If there was anything that could dampen my enthusiasm for a positive outcome from President Trump’s meeting with North Korea Leader Kim Jong-un it would have been the outpouring of bitterness from the Left and the Never-Trumpers of the establishment Right.
Perusing #TrumpKimSummit last night on Twitter while the meeting was happening was an illuminating experience. It was full of #TheResistance demeaning any prospect of peace simply because Trump was the one standing opposite Kim Jong-un.
All thoughts of the prospect of peace and ending a seventy-plus year conflict frozen for the very same cynical geopolitical reasons these same people normally decry as welfare for the Military-Industrial Complex took a backseat to their DeNiro-esque agenda against Trump.
Welcome to the wedge issue of 2018. Here, like the Ron Paul campaigns of 2008 and 2012, the liberal-interventionists and the neoconservatives join forces to circle the wagons against someone breaking through the carefully constructed, yet false, narrative of the politically powerful.
The goal? Enforce the status quo which enriches them and bankrupts you.
Libs and Never-Trumpers, MSNBC and the National Review in lock-step to demean and spew venom in support of a geopolitical gameboard designed to keep the world cowering in fear of catastrophic events to maintain political and social control.
It was disgusting.
That was last night.
Memes and snark mixed with bitter crocodile tears because the wrong guy was shaking Kim’s hand. MSNBC and CNN’s coverage of the event was nauseating, save for Dennis Rodman’s raw emotion as he detailed Obama’s intransigence, aloofness and his personal costs for trying to do the right thing.
The Morning After
And if there is anything worse than the pre-summit commentary decrying Trump and Kim talking it is looking at the after-shocks this morning, where memes and snark have turned into crass and cynical talking points about Trump giving up something and Kim giving up nothing.
Trump said he was honored to shake Kim Jong Un’s hand at the #TrumpKimSummit
Wrong, Mr. President. It is not an honor to shake a murderous dictator’s hand.
It’s an honor to sake the hands of people like Trudeau and Macron (even though it looks like it hurt you a bit).
— Brian Krassenstein () June 12, 2018
The more Trump talks about the deal, the worse it sounds. U.S. stops exercises, pledges to remove troops, no new sanctions, all in exchange for vague promises of denuclearization. #trumpkim
— Josh Rogin () June 12, 2018
Both factions of the globalist/interventionist political chattering class woke up this morning to the realization that they no longer have as much ammunition to justify a tyrannical American empire all over the world.
Selling their Utopian fantasy of unassailable control for them and universal serfdom for us just got that much harder. Trump said he would end the war games with South Korea. This is a concrete step which mirrors Kim’s steps already taken to destroy his nuclear testing facility.
Kim put something on the table before showing up in Singapore. It was only right for Trump to do the same. Doing so unilaterally, as the head of state and Commander-in-Chief reminds everyone that 1) he’s in charge, not them and 2) he values building trust with Kim more than satisfying the braying jackals of his Cabinet and K-Street.
Chopping Wood
If there is one thing truly animating Trump’s presidency it is his desire to cleave open the Gordian knots of domestic and foreign policy issues that have the world sliding slowly towards a horrifying conclusion.
He knows that the world has been made far more complicated than it needs to be because the goal of the post-WWII institutional order has been to move humanity against its will towards the global feudalism I described earlier. He knows these institutions are wrong. From the IMF to the World Bank. The WTO to the U.N. The G-7 to the EU.
These things are sold to us as necessary parts of the machine that keep the world running. And our natural tendency is to see the best of what they could be rather than what they actually are.
They are used to, paraphrasing Nietzsche, muddy the waters to make them appear deep. When, in fact, these problems, like Korea, are not complicated to solve. They are quite simple. Whose ox is gored in the process? That’s complicated.
And each time he approaches a new issue, whether I agree with his methods or not, he brings out the Sword of Damocles and threatens the everyone’s position on both sides of the political aisle.
Yesterday he swung that sword at his own foreign policy and military advisors. Over the weekend he swung it at the G-7. Next he’ll pick a domestic target, likely the Justice Department via the Inspector General’s report.
Because, ultimately, Trump is Loki.
He’s a change agent who has been behind the curtain. He’s seen the code of the Matrix first-hand. And he didn’t like what he saw.
My assessment of him in 2016 was this and today I’m more convinced than ever that’s what drives him.
The Thin End of the Wedge
That’s why yesterday’s summit is the defining moment of 2018. Trump’s opponents have to now out themselves completely as opponents of nuclear war to criticize him.
It makes it clear who stands on which side of the divide and what their goals are. The feckless cucks of #TheResistance think they are winning but all they are doing is defining the parameters how they want to lose.
You will know if a person you meet still has his mind open if they can admit, even grudgingly, that Trump and Kim meeting was an unqualified good thing. Nothing good ever comes from people shouting at each other and going to bed angry.
Anyone arguing that Trump got played or Kim got legitimized is operating from blindness.
Trump had a bad hand coming into these talks. The North Koreans have a nuclear weapon. Bullies like the U.S. only talk when they have lost an edge. If all Trump does here is negotiate a face-saving withdrawal over time from Korea and North Korea never fires a missile in anger it will be a victory for the world.
It will even be a victory for the U.S. Not for the Empire but for the people.
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