Carry On

Once again, Donald Trump has shown us his bluster and bullshit is off the charts. I don’t know whether to be be amused, not surprised, relieved or disgusted by his speech this morning in Davos at the World Economic Forum. The global markets reacted immediately and badly over Trump’s rants and raves about invading Greenland (or was it Iceland?) if there was no deal to be made. It’s hard to tell if they really thought he would try to deploy troops into the Arctic or whether they were just concerned about his tariff bat-swinging at Europe…or maybe the more likely “enough is enough” retaliatory bazooka blast from the EU by shutting down American tech companies in Europe. What is clear is that his weekend social media rant sent the entire planet into a panic with cracks in his Congressional support widening, on-the-fence allies finally deciding that he is a lunatic and that the world order has gone irretrievably sideways. Even China started to get worried about his flailings, probably not because they are scared of him, but rather because they are becoming the unintended recipients of his collateral damage like with the stoppage of Venezuela oil shipments to them. In the end, I suppose that I should be happy about what he has again done for two reasons. The first is that he has TACOed us off the brink and so other than the deployment of Danish troops to Greenland, there has been no military action and as for tariffs, where’s the news in Trump big-talking and then changing his mind. But the real reason I’m happy about it all is that I remain convinced that every single new drip of water on the rock of his credibility will eventually weaken that outrageous and inexplicable rock of power that he has created. Every new convert who finally sees the unclothed emperor and admits as such, gets us one step closer to ending this reign of madness that is the Trump presidency.

I read recently that Steven Miller has now moved his wife and children out of their suburban home and onto a secure military installation where other Trump staffers have chosen to live to maintain their security against a population that increasingly sees him as one of the enemies of the state. I understand that he and Trump like to characterize these threats as coming from the violent radical left, but whether the supposed Trump assassination attempt in 2024 or the Charlie Kirk shooting, it is increasingly clear that its not the fabled violent radical left that should worry Trump acolytes, but rather the general population and perhaps mostly the gun-toting right-wing population that is more and more confused by the day by the flip-flopping policy decisions and actions of the administration. Trump’s global power binge has gotten so out of control that its hard to find two people who can agree on supporting all of his wild-hair thoughts. Right-wing isolationists have been left in the dust somewhere between Gaza, Iran and Venezuela. Anti-drug loyalists must be scratching their heads over his pardoning of Juan Orlando Hernández – Former President of Honduras, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison in June 2024 after being convicted of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States and related firearms offenses. He and his co-conspirators trafficked more than 400 tons of U.S.-bound cocaine through Honduras between 2004 and 2022. We are WAY past the days when red-blooded Americans raised to hate and distrust Russian aggression have been thrown into a tizzy by being forced to side with Trump over his support of Putin’s efforts against Ukraine. It’s a wonder that more previously loyal Republicans and MAGA hard-core haven’t taken up their weapons against more of the Trump team with all the confusion.

While after 9/11 there was pretty universal distrust and even perhaps hatred of much of Islam, rightly or wrongly, due to the perception that Muslims hated those like Americans who were not Muslim. But that has largely shifted now, somewhat due to many years of the war on terror and the near obliteration of ISIS, but certainly due to the war in Gaza and the sense that Palestinians (who are 93% Muslim) have become the underdogs that, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Huttis notwithstanding, have become more victims than predators and perpetrators. The rest of the Middle East has not reduced the state of confusion. Sunnis and Shiites are hard for Westerners to sort out to be sure. We tend to now think that Sunnis (Saudis, Qataris, Emiraties, etc.) are good guys and Shiites like Iranians are bad guys. But wait…it’s not so much Iranians since we now want to protect those that are protesting against the fundamentalist leadership under the Ayatollahs. Getting more confusing by the minute.

At least we still like Europeans, but the problem is that they no longer care for us. Just like the Canadians (who are ostensibly Europeans), who used to be our friends, but now know better. The Canadians seem to have learned their lesson by virtue of our recent attempts to annex them as the 51st state. We’ve succeeded in driving them into the arms of China, which is ironic given that Canada was the citizenship alternative of choice for Hong Kong Chinese during the 1997 Handover. If course, many of those Chinese-Canadians have gravitated back to China for transactional commercial reasons to get their piece of the China growth pie over the last twenty-five years. So the seeds for a China connection for Canada is not so far-fetched. But Europe has no such heritage, their immigration leanings have been far more Muslim from places like Syria and North Africa. But China is now looking better than ever to Europe given Donald Trump’s tariff anti-diplomacy. The Europeans have tried hard to play the Trump game with all the flattery and conciliatory dialogue. While that has not been a good look, it has certainly been a look adopted by people of all sorts ranging from Silicon Valley tech titans to global leaders trying to keep Trump on their side. The problem has been that no one seems to be able to predict which direction Trump is likely to turn next. Will he attack Greenland or Denmark? Will he leave NATO and let Ukraine fend for itself against Russia? Will he attack Iran again as Israel would like one minute and then not like the next or will he need to be more careful not to anger his Sunni friends in the Gulf. It all must be making his head spin. He just barely understands the basic geography of the world and certainly doesn’t recall any of his world history, so imagine how tough it must be for him to keep religious sects apart.

What this all means is that as Trump has done another 180 on his whole Greenland program…the military threats, the tariff threats, the purchase negotiation threats…the world is left standing around wondering what’s next. The part that is unclear is whether at this point its possible to stay calm and carry on, as they say in England. To carry on, one must believe that norms and institutions still exist and the truth is that we have allowed Trump to dismantle them all. We must carry on, but now we can’t carry on.