51吃瓜

With Donald Trump running for the US presidency, the summer promises to be a hilarious one.

Comedians, bloggers, and pundits are ecstatic about Donald Trump throwing his toupee in the ring for the Republican nomination at the US presidential election. The stories write themselves. But the Republican Party establishment is appalled, because Trump will create an image for the party that will hurt it in the general election.

Despite doing well in 2012 at the level of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Republicans lost the US presidency and some seats because of the clownish things some of their prominent figures kept saying鈥攁bout rape, abortion and immigration.

Statistically speaking, you pretty much have to get 44% of the Latino vote to be president. The angry white men running for Congress make it hard for the Republican standard bearer to pull that off. And the Grand Old Party (GOP) has a 10% gender gap with the Democrats, for whom many more women vote.

罢谤耻尘辫鈥檚听尘补颈诲别苍 was a doozy, and it will not have made the Latinos happy. As for women, Trump鈥檚 past pronouncements on their issues still stick in the craw.

In his speech, Trump accused Mexico of stealing our jobs, along with China, which has also apparently stolen our money. (Trump doesn鈥檛 seem to understand the difference between China holding nearly $1 trillion of US debt鈥攏ot very much, actually鈥攁nd China robbing all our banks.)

He said: 鈥淵ou have a problem with ISIS [Islamic State], you have a bigger problem with China. And in my opinion, the new China, believe it or not, in terms of trade is Mexico.鈥�

This is bizarre. Daesh, or the Islamic State (IS), took 40% of Iraqi land, displaced millions and arbitrarily killed thousands. China and Mexico aren鈥檛 anything like that. The US isn鈥檛 even running much of a trade deficit with Mexico anymore.

Trump said: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 right鈥攁 lot of people up there can鈥檛 get jobs. They can鈥檛 get jobs because there are no jobs because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have our jobs.鈥�

Mexico doesn鈥檛 actually, of course, have 鈥渙ur jobs.鈥� Trump told anecdotes about US and foreign corporations situating factories in Mexico rather than in the US. He blamed this on Mexico, when the real problem is that US law doesn鈥檛 penalize US corporations for relocating abroad to evade taxes.聽President Barack Obama聽and his secretary of the Treasury have been on this. But Trump wasn鈥檛 offering a serious analysis. He was just riling up the angry white men.

Trump on the Middle East

Trump interspersed a few observations on foreign policy among his various tirades. He said of Obama: 鈥淭ake a look at the deal he鈥檚 making with Iran. He makes that deal, Israel maybe won鈥檛 exist very long. It鈥檚 a disaster and we have to protect Israel.鈥�

There is no obvious way in which Obama鈥檚 Iran deal鈥攖o restrict Tehran鈥檚 nuclear program to being solely for civilian purposes鈥攃an be used to cause Israel not to exist for very long. But note that most Republican candidates say the same thing, as does Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. That is, Trump鈥檚 stream of conscious serial falsehoods do not actually end up differing much from GOP orthodoxy.

Trump is also unhappy with Saudi Arabia:

鈥淚鈥檒l give you another example: Saudi Arabia. They make a billion dollars a day, a billion dollars a day.

I love the Saudis, many are in this building. They make a billion dollars a day. Whenever they have problems, we send over the ships. We send, we鈥檙e going to protect鈥�what are we doing? They got nothing but money.

If the right person asked them, they鈥檇 pay a fortune. They wouldn鈥檛 be there except for us.

And believe me, you look at the border with Yemen鈥�you remember Obama a year ago, Yemen was a great victory. Two weeks later the place was blown up. Everybody.

And they kept our equipment. They always keep our equipment. We ought to send used equipment, right? They always keep our equipment, we ought to send some real junk because, frankly, it would be鈥�we ought to send our surplus. We鈥檙e always losing this gorgeous, brand-new stuff.

But look at that border with Saudi Arabia. Do you really think that these people are interested in Yemen? Saudi Arabia without us is gone. They鈥檙e gone.

And I鈥檓 the one that made all of the right predictions about Iraq. You know, all of these politicians that I鈥檓 running against now, it鈥檚 so nice to say I鈥檓 running as opposed to if I run, if I run鈥�I鈥檓 running.

But all of these politicians that I鈥檓 running against now, they鈥檙e trying to dissociate. I mean, you look at Bush鈥�it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn鈥檛 answer the question. He didn鈥檛 know.鈥�

So Donald Trump wants to charge Saudi Arabia for the US security umbrella, the way George H.W. Bush charged them for the Gulf War.

I couldn鈥檛 tell you what he meant about Saudi Arabia not actually being interested in Yemen. I don鈥檛 think it is true.

Trump wants to deal with IS by finding the right general, finding a MacArthur. But the Islamic State is a guerrilla problem that cannot be dealt with by infantry of the sort that MacArthur commanded in Korea. It doesn鈥檛 make any sense that Martin Dempsey, who is an Iraq War veteran, wouldn鈥檛 know best the terrain and strategy for Iraq.

So to sum up: start trade wars with China and Mexico; charge Saudi Arabia money for providing it with security; find a general for Iraq; stop Iran.

It is going to be a hilarious summer.

*[This article was originally published on Juan Cole鈥檚 .]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.

Photo Credit:聽听/听

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