Trump Needs to Deflect Attention: So He Gins Up More Venezuelan Election Turmoil

President: Maduro vs. Self-proclaimed winner: Guaido

(Guaido says election fraudulent)

Good rundown on turmoil in Venezuela following their recent presidential election from The Atlantic – White House confusion best summarizes my view.

Also, this update my earlier post on this same subject. 

Regardless of what’s motivating Trump vis-à-vis Venezuela he is consistently fixated on the misdeeds of the kleptocrats like Maduro in Caracas while overlooking those of allied authoritarians like the Saudi royals, or even really bad actors he seems to admire and wants to be close to.

Trump favors the likes of Russia’s Vladimir Putin; North Korea’s Kim Jung-un; Syria’s Bashar al-Assad; the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte: China’s Xi Jinping: Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sissi: and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

All the while Trump unloads gross insults and irritates and distancing us from longtime allies and partners like the UN, NATO, the G-7, and a few other trusted partners since WWII.

Why is that? (See this related 2017 NPR article). 

And, Politico pretty much nails it with one phrase: President Donald J. Trump reliably tells the truth on one thing: He likes the way dictators do business.

Trump said on a morning show at Fox News this about Kim Jong-Un: “He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” 

Then Fox & Friends hype man Steve Doocy pointed out: “Some of the people who worked for Kim have been fired.” 

Trump quickly corrected him: “Fired may be a nice word.”

Yes, Mr. Trump, better words might be: Poisoned (like Kim’s half-brother), or. blown apart by an anti-aircraft gun (like Kim’s own Uncle), or seeing millions (all ages) sent to harsh work camps for life terms. But, it’s not that Trump isn’t aware as Fox’s Bret Baier reminded him earlier during their Air Force One interview en route home from the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore that Kim is “clearly executing people.”

Trump blew off Baier saying:  “He’s a tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, tough people, and you take it over from your father I don’t care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have. If you could do that at 27 years old, I mean, that’s one in 10,000 that could do that. I think we understand each other.”

Vladimir Putin’s also a tough guy whom Trump praises for running his country well.

So is Rodrigo Duterte, whose executions of drug dealers without trial in the Philippines is something Trump has said he’s looking into.

Key: The United States and Western allies have long turned a blind eye to totalitarian regimes guilty of a long list of human-rights violations.

Often, it was in the name of stability and at the expense of people suffering in those countries. But American leaders have mostly been mindful to choose their words carefully to maintain some semblance of a moral higher ground. 

What Trump is doing is different — past American leaders would almost never express admiration for bad actors. Trump, in many cases, has been doing exactly that.

My 2 cents: All this is very disconcerting to say the least. The question is: How do we as a nation and people with a great foundation recover from Trump and the obvious damage he is inflicting with his like-minded minions?

It seems painfully clear that Trump mirrors the hardliners and wants to join their network all the while trashing historical friends and allies and American history and traditions, and that aspect alone should concern us all as very troubling.

This situation in Venezuela is starting to look like another Cuban missile crisis in the making with Russia on Maduro’s side and U.S. against him, or so that’s the Trump scenario right now.

Thanks for stopping by.