Originally Posted by
Stavros
There are aspects of this Presidency that I think you need to factor in to change your view-
1) This President has tried and failed to reduce US military engagements overseas, be it in Afghanistan or Iraq, while military engagements in Yemen and Mali have flopped -these may not be on the same scale as Iraq, but the foreign policy profile is radically dfferent from all previous Presidents reaching back to Eisenhower, who put US troops into Lebanon in 1958. His successor has broken with decades of policy which, while not being pro-Palestinian had at least sought to act as a go-between with israel, where this new man has been so aggressive in the dismissal of Palestinian rights the fear in the last three days has been that Pompe was in Israel to tell them the US would endorse an Israeli annexation of the Occupied Territories, though it seems even Pompeo may have now cautioned against this, but we shall see.
GW Bush and Tony Blair insisted that regime change in Iraq was justified by Security Council Resolutions -the annexation of the Jabal al-Jawlan from Syria on any measure is a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and International Law, and the point is precisely that the US has, in effect, repudiated the authority of the UN and its Security Council, indeed, incuding the USA's own commitments.
2) there need be no major war abroad, because the battlefield is now the USA, as has been seen with the most radical reversal of inherited policy. It is not enough that the attack has focused on Health Care with a shambolic attempt to repeal the Affordable Health Act, it includes Medicaid and if the most vulnerabe, Disabled Americans are in the front line of attack, this chimes wth the disgusting ridicule of disabled Americans that was evident in His rally in 2016 -as if this entire policy was revenge agaist an unfriendly reporter.
Not enough to strip disabled Americans of their rights in law, not enough to remove rights from women, transgendered Americans, refugees, migrants, illegal/undocumented immigrants and their children but a raft of over 34 decisions has sought to reverse environmental policy dating back to the 1960s that makes it easier now for motor vehicles to poison the streets on which people live, while energy companies can trash as much as the environment as they want and let slurry slide into lakes rivers and streams and pollute the groundwater -and why not?
3) Lastly, there is this thing called 'statecraft' which is what academics call the analysis of Presidential style. It used to be said the most successful Presidents built a relationship with Congress that was was not based on party but on policy. Reagan was the last President to achieve this, indeed, the Conservatives who hailed his election in 1980 were so repelled by his accommodation of policies 'across the aisle' they were opposed to -arms reduction with the USSR for example- they created a 'Neo-Con' ideology on the 'never again' basis.
This President has no social skills, no political skills, and no negotiating skills -all he has is confrontation, laced with the most vitriolic abuse of Congress that has probably ever been recorded outside the Civil War, indeed, most of this man's language is the language of hatred and resentment, of endless accusation, debasing the very nature of debate.
You may say, 'that's just his shtick', but it has undermined the norms and values of politics in the USA, and in my view is a deliberate attempt to so demean and defame the practice of politics that the 'angry citizens' of 2016 will withdraw their support for Federal Government, and seek to secede in all but name from the Union.
That these radical changes are being led by a man most Americans did not vote for, underlnes the worry that either this is a blip the Union will survive, or it is the beginning of the end.
