Listening to Trump’s speech was interesting. He mostly used his indoor voice, and read his speechwriter’s words from the teleprompter. He didn’t wander into red meat stuff very much. Still loving winners and losers, of course, and a lot of explicit emphasis on killing people, but not a lot of crazy for Trump-land. Surprisingly little spittle was involved.
(Please god, may some talking head not declare “Trump became President tonight.”)
My problem is easy: I don’t trust him. This is Trump, not a statesman: he has an angle, or a scam somewhere. There’s no evidence Trump’s particularly cared about the US wars before now. For this speech, Trump had to conveniently forgot that he excoriated Obama for not simply pulling all the troops out long ago, so that Trump could now call that reduction a mistake that he vows he won’t repeat.
Remember: when Trump does one of these violent about-faces from a prior position, it’s a tell that he doesn’t care at all.
Trump was elected on the platform of getting out of all these wars Right-Damn-Now. Having him talk about increasing that very same war is unsettling. The only interesting part was that Trump didn’t lie more than a little about his flip-flop, actually admitting that he’s changed his position. At least he read the words from the teleprompter.
It is possible that Trump might be trying to do what he claims: winning the longest US war ever. It would be a good and honorable cause for any President to invest in, even at the cost of blood and treasure. It’s been a drain on America, on our allies, and on the region. It’s been the cause of impossible levels of human suffering. And we’re losing. Trump would be justified in dedicating his time to such a goal.
But this is Trump, who’s never shown an ounce of anything close to honor, compassion, or charity in his career. He’s been defined by his life as a completely dedicated, narcissistic fabulist. He has no skin in this fight: no real estate deals, no oil leases, no profit. Why is Trump suddenly saying the Taliban and ISIS are urgent causes?
As recently as June, Trump fired the State Department representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan — the person focused entirely on that area — along with everyone else in that State Department office. All of them. He didn’t even notify them. He gutted the professional diplomatic staff.
So he didn’t feel much urgency in June.
And not just now, I mean, right now. It was so last-minute, they had to yank Pence back from his overseas trip for the final meeting. It was so last-minute, the last White House description (“Trump will announce a 40% troop increase”) was completely wrong. They clearly weren’t planning this even as recently as a few weeks ago.
Several commentators have suggested Trump is building his endless war. Maybe. The Cold War is the obvious model that Republicans milked to fund their corporate masters. (I think many in Congress are still torqued that the USSR was so ill-mannered as to actually collapse.) Trump could certainly find a new war useful for fending off Mueller’s investigations, which already threaten to humiliate Trump, his family and his cronies.
But I don’t know. Trump’s speech was quiet and serious. It was remarkably cohesive. All that is good, but the speech didn’t have much substance: no troop numbers, no specific strategy, no new tactics, no defined end point, none of that. Content-lite. Trump made a big call for comity and loyalty, but that morphed during the speech from kindness to each other and loyalty to America, to a definition of ‘loyalty’ that was much darker.
Trump carefully listed what he’d never tell us: what he was doing, when he’d do it, or for how long. No prior President felt the need to hide that much; Trump insisted it was essential.
It still feels like a scam. What is he trying to hide in this new war of his? I can’t see anything else that makes sense.
