Trump: Always a Thumb or Two Up — I Know Better Place for Those Thumbs

Thumbs Up: Ready to Fly or Least Take Off

(On another wild tangent)

Proposed Trump Cabinet

(One-man/one-branch: Me, Myself, and I)

Introduction to the Trump Book of Pledges and Promises: No treaties, no allies, no trade agreements, no military involvement anywhere (except here in CONUS), and basically just the U.S. going it alone in world affairs. The source: The Trump Business Playbook. Now the latest.

From this article verbatim … pretty shocking stuff from Trump – which we’ve come to expect – this however, just about take the proverbial cake (my emphasis included in RED):

Donald Trump raised doubts about whether the United States under his leadership would come to the aid of its NATO allies in Europe in the event of an attack by Russia, in an interview recently with The New York Times.

When specifically asked about his views of Russia, the newly-minted Republican nominee said that if that country attacked some of the small Baltic States, which are the most recent members of NATO, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing whether those nations “… have fulfilled their obligations to us.”

Note: NATO's collective defense agreement requires all member countries to come to the aid of any member state that is attacked.

Trump also said during the interview that as president he would question the security agreements the United States currently has with the 28 members of NATO, and that he'd pull back troops deployed around the world, citing economic reasons.

“We are spending a fortune on military in order to lose $800 billion. That doesn’t sound very smart to me,” Trump said to the Times.

Trump elaborated on his foreign policy plans in the interview, saying the United States has to “… fix our own mess” before trying to influence the behavior of other countries. 

“Look at what is happening in our country,” he told The Times, referring to the recent mass shooting of Dallas officers earlier this month. “How are we going to lecture when people are shooting policemen in cold blood?”

Throughout Trump's year-plus long campaign, he has advocated to “Make America Great Again,” and has bucked the Republican establishment by promising to “rip up” free trade deals with Mexico and Canada. However, he told The Times that he'd like to continue existing agreements only if U.S. allies “stopped taking advantage” of Americans.

~ End of that article

I would add in closing about his last comment:

So, the U.S. doesn’t take advantage of other countries and their citizens, right, Mr. Trump? He seems to think he could run the country like one of his business ventures – or so his words seem to prove that.

Related and a footnote for fun added from this site – just for fun, yet sadly, truthful:

A short list of some of Trump’s most obvious hypocrisies about his candidacy and his campaign.

1. He built a campaign centered on how terrible trade deals are, even though many of his company’s products are made in Bangladesh, China and other nations.

2. He’s the candidate for the party that claims it stands for “Christian values” and for “preserving the sanctity of marriage,” despite the fact he’s on his third marriage and has had at least one affair.

3. He claims politicians are corrupt, unethical and cannot be trusted, then admits to trying to buy politicians in the past so they would unethically help him with his business dealings.

4. He brags about how he’s such a successful businessman, yet refuses to show his tax returns to prove his success.

5. He calls Hillary Clinton a liar, when he’s the most dishonest person we’ve ever seen run for public office.

6. He often calls other people “stupid,” yet frequently speaks with the vocabulary of a spoiled 5th grader.

7. He says America isn’t great anymore, while he almost constantly brags about how successful he’s become in this country.

8. He boasts about how many votes he received during the GOP primary, but never mentions that he got less than half the vote and had more people vote against him than for him.

 9. He calls Hillary Clinton “crooked,” yet was found guilty of creating a fake anti-gambling front organization with the sole purpose of slandering the Mohawk Native Americans in an attempt to prevent them from getting approval to build a casino that would compete with his.

10. He calls President Obama divisive, while he vilifies Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, women and has managed to divide his own party.

11. He talks about how much respect he has for our military and our veterans, yet mocked the thousands of American POWs who’ve served in our military when he said he doesn’t consider Sen. John McCain a “hero” because he doesn’t like people who were captured.

12. He claims he isn’t a racist or a bigot, yet has shared blatantly racist memes; has based a lot of his campaign on vilifying minorities; and he once said, “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys wearing yarmulkes… Those are the only kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else…Besides that, I tell you something else. I think that guy’s lazy. And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks.”

13. During the 2012 election he said that Mitt Romney should release his tax returns; four years later as he’s become the GOP presidential nominee, Trump refuses to release his.

14. He says he’s going to be the “law and order president,” however, on numerous occasions, he’s said he wants to commit war crimes.

5. He claims he’s a great negotiator and a master at making great deals, yet couldn’t convince any big-name Republicans to become his running mate, ultimately settling for no-name Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

There are much more – do the research for yourself … interesting stuff. Shows how dumbed down those who support Trump really have lowered themselves. Amazing in that regard, too.

As for me, I have great concern about how Trump could win, and make no mistake he could under certain precise conditions. Consider the condition of scared angry voters coming out, believing him, and voting out of fear like we saw in 2010 with the so-called TEA “party” movement.

Remember what the result wrought on Congress ... the worst and most-divisive in our history. For anyone who stays home and does not vote this cycle, somehow thinking, “Oh, he can't win,” well let me say: Yes, he can. People cannot stay home and not vote; not this time. 

All the cards are on the table and Trump is about to deal off the bottom of the deck. He wants to win, but mostly for himself and not much else despite his slick slogans. 

I say we can get a better deal and better hand without him shuffling the cards (a weak analogy, but somewhat apropos, too, right?).

Thanks for stopping by.