  Hence his preoccupation with Greenland.  That and the fact that he has friends with business interests there.  Also, he thinks that adding that much territory will enhance his legacy.

    He also seems unaware of the ocean conditions in the far north. Greenland is in the middle of an ice pack. In winter it occupies the entire eastern and northern coasts and lurks to the west on Canadian shores. If a nation is to be successful protecting sea lanes, exploring, researching or commercializing Greenland and surrounding territory, it needs icebreakers.  Big ones!  Not for river ice but for Arctic sea ice.  The US might have 2 capable icebreakers.  The rest of NATO has between 30 and 45.  Russia has in the neighborhood of 40-50.    We are planning to build more. Seven more.  Based a design from Finland.  Pushing NATO away while trying to make a case for securing Greenland under these circumstances is at best self defeating.

    Disparaging NATO activity during the Ahgan and Iraq wars should embarrass all veterans and any American who paid any attention at all to the news. Denmark lost more soldiers per capita supporting the US on the front lines than we did. I thank you NATO.

    Another cost of pushing NATO allies away is that may cause them to consider creating a stronger European alliance that is less dependent on America.  The European Union, which includes all the NATO nations in Europe, is the world’s largest market outside the US.  China follows closely.  If Europe is sufficiently worried by the saber rattling and decides to move closer to China or to expand markets in South America, Africa or South East Asia, it would be at the expense of the US.   

    By the way, federal funding for agencies that used to produce reports on sea conditions and ice concentration has been cut.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center is no longer funded to produce reports on the extent and concentration of sea ice among others.  If we are serious about defending Greenland, wouldn’t we want to know the latest and best information about conditions in the Arctic Ocean? This is an administration whose right hand that doesn’t appear to know what the left hand already did.  

    Trump also appears not to know or care that we already have an agreement with Denmark and Greenland that gives us free rein over our military operations in Greenland.  We had many bases there from the 1950s until after the cold war.  Those bases can be resurrected and we can build others in coordination with Denmark and Greenland.  Instead of the chaos he created at Davos, he could have had agreement to proceed and we could be building or upgrading as many of the old facilities as we want or building new ones right now!  Instead of maintaining warm relations with NATO countries, he managed to irritate almost everyone in Europe, especially in Greenland and Denmark. I wonder how that will work if we actually build new bases.  Will we have to import all the workers because locals don’t want to work with us?  That should save money!  

    Tariffs, being Trump’s favorite word, also came up at Davos.  Trump threatened an additional 25% tariffs on several European countries if he did not get his way on Greenland. Canada would be in for 100% tariff if they entered a free trade agreement with China.  He also admitted that the reason for all the Greenland chaos is that it is very important to own things for him, pyschologically.  Are the tariff threats, bullying, the attacks on NATO all because of his psychological needs? 

    So, in how many ways has Trump embarrassed not only me but the whole country?  

    He is illiterate on geography, unaware of practical issues of defending the island, oblivious to loss of funding for important information about Greenland, ignorant of existing agreements, uncaring about economic damage, disparaging of our allies, and really only interested for his own psyche and his friends’ enrichment.  Not bad for a single conference!

    And all that was before the ICE disaster in Minneapolis unfolded.

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    This essay will also be published in Substack.

     

     

     

  • Making America Weak Again

    MAGA means “Make American Great Again” but what is actually happening is “Making America Weak Again”.

    The role of a national government is often described as needing to protect life, liberty and property or pursuit of happiness along with other elements that depend on the type of government. Nations that are strong do those things well. Nations that are great do them very well and do them with the success of their people in mind. Nations that are great understand that they live in a world with others. Nations that are great protect their people from foreign military adventures, from domestic and international criminals and government corruption. Their businesses are protected by strong laws securing property rights and by honest courts. They protect against unfair competition both at home and abroad. The great countries attract strong allies with whom they can share intelligence, markets and defense burdens. I assert that they also have a guiding moral direction that appeals to the people of other nations as well as their own and underlies the strength of their alliances.

    Unfortunately, America is well on the road to weakness by squandering many of those assets.

    President Trump is doing tremendous harm to America’s greatness, not making us great again.

    It began with the refocusing of FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS and other agencies’ workers away from their intended jobs and toward immigration enforcement. While it is fine to find and remove undocumented immigrants, we also have to deal with drugs, murder, kidnapping, fraud, terrorism, espionage, money laundering, human trafficking and other crimes at the national level. The staff that used to track those problems is now largely dedicated to chasing and deporting people who are for the most part law abiding citizens and productive members of the community.

    Threatening to grab Greenland is making us even weaker. First, it is an appalling moral approach. He is saying to another sovereign country that he wants their land and they should concede because he likes real estate. Consider that Russia might want Alaska back or Mexico might want Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the land we took from them. Or China makes the stronger case for Taiwan. Or for Japan. Or Australia. China can easily argue that they need Japan and Australia for security because they stand between the US and themselves. 

    Grabbing Greenland by any means seems likely to destroy NATO. We would then lose intelligence sources, allied troops and material, the European NATO members then would be occupied on two fronts – trying to keep Russia in check in the east and trying to figure out what we are doing in the west. 

    Leaving NATO would make the security of Greenland more tenuous. If NATO is not there to help us, as they were in Afghanistan and Iraq, we lose major military support. We lose trained and experienced winter and cold weather troops. We lose military equipment. We lose major sources of intelligence from the region where the Russian navy sails on its way to the Atlantic and to the Arctic Ocean. If we want to keep Greenland out of Russia’s hands, it is far better to combat them with a larger united force. 

    Greenland is causing more domestic disruption. It is another burden on Trump’s popularity and is beginning to affect his ability to accomplish his domestic agenda. (I’m in favor of his not succeeding with his domestic agenda but rationally his Greenland stance seems to work against it). On top of the turmoil caused by ICE and reaction to ICE, it is causing Republicans in Congress to push back. It is already being suggested by – Republicans! – that moving against Greenland could cause another impeachment.

    It is also making China stronger. Countries that feel they can no longer depend on us for markets or support are turning to China. Mark Carney from Canada just visited China to build trade relations. Chinese exports to the US are down due to the tariffs but up overall as other countries have stepped up. 

    The chaos and domestic disruption could have an effect on US bonds. If lenders think they are facing more risk with American bonds, they will demand higher interest making it harder for us to sustain our debt and driving up the cost of mortgages. That’s a huge problem if it lasts beyond the current presidential term. 

    Just today, Trump threatened higher tariffs on our NATO allies who support Greenland’s independence. That promises even more costly European imports.

    Lastly, the chaos and disruption in the US and Europe means less attention being paid by the already depleted foreign relations staff to Northern Africa and the Sahel and also to southeast Asia. When no one is watching the strongmen and militias and war lords, they are freer to do as they please which is good for no one. It was when no one was watching Al-Qaeda that 9/11 happened.

    As I look at this, even considering that the US would have a huge expanse of land with rich minerals in areas, it looks like a weaker America. And a failed real estate deal.

    This essay is also published on Karl’s Substack

  • Trump’s Cowardly Enablers

    I have to write this. It’s a compulsion. I’ve been thinking of drafts and writing snippets since George Floyd’s murder and I can’t avoid it any longer. When the President of the United States of America issued a tweet insinuating that a 75 year old protester in Buffalo, NY was attempting to steal some kind of code so he could jam the police department’s communications system, I laughed. But I knew I had to do something more. So do you.

    That tweet was just the most recent example of the President’s mental and moral unfitness for the office. George Floyd died less than two weeks earlier at the hands of the police, cities were in flames, protests were being held in hundreds of cities and he felt compelled to tweet about a 75 year old attacking the police and intentionally cracking his own skull! The worst part is that when he propagated nonsense theories about one protestor, he completely ignored the causes that were being protested – police violence against black and brown people, systemic racism and George Floyd among others. I’m no longer surprised but still shocked by his daily behavior.

    What does still surprise me is the Republican enablers pretending they are deaf or blind. Didn’t hear the story, didn’t see the tweet, too busy running away from electronic devices to ensure they won’t see it. They are afraid the president will make fun of them, criticize them, campaign against them. They run away from the racism implicit in Floyd’s death and ignore the vindictive mindlessness implicit in the tweet.

    Most of the enablers apparently thought he would change or that they could control him if he was elected although they didn’t think he would be. Many of the same Republicans told reporters two or three years ago they just wanted to hide out until he was gone. “Please don’t make me say anything bad about him. He’ll get mad at me and he’s a bully. I’m afraid.” They have been hiding from him as well as from their constitutional responsibilities and oaths.

    The Constitution is our governmental rule book. But it can’t cover all situations. For example, there are few limits described for presidential powers. That’s not because the framers did not want limits. It’s just that they couldn’t anticipate everything and write it down. For many years, the control of presidential power resided in the norms of behavior expected of the president. It was self imposed, Witness Richard Nixon turning over the tapes. Those norms were more or less guaranteed by the method of selecting the candidates. Only in the late 20th century did that process begin to fail as the primary election system took hold and grew. The party bosses lost control and could no longer guarantee a candidate who would behave. You can argue whether that method of democratizing the nominating process is good or bad. It undeniably enabled candidates who have few or none of the character traits that have always been selected for such as willingness to abide by the law and not to push beyond the boundaries on every issue. Witness the current, impeached occupant of the Oval Office.

    If the selection of the candidate can no longer guarantee that a nominee will conform to the unwritten rules and expectations, then Congress in its oversight capacity has to insert itself more aggressively and the president must comply. If the president simply refuses to comply, then the presidency is well on its way to an autocracy.

    Running the USA is not a win/lose proposition. It is a long term event that we want to continue. It requires tolerance and forbearance for the other team. So when your side loses, it’s best not to sink the ship but try to influence the navigation. When your side, wins, it’s best not to throw the other side overboard. You might need them to help fight pirates. So the president claims to drain the swamp but is in reality just jettisoning the ballast and the spare sails, throws the signaling equipment overboard and sells the lookout station. Congress watches, cowering, from the hold hoping the ship doesn’t flounder before his term expires.

    So how does this event – remember I’m writing about the president’s tweet on a Buffalo protester – play into all of this and why did it finally motivate to write again? It isn’t the president. I expect nothing of him. It’s his enablers. Especially the ones who have been in government for ages (i.e., the Senate apologists) and refuse to address even a single episode of destructive behavior because they are more interested in staying in power than they are is doing their jobs. Most of them have not condemned Floyd’s murder, police brutality as a practice, systemic racism nor the insane tweet that set me off. They are the ones who have abandoned the constitution and the people of the United States. Enough.

  • Trump’s (Needed) Apologies – part 2 of ?

    A while ago I thought it would be fun to keep track of the apologies Donald Trump owes the country.  I wrote one on his assertion that Judge Curiel could not rule on his Trump University case since the judge is of Mexican heritage and could not possibly be unbiased.  It was fun.  But I could not keep up.  What with the Khan family, fire marshals, beating up protesters, lying about his changed positions on Syria and Libya, on the number of immigrants in the country illegally, the unemployment rate, crime rates, Obama as founder of ISIS and at least 70 other stories tallied by PolitiFact, I was beaten.

    Then I realized those are just chump change!

    The biggest and most abject apology owed to America is for accelerating the decline of our most important institutions.  He and his fellow Republicans have for years been doing their best to create darkness where there should be light.  They have turned the perception of science from an instrument of discovery and verification to an instrument for promotion or vilification of political positions.    They have changed reverence for education into distrust of expertise.  Support for common infrastructure has become classified as “tax and spend” programs to wreck the budget.  For these, the Donald gets credit for advancing the ball but not for all the recent progress.  The Republicans, after all, have worked on knocking down government for years.

    Mr. Trump’s singular contribution is his unique ability to stare into the mouth of a bear and deny that he sees teeth or even that there may be a bear.  For example, we have his continuing claim that what he said in 2004 about favoring the invasion of Iraq, on film, did not happen.   Also, his claim that president Obama is not a native-born American is now being denied on his behalf by his campaign but he would not admit it in person until 9/16/2016.  And speaking of bears, he still denies Russia has troops in the Ukraine.

    Most of all, though, we have his skill in debasing political debate.  I know, I thought that art had already been perfected by Congress, but I was wrong on that too.  Trump has skills in innuendo, ad hominem attacks, misdirection and blatant lying that make the most ambitious sixth grade bully weep from jealousy.  With his recent claim that Secretary Clinton has run a “hate filled” campaign, he has taken the school yard taunt “I know you are but what am I?” to impressive new levels.  Similarly with his continuing attacks on the Clinton campaign regarding Benghazi, the email server, her health and the Clinton Foundation, he has created exactly the sort of distraction that his son now says is the real reason he won’t release his tax returns – that it would create a distraction and keep Mr. Trump from delivering his message.  I wonder what the distraction would be?