Puzzlements

Puzzlements

There are events and conditions which occur in the here and now which simply leave me wondering how we got here.

I. The Trump presidency:

It is troublesome, but at least answerable to reflect on how DJT got elected. The words "deplorable." "racist." and "gullible" all are applicable to one or another of his base constituency. Far more troubling is the cadre of enablers and sycophants, all far brighter than he, who, like Remoras on a Great White, cling to him, hoping for some scrap from his (its) lips or beneficence there from. (You should be proud of me for taking the high road, because "hemorrhoid" was the first analogy which came to mind, but was eschewed for the marine simbiote one.)

What appalls me, almost as much as the horribly misguided  decisions and twisted vision of America, is the fact that someone with every conceivable social, financial and experiential advantage, which Trump has or has had, turned out to be such a buffoon.

There is a Sociological construct (for want of a better descriptor) wherein social scientists conceptualize what has come to be known as "Cultural IQ." Defined, it is: "Cultural intelligence or cultural quotient (CQ) is a term used in business, education, government and academic research. Cultural intelligence can be understood as the capability to relate and work effectively across cultures." Do we see anything in said definition which should be of concern with regard to DJT?

A professor at Harvard Business School has stated, "Understanding other cultures determines effectiveness in the workplace, influences how conflicts are handled, and shapes the future. While basic social skills and respect for other cultures can be enough, cultural intelligence is especially important in stressful situations."

Clearly DJT, while allegedly having completed the requirements for an MBA from said organization, has demonstrated essentially zero grasp of several of these components which his alma mater believes to be essential to optimum performance in high level positions.

I know, I know, "That's easy to say, but what about specifics?" I get it, I really do, that some, but far too few, who voted for Trump out of some hugely misguided sense that he was the messiah come to reclaim America for White (and orange) Anglo-Saxon Protestants, are asking themselves some of the same questions. Here, then is a partial summary of things done here at home which should have caused a rational person to question the DJT suitability for any public job.

He has insulted brown people, black people, Muslim people, Jewish people. He has insulted women. He has insulted the grieving parents of a dead soldier. He has mocked a disabled person and expressed admiration for dictators. He has ham-handedly pandered to a politically critical portion of the population by posting to social media a picture of gringo Tex-Mex captioning it, “I love Hispanics!” 

He suggested he could shoot somebody and not lose votes. He made the ludicrous statement that he had "Always wanted a Purple Heart." He openly talked about the possibility of the assassination of his political opponent. Twice. He even told high ranking military officers during what was obviously a pro-forma visit to the Army-Navy football game that it was "boring." And these are just the insults, not the demonstrable falsehoods. Also , these were all prior to his election. Or try these, diametric contradictions 6 days apart:

I see NATO as a good thing.” (Washington Post, March 21, 2016)
“I think NATO is obsolete.” (ABC News, March 27, 2016)

His record is one of seemingly endless contradictions, based on his apparent belief that telling people what they want to hear absolves one from having to make and abide by a decision using one's intellect tempered by sound advice from experts. This should surprise no one, as DJT has told us prior to the election and proven afterward:

“You’ll find that when you become very successful, the people that you will like best are the people that are less successful than you, because when you go to a table you can tell them all of these wonderful stories, and they’ll sit back and listen. Does that make sense to you? Always be around unsuccessful people because everybody will respect you.” (De Pere, Wisconsin, March 30, 2016)

“My motto is ‘Hire the best people, and don’t trust them.’” (Trump: Think Big, 2007)

“I love the poorly educated.” (Las Vegas, February 23, 2016)

But on to the real issue, cultural awareness. I assure you every single example below is a direct quote:

" “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.”

“Who the fuck knows? I mean, really, who knows how much the Japs will pay for Manhattan property these days?”

“Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.”

“Oftentimes when I was sleeping with one of the top women in the world I would say to myself, thinking about me as a boy from Queens, ‘Can you believe what I am getting?’”

Women: “You have to treat ’em like shit.”

Really, what a guy, huh?

Likewise. in the arena of international politics, DJT has consistently shown little or no real Cultural IQ. Examples include:

Using the words "Islamist" and "Islamic" interchangeably.

Literally shoving aside the Chief executive of another nation, Montenegro, which some believe he was unaware was actually a nation

Attempting (and failing) to out "hand squeeze" the President of France. (not to mention verbally assessing the physical attributes of Macron's wife)

In what is a blatant example of lack of historical contextual sense, he assailed German Chancellor Merkel, the de facto leader of the EU, because Germany, in his opinion, hadn't paid "their share" of NATO financing. So what's wrong with that, you ask? I'll tell you in the next paragraphs.

NATO came into existence for several reasons. The most exigent of which was concern over the demonstrated willingness of the (then) Soviet Union to attempt to subjugate and project power into central and even western Europe. The partition of Germany and Berlin, the satellite state status of Poland, Czechoslovakia , Hungary, Rumania and the Baltic states was a major concern for the US from 1946 on. It was the considered opinion among many in the US military and intelligence community that the next "war" would be the land war in Europe, fought between the US (and allies) and Soviets. It was even the subject of Tom Clancy's 1986 book "Red Storm Rising," 40 years later. The obvious answer in the minds of American policy makers was that said war, if it should come, was far better fought over the bones of an already war torn Europe, than in the United States, untouched by war since 1865.

To that end, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in April of 1949. The US, with a booming post war economy, was the prime mover behind the formation of this "mutual defense" accord. If there was an "equity" of cost to be shown, it could well be posited as the financial and human price paid by the war ravaged nations of Europe, struggling to rebuild shattered infrastructure and industry while the US sent returning soldiers to College on the GI Bill and became the world's strongest economy. Claiming financial obligation "equity" as DJT has done shows little to no actual sense of the historicity of NATO or why it exists. It is true that the "Soviet Threat" is diminished, the Soviet Union having collapsed, starting in 1989, under its own unsustainable economic weight, but recent events show that the Russian spirit of European entitlement and supremacy lives in Vladimir Putin's reptilian brain still.

All that said, and regardless of how near or far Germany and others are to "Recommended " NATO funding objectives, which are not in monetary values but rather percentages of GDP, it was clear that DJT simply has little or no real geopolitical comprehension. This was hammered home again miles away in Saudi Arabia, when he openly sucked up to the same monarchy which facilitated the entry of the 9/11 terrorists into the US.

The Saudis are the national regime which allows the Wahhabi extremist Islamist sect to not only continue to exist within their borders, but for more than two centuries, Wahhabism has been Saudi Arabia's dominant faith. It's a radically austere form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Wahhabis believe that all those who don't practice their form of Islam are heathens and enemies. The Saudi monarchy family is afraid to confront Wahhabism because they are allowed to rule in return for tolerating it.

In closing, it should be noted that few, if any, foreign officials have extended or demonstrated any real collegiality or sense of "simpatico" to Trump, his lame rhetoric or his objectives. This reflects not on them, but on the man who would be King DJT I. While I would agree that any national government should place national interest first when it is not in conflict with the majority of the rest of the world, this is far from the current situation. DJT simply doesn't care about the image of the US, since he gets all the information he feels he needs from the two to three hours of TV he reportedly watches daily. It should be noted that this is almost entirely Fox News. How tragic when a Sean Hannity can become the conduit of propaganda to POTUS!

We are fast becoming an international laughingstock, and it only continues to worsen as Far Right legislators realize that the helm of the ship of state is broken, we are rudderless, and Captain Queeg is on the bridge.