Not Necessarily Stoned, But Beautiful

Trump put his thumb on the scale for the reinstatement of an American soccer star who was disqualified from playing an upcoming match.

While the outrage from that move reverberates around the world, giving people more reasons to hate the American president and lose respect for our country, another story involving international maneuvering begs for your attention. It may not get as many headlines or internet clicks, but its potential for long-ranging consequences is far greater.

On Monday in Ankara, Turkey, the head of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) said what would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters that the current alliance between Europe and the United States is no longer sustainable.

This is a major development and comes just hours before the annual NATO summit that could be the beginning of the end for the 77-year partnership. For decades, European security has also meant American security. NATO, a group of 32 nations, has long been the bulwark between Russian aggression and the rest of Europe.

The alliance was founded at the end of World War II to guard against a similar war from ever happening again. In the decades since, the United States has been the foundation holding NATO’s defense strategy together.

Trump claims the U.S. does not get “any benefit” from being a member and consistently complains that most countries do not give their fair share, while the United States pays too much. He is obviously over-simplifying a complex international alliance that absolutely benefits the U.S., considering the importance of European security to this country and the world.

Using “flattery diplomacy,” Rutte attempted to keep the president in the fold. Last June, he handed Trump a huge win, with an agreement that member nations would increase their contributions from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. Reportedly, Rutte and others told reluctant leaders not to worry, no one is going to hold them to that much of an increase.

Trump began his speech with a series of feel-good platitudes: “These are very, very special times. And this is a very special place. You live in a very special place. Congratulations, everybody…. We are a nation of dreamers and believers, warriors and explorers, doers and fighters…. There has never been anything like us anywhere on earth.” And then he tied together MAGA’s white nationalism with the claim that Trump’s political opponents want to destroy the economy.

Trump clearly thinks there is political gain in convincing his followers that his political opponents are communists, although this is a lie made up out of whole cloth after the victory of Democratic Socialists in Democratic primaries and the popularity of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. Communists call for the end of private ownership of the means of production, giving the state control of private enterprises. In today’s America, it is actually Trump, himself, who is taking government stakes in private enterprises.

Democratic Socialists are not communists or socialists, who want to see the end of private property. Democratic Socialists call for a robust system of private enterprise, alongside government control of the aspects of society required for people to participate in the economy on a level playing field. While Democratic Socialists embrace a wide range of policies, they generally don’t think schools, or medical care, or roads, should be profit-making industries.

In that, they echo Americans from the 1860s, when the Republicans established public colleges, or the 1900s, when Theodore Roosevelt called for public health insurance. Indeed, what today’s Democratic Socialists call for is much more limited than what the Republicans under President Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted in 1956, when the top income tax bracket in the United States was 91%.

Nonetheless, on Friday Trump tried to convince Americans that “there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.” “These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations,” he said. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11.”

He went on to say: “They don’t want good. They don’t love God and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion and they don’t want religion and they won’t have it.… They have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or your God-given rights. It’s an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder…. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

His false vision of the U.S. is aimed at the midterm elections. “America will never be a communist country,” he said. “We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms, if we are foolish, stupid, and unwise.” He went on to demand that the Senate end the filibuster and Congress pass the voter-suppression SAVE America Act. If they do, he said, “we will not lose an election for a hundred years.”

On July 4, hundreds of masked white supremacists in khakis and blue shirts, carrying Confederate flags and flags with the logo of the neofascist white supremacist group Patriot Front, marched in Washington, D.C., chanting “Reclaim America.” The White House did not respond to a query from Gloria Oladipo of The Guardian about whether Trump condemns the march.

Trump continued his attacks on “communists” in a late-night speech on the National Mall after thunderstorms temporarily shut down his planned rally. “[A]ll these talks from the communists, they haven’t got a chance,” he told the drenched audience members, “not even a chance. We don’t want communists in our country.”

Trump’s drop into an anticommunism that exaggerates even the excesses of the McCarthy era seems to indicate panic rather than confidence. Today, July 5, he began posting on social media at 1:21 AM and over the course of the day posted more than 100 times, attacking Democrats and boasting extravagantly of what he says are his own successes while demanding Congress pass the SAVE Act or lose the presidency forever.

Trump’s people appear to be trying to push Trump’s vision, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking.

It wasn’t exactly a lazy day but it wasn’t too much either. Did visit an ice cream parlor and enjoyed a few tasty scoops to offset the heat.

Hope you enjoyed your day.