The news from the G-8 summit is that trade negotiations with China are on again. Apparently Trump blinked and offered concessions. Basically, Trump made a crisis of his own making slightly less bad. The Right will turn this into a major victory.
Trump also continues to embarass our species every time he opens his mouth. One does wonder where his head is, or even if he has one. His inane complaint about the U.S.-Japanese alliance — basically, that Japan should be paying more protection money — reveals not just ignorance of history but shows he is utterly oblivious to the fact that Japan’s prime minister has been bending over backwards to be nice to him —
Mr. Trump’s words are also a pointless slap to Japan’s right-wing prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who has ardently sought to cultivate a relationship with Mr. Trump and is trying to mediate a way out of the crisis between the United States and Iran. The 1960 treaty was signed by Mr. Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, another prime minister. During a four-day state visit to Japan in May, Mr. Abe flattered Mr. Trump with an extraordinary meeting with Japan’s new emperor, a sumo wrestling match and a lavish state banquet at the Imperial Palace. Yet standing next to Mr. Abe at a news conference in Tokyo, Mr. Trump shrugged off Japanese fears about North Korea’s recent tests of short-range ballistic missiles that could kill thousands of Japanese civilians.
This level of obliviousness goes beyond mere psychopathy, IMO, because even a psychopath can appreciate how other people think and what they want. They just don’t care. Psychopaths can put on a show of courtesy and consideration if they feel there’s something in it for them. But Trump is even worse; he can’t “think” outside of his own self-gratification. Not even self-interest; self-gratification. Anything that doesn’t immediately trigger happy tingles in his limbic system has no interest to him. Showing some reciprocal consideration to Shinzo Abe is very much in Trump’s self-interest, not to mention the U.S.’s interest, but he can’t be bothered.
But it gets worse. Vladimir Putin made some comment that western-style liberalism has become obsolete. Putin obviously was referring to the common political system of the western world that values the freedom of the individual. The New York Times’s Peter Baker asked Trump to comment on that, and Trump took “western-style liberalism” to mean “Democrats in California.”
Well, I mean he may feel that way. He’s sees what’s going on, I guess, if you look at what’s happening in Los Angeles, where it’s so sad to look, and what’s happening in San Francisco and a couple of other cities, which are run by an extraordinary group of liberal people. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but he does see things that are happening in the United States that would probably preclude him from saying how wonderful it is. At the same time, he congratulated me, as every other leader of every other country did for what we’ve done economically, because we probably have the strongest economy we’ve ever had, and that’s a real positive. But I’m very embarrassed by what I see in some of our cities, where the politicians are either afraid to do something about it, or they think it’s votes or I don’t know what. Peter, I don’t know what they’re thinking. But when you look at Los Angeles, when you look at San Francisco, when you look at some of the other cities — and not a lot, not a lot — but you don’t want it to spread. And at a certain point, I think the federal government maybe has to get involved. We can’t let that continue to happen to our cities.
The moron also was asked about the confrontation between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden over his record from way back when on court-ordered busing. Trump clearly had no idea what the “busing” exchange was about. His response:
ABC NEWS’S JONATHAN KARL: I’m sure you saw the exchange between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the issue of federal busing — federally mandated busing. Biden thought that was a bad policy; he tried to stop it. Kamala Harris said it was an important part of desegregation, including in her own experience. Where do you stand on that issue of federally mandated busing?
TRUMP: First of all, before we get into that, I thought that she was given too much credit. … And as far as that, I will tell you in about four weeks, because we’re coming out with a certain policy that’s going to be very interesting and very surprising, I think, to a lot of people.
What the bleep? And then …
WELKER: I just wanted to follow up on the question about busing. Do you see it as a viable way of integrating schools. Does that relate to the policy that you’re —
TRUMP: Well, that’s something that they’ve done for a long period of time. You know, there aren’t that many ways you’re going to get people to schools. So this is something that’s been done. In some cases, it’s been done with a hammer instead of a velvet glove. And, you know, that’s part of it.. But this has been certainly a thing that’s been used over the — I think if Vice President Biden had answered the question somewhat differently, it would have been a different result. Because they really did hit him hard on that one. But it is certainly a primary method of getting people to schools.
WELKER: And does it relate to the policy that you’re going to unveil that you just floated?
TRUMP: It relates to everything we’re doing. And you’ll be hearing about it over the next couple of months.
In other words, he had no clue what Harris and Biden were talking about, but he’s pretending he’s on top of it and will have a fix for it really soon.
