In all Fairness What About The Things Trump Has Gotten Right
Many have somewhat agreed that the bad stuff gets over-reported and his witness tampering and tweeting is off-putting but that should not overshadow the stuff Trump has done which according to them has gotten right
Like what? You might ask
Well, in a USA Today article a writer suggested that we weren’t fair-minded enough about some of President Trump’s other decisions on policy that should be looked upon as favorable or more favorably. Although Mr. Navarrette lambastes the President as crazy and not as knowledgeable as he should be about immigration, the nationally syndicated writer and Chicken Soup for the Soul contributor insists that there are some things the President has gotten right but receives little to no credit for.
This is worth examining, to be fair. This list of 20 items was published prior to the partial federal government shutdown that the president has admittedly inculpated himself for. I am not sure where his republican instincts would have led him on that one but let’s proceed shall we.
Navarrette bullet points moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Once again this unsolicited subscription to whiteness inculcates you with having no real sense of history, they simply imagine what they feel as happened in the past that fits the false narrative of their present. They don’t even bother to look at the map to see how oddly impractical this nation state and its alleged capital in Jerusalem looks.
The city even has different names. Jews call it Jerusalem, or Yerushalayim, and Arabs call it Al-Quds, which means “The Holy”.
The European Jews that arrived there in waves from 1896 to 1948 were forced out of Europe due to anti-semitic hostilities. Go figure! 🤔 The Arabs apparently viewed this as some low-key colonization attempt and fighting broke out, until the UN squashed the beef by creating a two state nation. The Jewish settlers agreed to this the deal but the Palestinians-turned refugees did not, and still does not agree to that deal. Actually, the UN (UN Security Council Resolution 478) condemns Israel’s decision to annex East Jerusalem as a violation of international law. Trump’s decision here undermines the honest broker position that the US has long sought to establish there. So no this is not a good look for Trump, but it looks good to evangelical support for Trump.
Bullet point 2, “Pull the United States out of the Iranian nuclear deal”. 🧐 For what? There is never a sound answer for this. The only obvious reason that the deal is not in the national interest is because the deal did not originate with all things Trump.
On September 6, Iranian-backed militants in Iraq shot three mortars into Baghdad’s massive diplomatic compound, which is home to the US Embassy. Two days later, rockets shot by unknown attackers streaked toward the US consulate in Basra during anti-Iran protests in the city.
Those strikes, which injured no one, led Bolton to have the National Security Council (NSC) ask the Defense Department for military plans to attack Iran, according to US officials and people familiar with the request — although it’s unclear how close the US came to bombing the country.
Still, the request caused some controversy in the Pentagon. Then-Defense Secretary James Mattis didn’t even want to respond to the attacks with a strongly worded statement (let alone a military strike), alarming US officials across the government, a senior administration official told me.
The White House eventually did issue a statement on September 11 declaring that “the United States will hold the regime in Tehran accountable for any attack that results in injury to our personnel or damage to United States Government facilities.”
And Mattis had “deep concerns” about Bolton’s strike request, one US official told Axios on Sunday. The Pentagon eventually provided some military options to the White House — such as a strike on an Iranian military facility — but Mattis and other officials rejected the idea of a large-scale retaliatory attack.
Why does the National Security Adviser, John Bolton, handpicked by Trump, want so badly to start a war with Iran?
The economy of Iran in terms of GDP is ranked 24th inthe world, the US GDP per capita is 7 times that of Iran.
Next bullet point, “Stand up to NATO countries for not ponying up enough money to cover the organization’s expenses and their own defense costs.” NATO increased their defense spending way before Trump took office. They agreed to this back in 2014 and took those steps beginning in 2015. Do you know who was president at that time? Let me help you with that.
In other words, NATO members had already begun to pick up their defense spending under then-President Barack Obama, who had himself persistently called for NATO members to meet their required contributions. There’s no evidence at the moment that Trump has done anything to accelerate that dynamic.
Next bullet point, “Take on the news media and not back down, exposing bias and agenda-driven journalism intended to run him out of office.”
There is clear and convincing evidence that Trump, and not the news media as Navarrette suggests, is the reason for the Matthew effect of the plausibly instigated cognitive bias against him. Why is this even a point to make.
Last bullet point I am going to comment on made by Navarrette for part 1 of this piece, “Put an intense focus on immigration, the importance of border security and the cost of illegal immigration, including U.S. citizens killed by the undocumented.”
The focus of immigration has has only overinflated the importance of border security, costs of illegal immigration and the US citizens killed by the undocumented.
Let me start with the last one. As the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank founded by the Koch Brothers has provided data with their widely cited research, and debunked the notion that immigrants commit tremendous crimes in the US.
This myth has been around for over a century. It wasn’t true in 1896, 1909, 1931, 1994, or more recently. Immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated for violent and property crimes and cities with more immigrants and their descendants are more peaceful. Some immigrants do commit violent and property crimes but, overall, they are less likely to do so.
Overall, immigration is not correlated with terrorist attacks and it certainly does cause them but, in addition to that, the risk is also small.
The Washington Post did an extensive study of that Cato institute research and found even more contradicting evidence that Navarrette wantonly submits as good things that Trump has done thus far. This is a pattern with all of his points. The fact that you actually work for the Washington Post as well exhibits willful ignorance over policies that you are and have been credentialed for. Dude!🤨
You can’t be serious and you only cement the idea that you are simply one of those political hack writers who benefit from the political media complex of corruptive journalism.
This has been another edition of An American Potpourri Of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit Vol. 2, №1
