OLD CTRL+ALT+

AS CANADIAN OUTRAGE GROWS OVER THE UNITED STATES TARIFF POLICY, OTC50 REMEMBERS AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE

TRUMP DRAWS CAT CALLS FROM NORTH OF THE BORDER, AGAIN

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Nation building has bounced back in vogue as part of a pushback from globalization. Perhaps parts of the population that never wanted to be part of global economics and a global fabric of nations are finally finding a voice through political leadership.

In America like in England, an improved economic position might be the reward in the short term, like short selling on the stock market betting on losses, but partly the support for nation building is also about preventing the polyglot of cultures from blurring the lines of individuality.

America still has a lot of sway. When America rolls right everyone has to roll right. When America rolls left, everyone else has to roll left as well.

United States President Donald Trump told the nation and the global community that America has rolled and will continue along that path for as long as he is in office, during the State of the Union Address to a Joint Session of Congress, the American nation and the rest of the world on Tuesday, February 4, 2020.

I doubt that ‘the American decline is over’. I immediately thought of US President George W, Busch landing his fighter jet on the aircraft carrier declaring victory in the Middle East. Of course that continuous war and the chaos in the Middle East spread under the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration with the nation of Syria disintegrating in plain view of the world community.

Was Syria an object lesson in current political trends?

The capital of Syria may as well become a city state if it wasn’t for the strategic value of a larger nation to manipulate control of oil reserves. No one is home anymore in Syria. The fleet of foot have migrated to other more peaceful places, like Peter O’Tool…oh, I mean T. E. Lawrence moving on from Damascus to quieter times and more peaceful spaces.

American politics is theatre and this realty was never more evident this week during President Trump’s jail break. Trump had 24 hours to sway his Senators to keep the party line, while the Democrats needed just a handful of Republican dissenters to have Trump impeached. But American politics being as it may, Trump was acquitted.

Trump has gone around tweaking a lot of things, like a property developer buying up old buildings and painting them and calling them a bit newer than they are for rental purposes, just before flipping the property.

The term limit for US Presidents means that the executive position is always temporary. And the country actually belongs to the people.

Trump engages with the people by tweeting – thereby bypassing a critical national media – and the American public saw a lot of that during the State of the Union Address. The address was filled with bold assertions with many skeptics lined up on either side of the political divide to refute the facts.

Trump would tweet to the American public: “The American recovery” and then go on to tell Congress how he tweaked Obama’s Health Care for the poor. Trump tweeted and then tweaked and then tweeted: tweet, tweet, tweet, tweak. Tweet and tweak all night long so much so that he lost track of time.

Trump’s State of the Union may just have been the longest in American history.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address may have been the shortest, but the moment has grown in stature over time. Trump’s ‘America Recovered’ speech may be the longest and may also just become the shortest overtime.

Tweet, tweak, tweet tweet, tweak, tweet.

Trumps more controversial ideas do have elements of common sense, which is likely why the whole agenda got accepted by enough voters to elect him. The border wall has pros and cons, but I do not know what nations do accept unbridled immigration. Pores national borders will eventually water down the distinct identity of a people, while also taxing services for the existing population.

No one refutes also that America’s southern border is vulnerable to drug trafficking and people trafficking. The big question is whether the border wall will help prevent that influx of criminal activity from south of the border.

Europe quickly moved to control border traffic, while Israel has been working on that problem for years, with a border wall of its own, as well as restriction on entry through the authorized check points.

Job creation also resonates with people. Not too many people like being unemployed whether American, Canadian or Greek.

The China policy also makes sense. Somehow lawmakers got hoodwinked into treating China like the Internet. Money manipulation and the flooding of markets with products that had short term life expectancy was somehow acceptable as long as consumers received cheaper products, and were provided a bit of domestic luxury, however fleetingly. China got rich in part by selling products that continually needed to be replaced.

But outright protectionism does not work because eventually companies will set up branch plants for products to sell overseas. The lesson of previous global conflicts was that if the rest of the world was left alone, any problems that would occur would eventually end up on America’s doorstep, anyway.

Trump also tweeted about a blue collar boom during the address to Congress. The jobs that developed over two years of his administration are a kind of short term luxury. Most sustainable new jobs probably exist because of Obama’s economic policies.

Trump is not all bad though.

Obama disappointed many supporters by bailing out Wallstreet and the American auto industry, when consumers were going bankrupt and becoming unemployed. Obama also minimized the outbreak of war by targeting rebellion leaders, cutting the head off the snake rather than following the advice likely given that when knocking one down another one just appears.

United States President Bush before Obama started an unimaginable war with the Middle East. No one blames America for retaliating for 9/11. The problem was that Bush just could not get the job done. Bush also caused the current housing crisis, blowing up home overseas with money that could have built homes at home.

Trump pulled on a lot of nationalist strings to get the votes for the acquittal, even conscripting the black vote by including them in the address, but at the same time Trump slammed Greta Thunberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland.

Tweet, tweak, tweet, tweak, tweet, tweet.

NAFTA was tweaked. China was tweaked.

Tweet, tweak, tweet, tweak, tweet, tweet.