Three weeks into the Trump Administration, there have been comic and dreadful incidents. The first week was comic opera about taking over Greenland, Canada and the Canal Zone, and then there came the tariffs on Mexico and Canada which were quickly resolved by the two countries agreeing to do what they would have done anyway if politely asked to do so, but that is not Trump's way, which is to bluster for its own sake, to make himself seem strong. Remember that he is a deeply superficial man.
The next week was much more sinister, and still unfolding. What does Musk plan to do now that he has access to the United States payment system? Getting unqualified people in office and purging Justice Department career employees seems not only vindictive but it also suspends the civil service system that has existed for a hundred fifty years. This is a very radical change that may or may not be Constitutional but still seriously worrisome. But it is fruitless to anguish about those real politics as whenJake Tapper and A. J. Vance bickering with ever more heat about whether Trump really said Pelosi and Schiff were of the enemy within. We know that Trump can be edited to mean whatever his supporters make him to mean.
But it is difficult not to be taken aback, especially by Trump’s supporters, with Trump’s jaw dropping announcement two days ago that he will take ownership over Gaza, has not ruled out using American troops to do so, and expelling the Palestinians from Gaza while making it the Riviera of the Near East.even though, as Trump admitted, the two nations don't want the by rebuilding after resettling Palestinians into Egypt and Jordan even, as Trump admitted, the two nations don '/t want the Palestinians. The America Firsters who supported Trump do not want foreign entanglements. No American boys and girls in Gaza. What is up with Trump? Is he serious or is this just a ploy? Who knows? The Israelis don’t want it to happen either. It has been their long standing policy to fight their own battles with their own troops, except for experts and the Navy fliers who shot down Iranian drones and missiles. Israel does not want to be a colony of the United States; it wants to manage a great deal of autonomy as was shown by Netanyahnu thumbing his nose at Biden and pursuing his war on Hamas for fifteen months.
But Trump, for all his cynicism, is very naive and ignorant. He says he does not want to repeat a failed policy. He probably doesn't know that when the Israelis abandoned Gaza in 2005 they left an agricultural greenhouse industry that would provide exports throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and the Palestinians destroyed them. There was English funding for building a high speed rail up and down Gaza and money for other infrastructure and new industry but the plan was rejected because the English would audit the books and the money not sent to graft and armament. So that possibility was tried but Trump can't face up to that, while I am left with the prospect of a forever war, Hamas reborn in ten years and trying again to exterminate Israelis. Wouldn't it be nice to be in Coo Coo Land and everything bad would go away, like bleach clearing out Covid, as Trump had hoped?