143 Comments
User's avatar
SCA's avatar
5hEdited

I never thought it would be possible to write and believe in a sentence like this but here I sure am: Of those few political leaders living in the real world, Trump is living in the realest one.

It's just amazing. A guy who in so many respects has always been among the biggest schmucks around, who incurred bankruptcy after bankruptcy, who was a serial marriage-destroyer and offspring disappointer has turned out to be the one clear-eyed hardheaded and masterful geopolitical force we need.

If I were a different sex and living in a different time and place and had lotsa money I'd be lifting a glass of whiskey and gesturing with a fine cigar in my oak-lined library and raising an ironic eyebrow and grinning with huge enjoyment.

edit: On second thought I'll stay the sex I am. Just imagine Marlene Dietrich in that glazed leather chair.

Expand full comment
Belling the Cat's avatar

It is the crucible Trump's lived through and lessons he's learned the last nine, nearly ten, years that have transformed him into the person he is today. The last seven months have been the most astonishing of the post-WWII era, maybe ever in American history, and the administration is still clearing away debris, not yet started to flex. [edited for grammar]

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

Agree with you a billion percent.

As I keep saying--if we hadn't paid the most monstrous cost to get to this point it would be the greatest time to be alive. But truly vengeance has never tasted so good.

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

Germany may have to experience much more pain to get to a similar place.

Expand full comment
Klaus Hubbertz's avatar

Will there still be any pain after obliteration from industrial-, cultural-, moral-, energy-, science- and political theatre ??? ... 🤔🤔🤔

Expand full comment
Ray Noack's avatar

In 2016 , they didn’t think they would win and had no team in place . This time we had 4 years to organize and plan e.g. project 2025 . It is really remarkable how effective they have been . Trump is actually trying to fulfill Hamilton’s vision ( Federalist 70 ) . A strong decisive unitary executive. He won’t get there but he is moving closer . Curtis Yarvin has a neat analogy. Steve Jobs built the IPhone . Imagine an IPhone built by the government of California . 17 year and 30 Billion dollars for a hi speed rail …and still not one foot of rail . We DO have a nice overpass in …Fresno . Why Fresno ? Welcome to California.

Expand full comment
air dog's avatar

I think the difference this time is motivation, more than organization and planning. The treachery, betrayals, and attacks on Trump over the past 8+years appear to have gotten his attention.

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

Not the point but I’m not a fan of Hamilton. If modern day Hamilton is CBDC and Palantir surveillance state in the name of efficiency I’ll pass.

Expand full comment
Mitch's avatar

Putin is also clear eyed.

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

That is the subtext to my comment.

Expand full comment
Ray Noack's avatar

Our border got shut down in 2 months . Zero. The best estimate is we have about 1 million fewer illegal immigrants now ..mostly due to self deportation .

Actual deportation seems to be rather difficult . Strangely Biden let them walk right in but you can’t just escort them back out .

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

You have to find them first. This is probably a 12-16 year project.

Expand full comment
Tito Botero's avatar

For the moment Trump looks like he is in the "real" world. The problem is that no one knows what he will do tomorrow. As others have observed before, Trump has the disquieting tendency -- perhaps reflecting his lack of clear convictions in anything other than himself -- of agreeing with the last person he speaks to. Whatever one thinks of Putin, one cannot seriously challenge his consistency.

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar
5hEdited

Trump has always had a genuine revulsion for the carnage of war. In that he's never been a hypocrite. He didn't want to serve in war and military school clearly had on him the opposite effect to the one intended.

Trump is also a schmoozer to his core and he'll schmooze with anyone. I'm sure he likes Putin's ruthlessness to a certain extent--if these were two business rivals they'd be an interesting match-up--but as I said Trump does not like war and I think he recognizes that Putin has zero scruples about throwing what he sees as disposable bodies into the meatgrinder. Trump for all his flaws is the far better man.

Expand full comment
Ray Noack's avatar

Trump may not like war but he finds himself in one .

A clear eyed view of the battlefield would help a lot .

His first instinct and Steve Bannon’s repeated message is correct .

He had better shut this down or they will hang Ukraine around his neck like did LBJ Vietnam around Nixon’s neck

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

Yes. Vance has the intel from sources who show him other perspectives like battle maps and the state of things. As well as the pulse of response by Americans towards these subjects.

Expand full comment
Joanne C. Wasserman's avatar

I disagree strongly on the Trump-better-man, herein. Trump's "ok" get it done quickly but get it all done, by murder, eviction, and starvation, within Palestinian owned lands: property of Muslims and Christians, none of whom are Hamas---makes Trump the power killer alongside Anglo-Zionist funders and the Israeli state.

Expand full comment
Tito Botero's avatar

Trump has such a horror of the carnage of war that he reversed Biden's partial arms embargo of Israel to facilitate the continued, and accelerated, carnage (or genocide, if you like) in Gaza, as well as bypassing Congress to send additional arms to Israel.

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

There's never been peace in the Middle East ever in recorded and likely in unrecorded history. Perhaps that's because the sort of peace required would be of the Carthaginian variety.

Expand full comment
Tito Botero's avatar

I don't think you really know much about the history of the area. Under Ottoman rule for 400 years (1516-1917) Palestine was quite peaceful.

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

Yes, those Ottomans, darling little enslavers and castrators that they were.

I appreciate them spreading semolina halva throughout the known world though.

Expand full comment
Warmek's avatar

Hell, it's *already* a desert...

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

It's generally not the desert parts that ethnicities fight over so relentlessly.

Expand full comment
Ray Noack's avatar

And there is the reality of the battlefield . I wish Trump understood this .

Why would Putin agree to a cease fire ?

So Ukraine can regroup , get more weapons , refresh exhausted troops and build stronger defense positions ? Sure , Putin will agree to that .

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

Yeah. Not so much. I still think Poland will take back their historic lands from 1/2 of West Ukraine. Hungary and Romani will take the other part of the west which used to belong to them. There will be a rump state of Ukraine around Kiev and the rest will be attached to Russia or will be Russian controlled republics. Incl Odessa.

Expand full comment
Elizabeth's avatar

I was aghast that anyone supported a reality star who showed off his golden toilet eons ago. But I am happy beyond belief that he is president. I voted for him and I got Kennedy, Bhattacharya and Tulsi and even outfielder Tammy Bruce. And I've been very impressed with Rubio. As for someone living in LA who has always had a soft spot for the illegals, knowing they were lured here, things under Biden became out of control. We are still a mess but it is a bit better. If only I could do something about the "Boomsters" protesting every weekend trying out different cosplay.

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

I agree with almost all of your comment.

Expand full comment
Bunker Bob's avatar

From my perspective, for all of Trump's flaws, the Dems had only one job: offer something better. They failed. While I don't agree with Trump on everything, I'm at least willing to listen to the idea, and not just dismiss it because it came from Donald Trump.

Also, for what it's worth, the left threw EVERYTHING THEY HAD at him, and he kept getting up, coming back, and fighting again. Most of us wouldn't be able to survive that kind of onslaught, but he did, and I very much respect that. The fact that he did this, while putting together a team of former Dems (he himself is a former Dem), and inspiring people to follow a better path forward is the actual definition of leadership.

His solutions may not work, but at least he's doing SOMETHING, as the path we were on was completely unsustainable. We didn't get in this situation overnight, and we won't get out of it overnight. It's going to take some pain, but the end result will be worth it.

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

You voted for Trump and got 4-5 former democrats on your list.

Thems the facts.

Rubio was always a neo-con but appears to have curbed these tense for now. So all disparate pieces come together to make an interesting and fairly cohesive picture.

Expand full comment
baker charlie's avatar

And that jaunty top hat.

extra points for the MD reference!

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

Not with a silk smoking jacket!

Expand full comment
baker charlie's avatar

Ok, there's that. I was thinking of her tux get up.

Can you wear a silk smoking jacket after labor day or is that the other way round? Asking for a friend...

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

Well. I would never follow those rules. But then I don't wear white in any season, neither.

Expand full comment
baker charlie's avatar

I have one light colored (ecru) linen ensemble (LOL) that I wear to work in the summer. The machinations I go through as to not get coffee spots on it... I only do it because it's comfortable and probably one of the most professional things I wear (which degrades into jeans and flannel in the winter, go figure).

Expand full comment
SCA's avatar

I was the grief of every boss I ever had. My Manhattan office working uniform was black relaxed-fit jeans, black velcro sneakers and tops appropriate for the seasons. It was of course made worse by me always working for either the head of the organization or of a division. One could get away with a lot in those days if one could write excellent business letters and possess a matchless phone voice.

Expand full comment
Bunker Bob's avatar

Those that voted for Trump in the latest election are fully aware of his flaws. In fact, they're a big part of why people vote for him. This man has turned out to be the most clearheaded force in this conflict, as well as the other one whose name shall not be mentioned (I have direct knowledge of "behind closed doors" negotiations for that one). He also, despite his "marriage-destroying" tendencies, turned out to be the one true protector of women. Perhaps it's possible that he may not be what the left and the media claim he is? Perhaps *they* have incentive(s) to fearmonger? One thing is for certain: for all his flaws, Trump is respected on the world stage in a way that Biden never was.

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

BTW… Just wanted to share.

For self torture I watch leftie propaganda on the YouTube. The pseudo prof’s, the Maddows, etc…

The comment sections, full of the usual retarded emotional drivel, is also increasingly calling for violence against anyone they disagree with. TDS is reaching new heights. They’re increasingly open about gun violence and organizing more assassinations. They’re ramping themselves up into a fervor and foreign onlookers are participating in the chat are contributing.

It’s their agenda “or else” civil war, widespread chaos…. Maybe they hope the military would be called out to quell. It’s all about media optics.

I endure pain so you don’t have to. 😂

Expand full comment
Bunker Bob's avatar

I appreciate that. 😁 I do watch or read some lefty press because it's useful to me to see what the narrative is they're trying (and failing) to sell. When they talk about threats to democracy, they mean *THEIR* democracy. It never occurs to them that if they keep treating his supporters as sub-human, they will eventually lock shields, and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy...

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

He’s so universally bashed in western press, are people “allowed” to respect him?

Expand full comment
Chixbythesea's avatar

Of course, if you track Trump’s behavior…. When he listened to Graham and Bolton he tripped on his own boy parts. When Vance has his ear he is a common sense dude. I will say I increasingly can’t listen to him though. Too much of the things people complain about. But, I was always results and policy oriented anyway. I never could remember a politician’s name to save my life.

Expand full comment
Frank Lee's avatar

Democrats never incur bankruptcy because Democrat never attempt to do anything bold in the private economy. They are looters, not producers.

And "offspring disappointer"? What in the hell is that about? Trump's kids are all well-adjusted, brilliant and successful. Maybe your benchmark is the Biden kids?

Expand full comment
Guy St Hilaire's avatar

Well said as someone who understands the geopolitics of the Ukraine and Russia. Hopefully good things are in store for the world as peace sets in .Slowly but surely .

Expand full comment
currer's avatar
6hEdited

The European elites do not represent the people of Europe. They are installed by the globalists and are vassals of the US empire.

Do not confuse them with the population.

Expand full comment
eugyppius's avatar

like all political leaders, European political elites represent the views of a certain segment of the population, but they do not represent everybody's views.

Expand full comment
Stuffysays's avatar

They maybe represent the views of that segment of the population who don't use the internet so still get their news and opinions from newspapers and TV broadcasts. I know many older people who read a newspaper and watch the BBC news and will invariably tell me quite confidently that Putin Is Mad! Trump Is Mad! Covid Was A Plague! Millions Were Saved By The Jabs! Humanity Is Destroying The Climate! These are the people the elites rely on. The only thing to say is that they are older people who are further down the path to the grim reaper!

Expand full comment
currer's avatar
5hEdited

Don't be daft. Our "leaders" have no political history in their own parties. They are members of the Trilateral Commission or work for the major banks. They are certainly not politicians and do not represent anybody. In fact UK MPs are no longer required to represent the opinions of their constituents, merely to adhere to good practice guidelines. Their job description was changed this year.

Expand full comment
eugyppius's avatar

yes, in matters of foreign policy, European politicians generally support the US line. they would do this even without the trilateral commission and even if none of them had anything to do with banks.

Expand full comment
currer's avatar
5hEdited

Do you remember Olaf Palme...he stepped too far from the acceptable US post war goals...and I can think of more.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Olof_Palme

Palme.

Frequently a critic of Soviet and American foreign policy, he expressed his resistance to imperialist ambitions and authoritarian regimes, including those of Francisco Franco of Spain, Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, António de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal, Gustáv Husák of Czechoslovakia, and most notably John Vorster and P. W. Botha of South Africa, denouncing apartheid as a "particularly gruesome system". His 1972 condemnation of American bombings in Hanoi, comparing the bombings to a number of historical crimes including the bombing of Guernica, the massacres of Oradour-sur-glane, Babi Yar, Katyn, Lidice and Sharpeville and the extermination of Jews and other groups at Treblinka, resulted in a temporary freeze in Sweden–United States relations.

Expand full comment
Luke Gardner's avatar

Same goes for 🇨🇦 now. Look at Carney, he’s a perfect example. Lived in the UK for the better part of the last 15 years as a governor of the Bank of England. Then he popped up as economic advisor to the blisteringly incompetent and corrupt Turdeau. Once it became completely untenable for Justin to continue as PM, the Liberals installed Carney (who at the time held no parliamentary seat as an MP) as PM in an effective coup against the Canadian people themselves. The Modern Leftist Global strategy: Gotta destroy Democracy in order to save it.

Expand full comment
Andrew Marsh's avatar

There is a severe disconnect in the UK, with a huge gap between the public and those who govern. Not all politicians are slithering creatures, and not all are 'terribly well connected' if one knows what I mean.

Expand full comment
currer's avatar

https://x.com/Basil_TGMD/status/1940085638235312568

UK GOVERNMENT CHANGES MP's JOB ROLE

Originally it said MP's must represent the interests and concerns of the public

Now it says MP's have no job description

According to independent watchdogs and political commentators, the UK Parliament recently updated its documentation and quietly removed the explicit requirement for Members of Parliament to “represent the public” from the formal job description. That line had previously been part of the generic MP role outlined by the Senior Salaries Review Body in 2001.

The current Parliament website still describes MPs as elected to “represent their interests and concerns in the House of Commons”, but critics argue that the formal job description used internally no longer includes that language. The change hasn’t been widely publicized, and there’s no official statement explaining the revision.

https://citizenwatchreport.com/uk-government-deletes-mp-job-description/

Expand full comment
currer's avatar

The US always achieves its geopolitical goals through proxies and deception. One of those proxies is Europe which mouths US neocon goals by a process of ventriloquism.

Expand full comment
KHP's avatar
5hEdited

What are you smoking? There never was such a requirement of MPs--there is a world of difference between "opinions" and "interests".

Expand full comment
les's avatar

It is like we are going on a road trip. The problem is the driver can't drive and the navigator does not have the ability to read maps. He can just follow pretty pictures. It truly is something when Trump actually has a grasp on reality better than ALL of the European "navigator". We really are in trouble.

Expand full comment
currer's avatar

This is theatre. The European "elites" have no independence and are merely carrying out US deep state plans. The US wants to take on China and encircle Russia, and needs to pass the Ukraine war on to its European vassals and proxies, that is all.

Expand full comment
Againstthelies's avatar

Sadly, many individual members of the European populations have drunk the American Kool-Aid, even if that means they think Americans are uncouth slobs who care too much about sports and don't know anything about "culture." These European ladies of leisure are just as ignorant as the Americans they decry, except worse, because they imagine the opposite and because they actively support the suicidal policies of bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyden. They are contemptible in every single conceivable way. The only sensible Europeans, as a group, are working-class ones, but, as Orwell shows in 1984, there is no real hope to be had from them, even while that very same hope springs eternal.

Expand full comment
AgainsttheLies's avatar

I wrote this under a different login. Now I have logged in to my true account.

Expand full comment
Mike Hari's avatar

Never forget the EU and Zelenskyy were deeply complicit in the Russia Russia Russia hoax and the first Trump impeachment. Many newly disclosed documents kept this central in Trump's mind as he set up this meeting with Putin. There is a price to be paid when you try to overthrow the king and fail.

Expand full comment
Andrew Marsh's avatar

Um. No. This was a Dem Show.

Expand full comment
Suzie's avatar

Hell yeah. Does the name Christopher Steele ring a bell?

Expand full comment
Andrew Marsh's avatar

Welp. Hell yeah - he was hired. By the Dems. 1776 and all that. Not on Gov service. He was too stoopid. Hell yeah.

Expand full comment
rural counsel's avatar

But they had outside help.

Expand full comment
DD's avatar

"loomed over the European commentariat like an appointment with the oncologist.".....very nice.

Expand full comment
jotolo's avatar

European leaders are a joke. If they want the war to continue, they have near complete power to do so. All they have to do is provide the money, arms, and soldiers -- none of which they are prepared to do.

Expand full comment
jdm's avatar

Absolutely true. Well stated. But it's even worse. If I may...

... (western) Europeans are not only not prepared to "provide the money, arms, and soldiers", they've lost the ability to even re-arm themselves. They've also succeeded in significantly reducing if not removing the cultural ballast or emotional fortitude needed by soldiers to fight and die for their countries.

Moreover, they've imported thousands if not millions of Muslims who suck up huge amounts of money (that could be used to re-arm) and who will not fight for their countries of residence. Were Europe to send large numbers of soldiers to Ukraine (and thus weaken the home-front, so to speak), those Muslims would look at that as an opportunity to take over.

Expand full comment
Patricia Ernst's avatar

But blame Trump for the incompetence of those who got the world in this position to begin with.

Expand full comment
Fredo's avatar

Ukraine is the proxy war of a leftist tantrum. It’s all just stomping feet, crossing arms and taking their toys home whenever the world doesn’t conform to their views. The world is a junior high playground to these people.

Zero seriousness amongst leftist thought leadership.

Expand full comment
4Dbark's avatar

Ukraine was always going to lose this war. No amount of sanctions against Russia or another $175 billion of U.S. treasure into Ukraine is going to change that. We’re not putting boots on the ground in Ukraine and neither are you. So quit while you’re behind and get the best bad deal you can to end the slaughter. Zelensky was stupid to let the Brits convince him to eschew peace talks early in the war.

Expand full comment
HardeeHo's avatar

Ukraine was always going to lose? Perhaps so but they seem to fight on anyway. Examples throughout history often show the small defeating the larger. Had Ukraine been furnished adequate munitions at critical points Russia might have stopped. They still are resource poor as the East apparently has outproduced the West - a true shame.

Better to force a conclusion than more appeasement that led to even more war.

Expand full comment
On the Kaministiquia's avatar

You don’t understand history, especially Russian history. There was never any chance that Ukraine could defeat Russia, which is why it was insane for the USA and NATO to provoke this war.

Expand full comment
Isabelle Williams's avatar

I just wish Trump would go further. As for the Europeans, they are pathological in how they always look to USA and screech and try to make Big Daddy USA do what they want. If Europe wants to support Zelensky to the bitter end in a war against Russia, they should say so and should pledge what it would take to do that. Which include European troops on the ground and willingness to risk a nuclear war with Russia.

Expand full comment
Riri's avatar

You are doing God's work for reading the leftwing drivel, so that we don't have to. I already have my fill of stupidity when reading my local paper. The cartoonist also have an unhealthy fixation with Trump. I kid you not, almost every second cartoon features him. You would swear Germany have a lack of things and politicians to mock.

Expand full comment
Nestroque's avatar

'Two horrorclowns' Surely, that's a criminal offence in the New Germany to insult politicians like that? People - especially old people - have had their doors kicked in and hauled off to jail for less. Where's Faeser and Habeck to instigate legal proceedings?

Expand full comment
Andrew Marsh's avatar

There was harsh commentary from Prime Minister of Latvia.

Hold on.

Latvia - 1.8 million people

Lithuania - 2.63 million people

Estonia - 1.19 million people.

These three clowns are the EU27 version of Quebec.

Lots of noise, little else.

Who cares what the Prime Minister of a country almost the size of towns in many parts of Europe thinks about the discussions in Alaska?

Expand full comment
Riri's avatar

And I read one of these clown countries (I think it's Lithuania) is teaching school children to build and operate drones to take on Russia.

Expand full comment
Andrew Marsh's avatar

All three are paranoid, and dream - hard to believe - that they will become the centre of power for the EU27. Now you see it - noise, delusion and paranoia, a dangerous combination.

Expand full comment
York Luethje's avatar

“ If we just believe the right things and say them loud enough all together one more time, we’ll get what we want.”

As if we needed more proof that we are living in a mimetic society.

Expand full comment
air dog's avatar

Good times certainly have created weak men.

Coming soon: hard times.

Expand full comment
Quentin Vole's avatar

My neighbour harangued me about how awful it was that Putin was greeted with a red carpet (as have most of the media). But how can we expect to achieve peace (and halt the deaths of around 1,000 a day, rather more than in Gaza) without talking to the Russian head of state? Should the talks have been conducted in a coal cellar? What goes on inside these people's heads?

Diplomacy (which Britain used to be rather skilled at, a century or two ago) involves talking to, and if needful glad-handing, some rather unsavoury characters. I'd love to see President Xi in a glass box in the Hague explaining his treatment of the Uighurs, but I'm extremely confident it will never happen. If Putin were removed from the scene, by the hand of God or a drone, it's almost certain that what would follow would be even worse.

Expand full comment
Kathleen Lowrey's avatar

Yes this childish reaction, as if the red carpet makes any difference to the fact that Russia is winning and Ukraine is losing.

Expand full comment
Alan's avatar

"If we just believe the right things and say them loud enough all together one more time, we’ll get what we want." - a lot of this these days on many issues.

Expand full comment