If You Were Trump Right Now, What Would You Do



Trump sent his cabinet member across the country to sell the Administration and thus help Republicans in races for governor, House and Senate. It backfired. According to a review of these visits, Cabinet members were greeted by hostile crowds. Agricultural areas have low farm prices and energy consuming areas have high gasoline/diesel prices. 

My former student, Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergum, was not sent out. He has worked to dig oil wells on federally owned land. Maybe some areas don't want the oil wells and others don't want more competition in selling their oil so he may not be a plus out on the hustings. 

The obvious and often repeated conclusion about the state of affairs with Iran is that it is a stalemate. Neither side can stop the other from doing some damage but cannot put the other out of business. The group running Iran know how to stay in power and the society has been under attack for so much of its history it knows how to keep going. That situation makes it the "winner" because Trump overstated his case.

When W. Bush found to his exasperation there were no "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq he realized the entire reason for invading was bogus. He simply admitted this. While those of us who thought and still think he is a dufus cheered and sneered, Bush simply continued on with being President. 

Trump could do some version of this. He could admit this was his mistake or blame it on someone else like other countries. As oil prices fall he could take credit for his "accomplishment." He could drop all his tariff nonsense and farm incomes would rise and the cost of inputs fall.

Most of us would understand this reality and do what Bush did. Trump, and perhaps some around him, has a personality flaw that prevents him from taking the steps that would extract himself from the mess he has placed himself in. 

If there is anything positive about all of this it is that the entire world has had the chance to see mental weaknesses and their consequences. Perhaps we will see years of good judgement and rational behaviors in world leaders for years to come.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Talarico Looks Like an Obama II

Image
We all have our ideas about what is good or smart politics. I'm no different. Those who read this blog have to hear mine. My thinking is millions of voters will go to the polls in the next two elections for the specific purpose of voting against Trump. Most of these voters, however, will not admit that is why or how they are voting. They will have convinced themselves they are voting for some reason more idealistic and loftier. An example of what they might say to themselves is, "I'm voting for a better country." The job of Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists and whomever is to give those voters something that ends the sentence, "I'm voting for someone other than a Republican because..."  The sentence will not end in "...I hate Trump." It will be something else. That is what Texas Govitorial Candidate Talarico is doing so well.   Talarico is telling Texans their state is too big and too important to yield to the narrow views of the far right. T...
Read more

Will We Ever Know How Accurate Current Bibles Are

Image
When I discuss the many times the Bible was copied and recopied by scribes over a couple of thousand years, the reply is often, "I have a book by this (or that) expert who says the Bible is 99% accurate to its original writers." The 99% claim appears in various places defending the Bible. There is one thing we know absolutely: There is no surviving original copy of the Bible. Even the oldest surviving material is a generation or two after the time some of the Bible was written. This means no one can claim he has, or ever will, compare the current Bible to the original Bible and find the two are 99% the same. We cannot claim either that it is not 99% accurate. For the sake of discussion, however, assume the current Bible is 99% accurate. That would mean the one word out of every 100 was inaccurate. It could still mean an important misreading of the original text. An example is the passage referring to punishment for a man who kills a fetus. In the oldest know materia...
Read more

Ancient God, Bel (Baal), the Main Character in an Ancient Play

Image
In a British museum is a preserved stone tablet from Babylon. It dates to about 2,000 BCE. Someone labored patiently to inscribe an entire passion play featuring the god Bel. I reiterate this is a stone tablet, not a recopied papyrus. The play begins with the god Bel arrested by soldiers and taken off the stage. He reappears at a trial in the Hall of Judgement. Bel is innocent but is sentenced to death. In the next scene Bel is accosted by a mob. He is despised and rejected. The actor playing Bel is then taken by guard to a hilltop in a sacred grove. Two criminals are taken with him. One of these is released. The the audience then leaves the theater and follows the actor Bel and his guards to the top of a hill where the death scene is enacted by hanging from a tree. The audience returns to the theater for the dramatic final scenes. The dead Bel is stripped and prepared for burial. On a theatrical hill to the side of the stage is a tomb where the body is placed. A stone is rolle...
Read more