First. On February 5, the Trump administration posted a video on election fraud that was apparently sent to them. At the end of the video, there was a completely different trailer that was an AI version of the Lion King that had Trump as the King and Biden and the Obamas as monkeys in the kingdom.
The video was quickly condemned as racist and Trump was blamed for posting it and refusing to apologize by most mainstream media publications. Trump haters, furthermore, flooded social media with approbations of the racist Trump insulting the Obamas. Within a few hours, the video was taken down, ending the ability to view it. So what happened and why is it significant in the first place?
For starters, there is no way the video ever should have been posted. Either someone in the Trump administration made a huge mistake by not watching it through to the end before posting it or it was intentionally posted to be provocative. Trump himself said he never even saw the video. While he condemned portraying the Obamas as monkeys, he refused to apologize because he said he wasn’t involved with its posting.
The major reason why it matters, at least to me, is that it illustrates the deep polarization that still exists, especially as it relates to Trump. Many of the MSM publications presented it as Trump posting a video portraying the Obamas as apes without even mentioning that the video was actually about election fraud.
The typical Trump hater, furthermore, won’t believe that Trump didn’t know about it whether he did or not. But then only staffers in the White House actually know. The bottom line is it will go down in history as Trump posting a video of the Obamas as apes regardless of what actually happened, and in the end, it’s the Trump administration’s fault for either intentionally posting the video or being so incompetent to not watch the full video to see the trailer.
Bad Bunny. Another example of polarization is the reaction to Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. Liberals the world over praised the performance whether or not they understood Spanish or even liked it. It was a great example of diversification and cultural celebration. Conservatives, of course, widely panned the show, with many watching the alternative half time show streamed by Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA. For his part, Trump panned the show for not reflecting America’s greatness.
OK, everyone. Let’s step back and think about this. It was a half-time show, for Pete’s sake, which shouldn’t have become controversial in the first place. So what if the NFL chose a strange-named guy singing in Spanish? Should you really care, especially since he’s a Grammy and album of the year winner and international singing star?
If you didn’t like it, turn off the volume and do something else like make a snack. But somehow everything these days gets tinged with partisan politics. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned, non-partisan wardrobe malfunctions?
Third. In the real world that actually makes a difference, Trump appears to be floundering around in dealing with Iran. As you probably know, when Iranian citizens were holding massive protests against the ruling Mullahs, Trump encouraged them to keep protesting and told them that help was on the way. He said that the U.S. was locked and loaded and warned the Iranian regime against violent retailiation.
As we also know, the regime went way beyond violent retailiation by slaughtering an estimated 30,000+ protesters. So what did Trump do? He did nothing. No locked and loaded, and help was anything but on the way. How did this fiasco happen?
It appears that this is a classic episode of Trump’s likely ADHD getting the worst of him. He saw the massive protests and impulsively said the U.S. was locked and loaded and help was on the way because he genuinely wanted to help and also wanted the Iranian Mullahs gone. When he went to our military leaders, however, he quickly discovered that the situation was far more complex than when we had a one-time bombing raid to knock out Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and that we weren’t even close to being locked and loaded.
In addition, Israel and the nearby Gulf states also expressed their consternation about getting into a war with Iran if regime change were a major goal. In such a situation, they thought Iran would almost certainly shoot off as many missles as possible at them, and they also might try to completely close the Persian Gulf, which would skyrocket the price of oil.
Before even considering an attack on Iran, Trump was told by everyone involved that the U.S. and its allies would have to carefully prepare to take any military action against Iran. They cautioned that Trump should explore other alternatives, especially since regime change would be an unlikely outcome unless we sent in a large army, and then we’d have to deal with a very uncertain aftermath.
So that’s where we are today. Trump is, as the expression goes, hoisted by his own petard. He now seems engaged in useless negotiations with Iran, who almost certainly is rubbing his nose in it. The Iranian Mullahs refuse to discuss their treatment of protestors or their support for terrorist proxies, leaving nuclear enrichment the only issue on the table, which they would ignore whatever was agreed to anyway. Their goal is to make meaningless consessions and get their sanctions lifted, while Trump trumpets a great victory. Trump, of course, has said the talks were very promising and that Iran very badly wanted to make a deal.
Trump basically looks like he’s earned the derogatory term, TACO — Trump Always Chickens Out, and is just trying to save face. In order to avoid that he has betrayed the Iranian protestors, however, his only viable option is to attack, which almost everyone around him seems to be advising against, except maybe Israel at this point.
So what’s going to happen? At this point nobody knows, and analyses are all over the map. The most negative says that he’ll basically do nothing other than some sanctions and leave the Iranian protesters high and dry. He may even reach a meaningless agreement and actually reduce sanctions, giving Iran more billions. It’ll be one more episode of Trump’s narcissistic, ADHD-fueled hubris getting the better of him and leaving him with egg on his face to which he’s oblivious.
The most positive say he’s shrewdly delaying until all his military ducks are in a row, so he can attack with the best chance of defending against any retailiation by the Iranians. Instead of Iranians leading him around by the nose, he’s the one doing the leading. It’s prepare, prepare, prepare, and then strike.
While such an attack may not force a regime change, at the very least it will do severe damage and might kill a significant number of Iranian leaders. It will also serve as a warning to the leaders who remain that Trump and the U.S., with Israel probably joining in, will not tolerate further actions against Iranian citizens, a continuation of its funding terrorist proxies, and continuing to actively work towards having nuclear weapons, including the development of long range ballistic missles.
Which is the one going on? Stay tuned.
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