The question is legitimately asked, though not in nearly enough media outlets: is Drumpf or Cruz the bigger dunce/loon when it comes to foreign policy? As always, it probably depends on one's perspective. It seems like a great many people, when "picking" between the horseshit-cowshit choice of Drumpf-Cruz, lean toward Drumpf because they "know" that Cruz is nuts, while The Dunnald is just marketing to the rubes with his empty woofing.
Needless to say, I beg to differ, because while I strenuously disagree with everything the unctuous Cuban Canuck says and does, at least he is predictable. He's an asshole, but he's ideologically and even intellectually consistent. Hell, every great strategy book from The Art of War to Winning Through Intimidation preaches the sacred gospel that knowing your opponent is well over half of the battle. Cruz is intelligent, but a hack all the same. Knowing which hack moves he's likely to try tends to make it simpler to create strategies to counter him (on the incredibly unlikely chance he should accede to the high office).
In a simpler, more innocent time -- about 1998 or so, I believe -- Dennis Miller had (of all people) Gloria Estefan on his HBO show. Estefan is of course a Miami Cuban émigré, with all that entails, and has used her fame and wealth to help her community, both in Miami and in Cuba. Whatever one's opinion of her music or of Cuban politics, she is knowledgeable and passionate about the subject.
So when Miller asked her about life for ordinary Cubans under the Castro regime, Estefan said something to the effect of, "[Castro] is not a communist, or a socialist, or whatever. He's a Fidelist."
And that's Drumpf in a nasty nutshell. He's not a Republican or a conservative or a Democrat, nor even a true America Firster -- he a Drumpfist, convinced utterly of his own infallibility, making him both king and pope of his own personal Turd Hill. This puts him in the same company as Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong Un. But when you read Drumpf's own responses to simple interview questions in the links above, you wonder once again what the fuck is wrong with this guy. Again, this is the sort of loose, random jabber that makes a certificated moron like Sarah Palin look like a genius.
He's apparently ready and eager to undo seventy years of post-World War 2 geopolitical strategy. He's okay with pulling out of South Korea and Japan, and letting those countries acquire nuclear weapons in order to counter North Korea. He appears not to be aware that Japan's constitution literally forbids it from seeking to acquire nuclear weapons (for some weird reason). It's as if he and his "good brain" never heard of the Long Telegram or George Kennan, pillars of our international strategy for generations. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, it's one thing to be smart about marketing, but quite another to be a complete idiot about every other subject.
So yeah, while we should be nervous about an ideologue who gets what he thinks he knows from lifelong hacks, we probably should be more nervous about a 70-year-old billionaire who seriously seems only to have read his own books, not because he doesn't like to read, but because he literally values no one else's observations or opinions.
Needless to say, I beg to differ, because while I strenuously disagree with everything the unctuous Cuban Canuck says and does, at least he is predictable. He's an asshole, but he's ideologically and even intellectually consistent. Hell, every great strategy book from The Art of War to Winning Through Intimidation preaches the sacred gospel that knowing your opponent is well over half of the battle. Cruz is intelligent, but a hack all the same. Knowing which hack moves he's likely to try tends to make it simpler to create strategies to counter him (on the incredibly unlikely chance he should accede to the high office).
In a simpler, more innocent time -- about 1998 or so, I believe -- Dennis Miller had (of all people) Gloria Estefan on his HBO show. Estefan is of course a Miami Cuban émigré, with all that entails, and has used her fame and wealth to help her community, both in Miami and in Cuba. Whatever one's opinion of her music or of Cuban politics, she is knowledgeable and passionate about the subject.
So when Miller asked her about life for ordinary Cubans under the Castro regime, Estefan said something to the effect of, "[Castro] is not a communist, or a socialist, or whatever. He's a Fidelist."
And that's Drumpf in a nasty nutshell. He's not a Republican or a conservative or a Democrat, nor even a true America Firster -- he a Drumpfist, convinced utterly of his own infallibility, making him both king and pope of his own personal Turd Hill. This puts him in the same company as Robert Mugabe and Kim Jong Un. But when you read Drumpf's own responses to simple interview questions in the links above, you wonder once again what the fuck is wrong with this guy. Again, this is the sort of loose, random jabber that makes a certificated moron like Sarah Palin look like a genius.
He's apparently ready and eager to undo seventy years of post-World War 2 geopolitical strategy. He's okay with pulling out of South Korea and Japan, and letting those countries acquire nuclear weapons in order to counter North Korea. He appears not to be aware that Japan's constitution literally forbids it from seeking to acquire nuclear weapons (for some weird reason). It's as if he and his "good brain" never heard of the Long Telegram or George Kennan, pillars of our international strategy for generations. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, it's one thing to be smart about marketing, but quite another to be a complete idiot about every other subject.
So yeah, while we should be nervous about an ideologue who gets what he thinks he knows from lifelong hacks, we probably should be more nervous about a 70-year-old billionaire who seriously seems only to have read his own books, not because he doesn't like to read, but because he literally values no one else's observations or opinions.
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