Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Paul Begala
Read between
October 3 - October 7, 2020
“I have great confidence in my intelligence people,” Trump said, “but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” This debacle, this surrender, came after a two-hour private meeting. And by “private” I mean, once again, Trump did not let any US aides in the room (except this time he did allow an American translator in).
Another former Pentagon chief, Ash Carter, likened watching Trump tear down US intelligence to “watching the destruction of a cathedral. In almost four decades with national defense, starting in the Pentagon under Ronald Reagan, I never saw or imagined so uneven a handover of American security interests and principles with nothing in return at a meeting.”
Cui bono? The ancient Romans knew how to ask the right questions. When you see some action that you don’t understand, ask who benefits. Let’s ask, shall we?
19 vital points follow. 19!!!
Who benefits from Trump withholding military aid to Ukraine? Putin.
Who benefits from Trump denying the Ukrainian president an Oval O...
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Who benefits from Trump denigrating...
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Who benefits from Trump attacking the European Union—even calling t...
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Who benefits when Trump says Crimea is part o...
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Who benefits from Trump calling for Russia’s reinstatement in the G7 gathering of the world’s leading democracies (which would then go back to being called the “G8”)? Putin.
Who benefits from Trump reversing the Republican Party’s decades-old tough-on-Russia stance? Putin.
Who benefits when Trump draws a moral equivalence between the Russian thugocracy, which murders journalists, and the United States—which, for all our faults, enshrine...
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Who benefits when Trump, in a White House interview aired before the Super Bowl, declares he “respects” Putin? And when Bill O’Reilly challenged him, saying “Putin is a killer,” who benefits when Trump runs down America, saying, “We have a lo...
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Who benefits when Trump undermines faith in American elections, repeatedly and falsely claiming they’re rigged and...
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Who benefits when Trump repeatedly delayed implementing sanctions on Russia for its chemical weapons attack on Russian dissident Sergei Skri...
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Who benefits when Trump lifts sanctions on companies connected to a pro-Putin oligarch—sanctions imposed to punish Russi...
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Who benefits when Trump ignores his own national security team’s memo—“DO NOT CONGRATULATE” Putin after his rigged 2018 election, the memo said—and congratulates him anyway, thus ...
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Who benefits when Trump gives code-word classified intel to an alleged Russian spy i...
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Who benefits when Trump insults seventeen US intelligence agencies by saying that he believes Putin’s denial of responsibility for the 2016 cyberattack over their conclusion that Putin was behind it? Putin.
Who benefits when Trump follows Putin’s suggestion that the United States cancel military exercises with South Korea? Putin.
Who benefits when Trump repeats Kremlin talking points that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was in...
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Who benefits when a US withdrawal from Syria increases Russian influence...
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One more: Who benefits from a Russian cyberattack that helps to install Trump a...
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Campaigning for president, he said that Putin was more of a leader than President Obama: “The man has very strong control over a country. Now, it’s a very different system and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly in that system, he’s been a leader. Far more than our president has been a leader.”
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, twenty-six journalists have been murdered in Russia under Putin.
When candidate Trump praised Putin on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough reminded him, “Well, also, this is a person that kills journalists, political opponents.” Trump replied, “He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country.” Scarborough tried a second time. “But again,” he said, “he kills journalists that don’t agree with him.” Trump deflected, making the astonishing claim that the United States was just as vicious: “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe.”
In 2015, Trump gave an interview to Breitbart radio’s Steve Bannon. “I have a little conflict of interest, ’cause I have a major, major building in Istanbul, Turkey. It’s a tremendously successful job. It’s called Trump Towers—two towers, instead of one, not the usual one, it’s two.”
In fact, Trump does not own the buildings in Istanbul. As is common in Trump Land, he licenses his brand to the real owner, in this case Turkish businessman Aydin Dogan, who is reported to be a close ally of—wait for it—Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Trump has collected up to $17 million in royalties from Trump Towers Istanbul since 2012, when the towers opened—with Erdogan in attendance.
This licensing deal means that Erdogan, through his friend, has enormous leverage over Trump.
in December 2018, Trump abruptly ordered the withdrawal of all two thousand US troops from Syria. This decision went against his senior military and diplomatic advisers and reportedly stunned our close allies in places like Israel and the United Kingdom.
But you know who loved the US withdrawal so hated by our generals? Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In fact, Erdogan was reportedly the first to learn of Trump’s decision—before even our own military. In a call with Erdogan on December 14, 2018, Trump agreed to withdraw US troops. He did it, the Associated Press reported, “hastily, without consulting his national security team or allies, and over strong objections from virtually everyone involved in the fight against the Islamic State group.”
Trump has different priorities. At least one different priority, and it’s 822 feet tall. You guessed it. There’s a Trump Tower Manila, a $150 million luxury condo tower. As in Turkey, Trump is licensing his name and receiving royalties.
The Pew Research Center studies global attitudes, and has done so for years. Simply put, America under Trump is a laughingstock. While 64 percent of the world expressed confidence in President Obama, just 22 percent has confidence in Trump. Favorable views of the United State have collapsed: from 64 percent at the end of the Obama presidency to 49 percent in Trump’s first year in office.
75 percent say he’s arrogant; 65 percent say he is intolerant; 62 percent say he is dangerous.
After he spoke out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Obama’s support among Russians dropped to just 11 percent. But Trump’s pro-Putin policies have him sitting pretty in Russia, with 53 percent approval—a level of support he has never had among Americans.
According to a survey conducted by the Körber Foundation, Germans view Trump, in the words of a Reuters report, “as a bigger challenge for German foreign policy than authoritarian leaders in North Korea, Russia, or Turkey.”
Macron sensed a vacuum. In April 2018 he came to the United States and threw down the gauntlet. Speaking to a joint session of Congress, Macron defended multilateralism and rejected “isolationism, withdrawal, and nationalism.” In other words, Trumpism. He said he understood the urge to retreat, “but closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world. It will not douse but inflame the fears of our citizens.” He reminded his American hosts that the United States “invented” the postwar multilateral system that has kept the peace for decades.
Macron went on, brashly assuming the mantle of leader of the free world: “Maybe the American president doesn’t care about being isolated, but we [the G7] don’t mind being six, if needs be. Because these six represent values, represent an economic market, and more than anything, represent a real force at the international level today.”
If Trump is reelected, American withdrawal from world leadership will accelerate. Not only will Trump continue to pull back, but other leaders of free, wealthy democracies like Macron will pull away. The American Century will truly be over.
Trump is in it for himself, not for you. He has sold out American soldiers, American farmers, American companies. He has allowed Russia—a country with a dirty, corrupt leader—to humiliate the most powerful nation on earth. He has diminished America and degraded our strength. He has emboldened our adversaries and alienated our allies.
Don’t ever let Trump get away with saying “America First.” He is America Last—and Donald Trump first.
Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, “I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up.”
I want to see Democrats run on and enact a program through which other-centered people can build up our country again, build up their own prospects, build up their skills and their education, and build up the fraying bonds that should unite us across income levels and ideology, gender and generation, religion and region: universal national service.
John McCain had a thirty-six-year career in elected office with this motto: “Nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone.”
The three wealthiest people in America—Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett—have a combined wealth that exceeds the wealth of the bottom half of the country’s population.
if you wanted to equal the combined wealth of those three guys, you’d have to have a car that held more than 160 million people.
By 1989, according to the Federal Reserve, the top 1 percent controlled 23 percent of all America’s wealth.
Now the top 1 percent controls 32 percent of all wealth.
The middle class: those between the 50th and 90th percentiles, controls jus...
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the bottom half of the country? Those 160 million people you couldn’t fit in your car? They have seen no gains over the past thirty years. In fact, their share of national wealth has collapsed, fro...
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I don’t want to be a reductionist. I realize that there is not a magic answer to rising inequality and increasing social alienation. But if I could do one thing to address both, it would be national service.
