You could say that President-elect Donald Trump is, in fact, the proverbial man without a plan. His perennial self-congratulation. His belief in his own inherent brilliance. The decisive confidence he displays when confronted with that which he knows nothing about. Such flaws cannot be lightly ignored. Take, for example, his decision to treat China in much the same way mountain gorillas deal with harem suggestions that they should start ‘seeing other people.’
Silverbacks don’t take too well to that kind of smack.
Diplomacy isn’t that hard to understand, not really. The concept of not sticking your dick into a beehive unless you absolutely have to kind of sums up post-war foreign policy.
Ignoring such wisdom tends to create something of a mess. A situation more pear shape than ship-shape if you’ll excuse the mental image.
Sabre Prattling
All things considered, ignoring perceived wisdom is what Trump does best. His bid for the White House was practically defined by knee-jerk attacks on China. He ranted about trade deals and grew excited at the possibility of a war with China that the USA simply could not win. He complained of currency manipulations and even insisted that China had invented climate change.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
That Nobel prize laureate Svante Arrhenius first proposed climate change in 1896 is beside the point. That he was as his name would suggest ‘tremendously not Chinese,’ matters not.
Because buoyed by his half victory, Trump began winding up tensions as if International Relations axioms carry the same jeopardy as a 25-cent game of Space Invaders circa 1980. His plan to turn the contentious waters of the South China Sea into a turd-filled lagoon infested with trigger-happy duck hunters makes little sense. To most of us, that is.
But then, most of us feel compelled to think these things through.
Gorillas In The Mystified
Having not yet been sworn in he’s already upset the foundational basis of U.S.-China relations by overturning the longstanding One China policy. With little reason to honor tacit agreements regarding Taiwan, China demurred for only the briefest of moments.
Then decided that the diplomatic equivalent of the middle finger coupled with a drive-by mooning would be an appropriately subtle response.
No doubt they relish the opportunity. After having indicated that a military solution to the Taiwanese question was once again back on the table, earlier today they demonstrated just how unconcerned they are with Trump’s hollow, look-at-the-size-of-my-dick rhetoric by seizing an unmanned U.S. naval vessel in the South China Sea.
Even so, Trump’s response was as devastatingly swift as it was incompetent. Knowing full well that the Chinese fear Twitter in much the same way that a lion tenses up at the approach of a pomeranian, he gave them hell.
Unprecedented Use Of the Word ‘Unpresidented’
Yeah, sure, they just agreed to give the drone back. But that they snatched at the lollipop in the first place is not something that can be easily ignored.
Strangely enough, nothing says you mean business like an inability to spell.
Perhaps the stress of office is getting to him or perhaps the fault lies with us? Perhaps we do the man a disservice?
With increasingly loud calls for the Electoral College to dump him, maybe we are witnessing one of those rare new-word moments. After all, time and time again Trump has demonstrated that we “misunderestimate” him at our peril.
Because if anything demonstrates that he is unfit for office it is this. To actually destabilize an entire region sans executive power, that’s gold; that’s fucking genius! The kind of man smart enough to create such a mess before he’s even taken office, that’s a man who might see thing far more clearly than we give him credit for. His vision is not 20:20, it’s better than that; a paradoxical upgrade to 20:16.
Unpresidented; perhaps that’s what he penciled in his diary for Tuesday.
It’s funny. Until you realize we’re all going to die.
Watch the Americans on the front lines who will be the first to see combat if Trump starts a war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE-U273Cu8E
Featured image via screenshot from YouTube video
