Thursday, November 07, 2024

Today's News: What the hell happened, and what will happen next?

Here are some tweets and comments and blog posts, reading the tea leaves.

The election: 
No More Mister Nice Blog Steve M Trump is toxically masculine...
...Trump is seen by millions as a capable problem-solver because most Americans experienced at least the first three years of his presidency as a reasonably nice time, and because decades ago he was the main character in fictionalized books and a fake reality TV series that told us he has the magic power to make great deals without breaking a sweat. They don't know that he knows nothing and that he lucked into a good economy, and that he presided over a sustained period of relative stability because he'd surrounded himself with capable people of a kind he'll never hire again....

Remember last time, when hundreds of people dashed to the airports in 2016 to protest Trump's Muslim ban? I do not doubt that the media will expect again, this time, that thousands of people including the "libs" will organize and mobilize to protest Trump's over-reach as soon as the mass deportations start and the people across the street get arrested and shipped to the camps. 
But I wonder now if protests will happen? The "libs" may decide not to show up this time, to try to protect America from what it has willingly voted for. 
Maybe they'll all just move to California or New York - or Toronto or Sao Paulo or Amsterdam - and let 'er rip. By the way, "kakistocracy" means "a government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country" 
The Atlantic Tom Nichols Trump voters got what they wanted
...No candidate can reason about facts and policies with voters who have no real interest in such things. They like the promises of social revenge that flow from Trump, the tough-guy rhetoric, the simplistic “I will fix it” solutions. And he’s interesting to them, because he supports and encourages their conspiracist beliefs.
...Americans have done this to themselves during a time of peace, prosperity, and astonishingly high living standards. An affluent society that thinks it is living in a hellscape is ripe for gulling by dictators who are willing to play along with such delusions.
The bright spot in all this is that Trump and his coterie must now govern. The last time around, Trump was surrounded by a small group of moderately competent people, and these adults basically put baby bumpers and pool noodles on all the sharp edges of government. This time, Trump will rule with greater power but fewer excuses, and he—and his voters—will have to own the messes and outrages he is already planning to create.
Those voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was, after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air.
Trump, unfortunately, means most of what he says. In this election, he has triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters. Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is any to be found.
The impact: Garbage Day Ryan Broderick & Adam Bumas America: The Final Season
...this will only get worse now. Conspiracy theories like QAnon thrived under Trump’s first presidency. Trump’s most ardent followers will use misinformation to divine meaning from the chaos and fight the cognitive dissonance as Trump, once again, delivers on nothing. It will all go according to plan, even though there isn’t one.
But, worst of all, none of this will be isolated to the US. Trump is off the leash and, now, so is every other Trump wannabe. Populism Updates has a good thread about this new “untethered” era for Trumpism and, by extension, far-right authoritarianism around the world. This election was seen as Trump’s last shot, if only because of his age (he was clear on running from prison if it ever got to that point). His imitators in countries like Italy, Brazil, the UK, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary, and elsewhere have proof now that the long game can work. To say nothing of the Russia and China-led coalition of anti-democracies that know this is their chance to finally flex their muscles as we recede back into Trumpist isolationism. It has never been a more dangerous time to be Taiwanese, Ukrainian, Palestinian....
Phillips O'Brien The USA is Trump's Now, Europe Must Get Ready All things come to an end, perhaps even NATO
...There will be plenty of time for the moaning and blame game later. Right now, Europe has no time for that—as this is what it is facing in a few weeks.
We should pay Trump the compliment of believing what he says when he speaks about NATO and Ukraine—and indeed what those who worked closely with him say about that. There is a very good chance that the North Atlantic Alliance, which has dominated much of the globe since 1949, will become dysfunctional in fewer than 3 months. Trump doesn’t have to withdraw from the alliance to do that—all he has to do is remove the US from the military command (which is what De Gaulle did with French forces in 1966). As commander in chief, US forces will only fight if Trump orders them to do so—NATO cannot order US forces into action if the President doesnt want that. So, no US forces will fight to protect Europe if Trump doesnt want them to.
Btw—this also needs to be faced by the USA’s allies in the Indo-Pacific, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even Australia, who can no longer look for the USA to be a reliable partner in defense.
Now, I’m sure many European leaders will tell themselves in the coming weeks that they can win Trump over, sweet talk him, pump up his inflated ego, etc etc. Maybe they can—but also maybe they can’t. And this is the rub. Until a few hours ago they could (and believe me they did) comfort themselves that any such charm offensive was possibly/probably unnecessary. In fact, I know they were saying, Harris was in the lead, so really this nightmare will almost certainly not come to pass.
Well it has.
Europe cant keep pretending that things will go on as before (nor should it).

Wesley Wark Watch out! Or, another big inflection point, right on Pennsylvania Avenue
The United States’ electorate has just put a man in the White House who is manifestly unfit to lead the United States on the global stage. That was an issue that failed to register with most American voters. They had other things on their mind, apparently....
The next four years will be one of the most dangerous in the history of international relations since 1945. The global order has lost its most important anchor. The United States will be diminished, deliberately, on the world stage. Trumps’ boasts about fixing things with a wave of this hand will be just that, boasts. The beneficiaries will be the authoritarians and near-authoritarians of the world, notably China and Russia. It’s a dark day for democracy.
A Trump presidency poses a sustained crisis for Canada across many areas, from the economy, to migration, to defence, to alliance solidarity, and multilateralism. It will be all hands on deck for the foreseeable future, whatever the shape of a future Canadian government. ...
...Watch out will have to be the watch-word. This will be especially true in two areas: national security and intelligence. The United States cannot be considered, henceforth, an automatic ally and friend in either area. Republican control of the Senate (and worse still maybe both Houses of Congress) will mean that Trump can flood his administration with select political appointees and undermine the professional administration of government. Be clear he intends to do that. In this, his last term in office, he will go after the mirage of the “deep state” and in the process with politicise the conduct of US national security and the management of the US intelligence community. A Trump appointee will head the CIA, the same will go for the Director of National Intelligence, and the key positions in the National Security Council and the Pentagon. The State department will be gutted. Key embassies will be emptied of professional diplomats.
Its safe to say that Canada counted on guardrails for the first Trump administration. There won’t be any for Trump 2.0.
Politicisation of intelligence will be especially bad news for Canada, given our reliance on the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, with the US the leading power by far. Conventional wisdom that the Five Eyes could be rock solid in the face of whoever was in the White House will have to be re-thought. Politicisation will upend such reassuring notions.
Trump in the White House means this for Canada—it will have to pursue a determined course of greater sovereignty, greater capacity to defend itself, greater intelligence capacity to see the world through its own eyes. That will be a tall order.
Talk about inflection point.

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