Sen. Tim Kaine was on CNN last night to talk about Trump’s threats to Greenland, Iran, etc. Here are some highlights (bolding added by me for emphasis), with my comments following each bullet point in bold/green/parentheses.
- “No, [Trump] shouldn’t take [Iran’s leaders] at their word. But I have a little bit of a different take on the president… Here’s my take. He is bored and and concerned about his efforts at home. The economy is suffering. People are paying more for health care and energy and child care and groceries and housing. So why not focus on external adventurism? Let’s talk about Venezuela. Let’s talk about Greenland and Denmark. Let’s talk about Iran or Nigeria or Cuba or Colombia or Mexico. This foreign adventurism is a bored president and frankly, a somewhat frightened president who is really worried about the economic conditions at home, trying to change the subject.” (I certainly don’t dispute that it’s possible ONE of the factors in Trump’s “thinking” – in air quotes, because he’s not much of a thinker, that’s for sure – is along “wag the dog” lines. But even more, I think that this constant talk by Democrats about how every crazy/illegal/etc. thing Trump does is supposedly JUST – or mostly – intended to be a “distraction” from whatever – inflation, Epstein, etc. – is a huge mistake. Why? Because, first of all, we really can’t read Trump’s mind. But even if we could, why would we assume that, instead of many of the things Trump does – attacking Venezuela, threatening Greenland, instigating violence in Minneapolis, you name it – aren’t things Trump wants to do INDEPENDENT OF calculations about how those things might “distract” from something else? In general, I’m an “Occam’s Razor” guy in the sense that I believe the simplest, most parsimonious explanation for a phenomenon is usually the best/most accurate explanation. In the case of Trump, why not just assume that he likes imposing his will, likes employing violence – against his own citizens and against other countries, etc? Or why not assume that, as in the case of Venezuela and Greenland, it’s about resources -oil, rare earths, etc. – money and corruption? All of those things are totally in character for Trump, so why go to the “12-dimensional-chess” type of thinking, where anything/everything Trump does isn’t mostly about the thing itself, but about distracting from something else? For starters, it seems to violate Occam’s Razor. Also, it makes it seem like Trump’s not primarily evil, he’s just “bored” and “desperate” and “trying to distract.” So no, I don’t like this kind of talk for multiple reasons, and on multiple levels, and I wish Democrats would cut way back on – or stop – doing it.)
- [Question: “So you think because of his own domestic issues, whether that be the economy or, you know, what we’ve been covering so closely, playing out with ICE in Minneapolis, you think that is what’s playing into what’s happening with Trump abroad?] “I do. And let’s use Iran as an example. Why are the Iranian people protesting so heavily against this government? It’s because the Iranian government dictators have focused for years on adventurism in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, Morocco – trying to destabilize the government in in Morocco – rather than meeting the needs of their own population. And after years and years of this, the Iranian public is saying, what the hell are you guys doing? Focus on us. President Trump is focusing on all of these saber-rattling adventures and uses of military force here, there and everywhere. Meanwhile, Americans are paying more for health care, child care, energy, groceries, housing, everything. And he’s not meeting their needs. And he’s going to keep trying to distract. Vladimir Putin tries to distract the Russians from their, you know, internal woes by invading Ukraine. Iran’s doing it from going after everybody rather than meeting the needs of their populace. Trump’s trying to do a distraction campaign, but I don’t think Virginians, and I know Americans, are not distracted from his ignorance, ignoring what they’re asking him to do, what he promised to do as a candidate.” (See my previous comment. Here, Sen. Kaine doubles down and expands on his reasoning about distractions, claiming – falsely, I’d argue – that Putin invaded Ukraine partly or mostly to “distract the Russians from their…internal woes by invading Ukraine.” Is there literally any evidence this is the case? Or, more likely – and from almost everything I’ve read over the past few years – has Putin simply dreamed for decades of reconstituting the Soviet Union, a greater Russian empire, etc? Also, it seems to me that what Putin’s mostly worried about in Ukraine is to have a successful, prosperous democracy right next door to his authoritarian, backward country, because that would show Russians it doesn’t have to be the way it is in Russia. But again, no, not everything is a “distraction” from everything else; sometimes it’s actually a PRIMARY motive, as in the case of Putin’s desire to expand the Russian empire, stamp out democracy in Ukraine, etc. As for Iran, people aren’t rising up there because of the Iranian government’s foreign adventurism, per se, but about: a) the fact that their economy is in shambles and that it’s getting worse by the day; b) the fact that they’re running out of water and that the future looks grim; c) possibly, to an extent people care about the foreign adventurism stuff, the fact that Iran’s gotten its butt kicked the past couple years in Lebanon, Syria, etc. So…nope, I simply don’t agree with Sen. Kaine’s analysis of any of this, either on the details or as to the general concept.)
- “Well, look, the United States deposed the democratically elected prime minister of Iran back in the 1950s. And that memory is very, very long. And here’s what the U.S. intervention in Iran or Venezuela or other nations do. Their dictators, horrible people, the Iranian mullahs and Maduro in Venezuela, they want to blame their mismanagement and their problems on the United States intervening in their politics and economies. That’s what they want to do. The public says, wait a minute, it’s you that’s mismanaging. You have screwed up our country. You’ve turned us from, you know, an energetic, innovative country – and Venezuela was and Iran was – into like a basket case. And the opposition grows because of the leadership’s failures. But when the U.S. intervenes, the leadership says we’re only suffering because of U.S. intervention, and they change the subject from their own failures to the U.S. intervention. Don’t give the Iranian leaders the ability to shift the blame. Don’t give Venezuelan dictators the ability to shift the blame.” (Regarding this agument, I don’t think there’s strong evidence one way or the other, although certainly there are many reasson why the U.S. shouldn’t embroil itself in wars with Iran, Venezuela, whoever. Of course Iran’s mullahs are going to claim that the unrest in their country is all inspired by the “Great Satan” – America – or whatever. So no, don’t play into that. On the other hand, the Iranian people are getting massacred by their despotic government, and it seems to me like we really should try to help them…)
- [Question: “…last week there were five Republicans who had voted to advance something you put forward, which was an effort that would basically curb the president’s war powers in Venezuela; today, we saw something very different happen where two of hose Republicans who had supported it withdrew their support… Why do you think they they changed their support?”] “Well, here’s here’s what I think, but you should ask them. After we successfully repudiated the unauthorized war actions of President Trump last week, he canceled a second invasion of Venezuela within 12 hours. And then he gave a bunch of commitments to senators about, okay, we’ll finally have public hearings on this, which we haven’t done, and we’ll commit no boots on the ground in Venezuela without a formal congressional authorization, which they hadn’t done. The White House was so focused on not allowing a public debate about this military adventurism in Venezuela that they made commitments to restrain, which they weren’t willing to do until we filed our resolution. It ended up, yes, two Republicans backed off with these commitments, and they brought JD Vance, the vice president, in. In the past, he had been a kind of an anti-military-intervention guy, an isolationist; now he’s with the forever unauthorized war crowd. But we got commitments out of the administration that we wouldn’t have gotten without filing war powers resolutions. We’ll monitor the commitments, but we’re going to file a lot more war powers resolutions.” (Let’s hope Sen. Kaine’s right about this. And I agree, keep the pressure on Trump as much as possible, including by filing more war powers resolutions. But do NOT assume that Republicans in Congress will EVER seriously stand up to Trump, because it’s glaringly obvious at this point that they either agree with Trump, are completely cowed by Trump, or a combination of both of those things.)
***********************
P.S. In other news, Sen. Kaine says Greenland should “stand strong,” “not knuckling under to bullying tactics” from Trump; predicts “overwhelming Republican support” on a War Powers Resolution about Greenland. Overly optimistic? Seems like Republicans always cave in the end, but maybe this will be different? I’m highly skeptical, and believe that it’s better at this point to assume that Republicans will ALWAYS do the wrong thing.
********************************************************
