That Dog Don't Hunt

Hate to say it, folks, but I think it's time to admit we've all been had.

Yes, I'm talking about Donald Trump.  In previous outings, I've expressed my reservations about him, and said I would reserve judgement at least until the obligatory 100 days had passed.  Well, I made it to 90 days, but that's about all I can handle.

Trump is nothing but a shill.  As I said nearly a year ago, I thought it was a bit of a stretch to believe that a multi-billionaire could be an outsider, since he basically could not have achieved his wealth and status without being on some insider's Good Boy List.

Oh sure, there have been moments of intense excitement, like when gobs of Americans banded together to defeat the evil Clinton crime family despite all the lying, vote rigging and Russian blaming.  There were some hopeful moments, when populist heroes like Steve Bannon got picked for the administration.  Folks even got their hackles up when lousy federal judges kept blocking temporary travel bans.

But then came the wave of realizations that world had been given a ringer.

First, it was the healthcare reform, then delay of tax reform, then wrangling over the iconic wall promise, and then the good guys started getting booted out of the administration in favor of more bankers and NeoCons.  Finally, the bombings and saber rattling started.  There was the immediate non-prosecution of the Clintons.  The PizzaGate story got buried.  Oh, and Trump's inner-inner-circle got filled up with Daddy's Boys and Girls, including a Soros-loving slime like Jared Kushner.

Now, I've heard plenty of folks defending Trump.  Just wait, they say.  Hang in there, they say.  Don't worry, they say.  But it all sounds more like they are trying to convince themselves than anyone else.  No one likes to admit they've been taken.  That's why grifters like Trump get away with it so much.  It's like being raped, everyone's too embarrassed to report it.

Trump started losing me the moment he declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton, despite there being an open-and-shut case against her.  In fact, Trump even kept James Comey at the FBI just to make sure all the evidence was properly obfuscated and the case definitively shut down.

Once Trump started turning on Russia and using NATO instead of dismantling it, I knew we'd been had.  One of the major issues that got the man into the job was his long-standing promise to stop nation-building and start focusing on domestic issues - of which there are more than enough.

Many apologists say Trump is surrounded with bad advice, but that advice is coming from people that he deliberately installed around him.  Some folks say he's been compromised, but what, praytell, could compromise him that Clinton couldn't find and exploit during the election?  Then there are those who say, just wait he's lining up his chips for the Big Nego.  To this I say, human lives and world peace are not negotiating chips.

Which brings up the so-called sarin gas attack.  For the sake of argument, I will grant that it was an actual attack (which it wasn't), and that women and children were killed (which they weren't) and that Bashir Assad did it (which he didn't), what Trump did by unleashing his toys was in every way illegal, unwarranted and unsolicited.  No Americans were killed, nor even threatened, and the event (whatever it was) did not threaten American territory, and the US was not sanctioned by the UN or Syria to conduct military operations within Syrian borders.

In other words, this was an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country without any due process of law - much less an investigation.  Image some radical nutjob unleashes sarin gas in Detroit (not out of the question anymore), does Russia or any other country then have the right to launch cruise missiles on random targets within the US to clean up the sarin gas depots?

I didn't think so.  In fact, I'm willing to bet most Americans would bristle at such a move, even with UN blessings and a group of other nations backing up the Russians.

A couple of folks have argued that the Russians are conducting military operations in Syria, so the US is perfectly justified, as well.  Wrong.  Syria is a sovereign nation with a duly elected government that invited the Russians to help out.  None of that is true for the US forces, and regardless of what anyone thinks about Assad, he was elected in a democratic process and represents the will of Syrian nationals.

Lord knows Trump has plenty of detractors, but he was duly elected.  Just because he may end up a dictator does not give other nations the right to perform a little regime change.  That's not to say that bombing other countries or directly threatening them (as in North Korea) doesn't give those countries the right under international law to attack the US.

The thing is that Trump is behaving quite contrary to the will of the people who elected him.  They are turning on him, and rightfully so.  He was elected to clean up Washington, stop all the nation-building non-sense, and reform and resolve domestic issues like the economy, illegal immigration, absurd tax laws, and protectionist regulations that only benefit the select insider corporations.

He has failed dramatically on all fronts, and he has done so deliberately while at the same time trying to justify his actions, implying forethought.  If he ever intended to keep his campaign promises, it didn't take long for him to completely reverse himself and join the other side.

As I have stated many times in multiple fora, the System cannot be changed from the inside.  It must be completely dismantled and replaced.  Whether you still support Trump, are getting worried about him living up to his hype, or have completely been disillusioned, the lesson is quite clear - no one can be trusted to fix such a massive global System.  It can't be done.

Whether Trump is a shill (which I find credible) or has been turned to the Dark Side, he is proof positive that the System will take all necessary actions to protect itself.