"Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since
World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and
the post–Cold War world like paradise. In fact, this new world will
look a lot like the world prior to 1945, with multiple great powers and
metastasizing competition and conflict. The U.S. will have no reliable
friends or allies and will have to depend entirely on its own strength
to survive and prosper. This will require more military spending, not
less, because the open access to overseas resources, markets, and
strategic bases that Americans have enjoyed will no longer come as a
benefit of the country’s alliances. Instead, they will have to be
contested and defended against other great powers." -- Robert Kagan, The Atlantic (via Digby), echoing what Charlie Dent and others are saying about the peril America finds itself in, thanks to unchecked and unhinged Putin asset Malignant Fascist. The MF's assertions of primacy over the Western Hemisphere, his extra- Constitutional use of force abroad, and his bullying threats against our long-term allies and friends will leave us not as "America First," but as "America Alone" -- the price you pay when you elect a mad moron to the presidency.
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"... Here on this continent (with Canada and Mexico), Americans have to sort out whether we will allow a madman
to demand that the western world accede to his demands for obeisance
lest he throw over the game board. That is, if there are enough of us
with the right stuff to fight back against Trump and his gang of
thieves.
"We too have operated under a comfortable fiction that
America’s stability over the years was built on our constitution, our
laws, and our democratic traditions. Trumpism ripped that veil away to
reveal how much the entire edifice of Exceptionalism was built on 'norms.' It was only a gentleman’s agreement that our leaders behave
like gentlemen, until the country fell for a con man and cult leader.
Not once, but twice. Trumpism ripped the masks off neighbors who wave
American flags, boast of their real Americanness, and loudly
profess faith in Jesus, not Christianity as a system of values but as an
authoritarian agenda. It was so much vapid branding.
“'America isn’t the way it is because [Trump is] president.
He’s president because America is the way it is,” as Canadian journalist
David Cochrane explained two weeks ago. He seems to have anticipated Carney’s Davos speech.
"The American challenge going forward is to examine our
weaknesses, acknowledge them honestly, and adapt. There is no going
back. Norms have failed us. We have failed ourselves. Barbarians are not
at the gate. They are in the Oval Office and in the streets of
Minneapolis. They are staged to invade Greenland.
"Canada has figured it out. Americans seem the last to know." -- Tom Sullivan, "What Now, America?" at Digby's Hullabaloo. Nothing will be the same as it was before. As David Cochrane said above, "America isn't the way it is because [Trump] is president. He's president because America is the way it is." De-Nazifying America will be the work of many generations.
