“They Don’t Know What the
F##ck They’re Doing.”
“He was not a hero, or an original thinker. But his beliefs were their beliefs. Their way of talking was his way of talking. He was on their side. He was one of them.”
David McCullough
Truman
Just before Trump stepped on to Marine One to travel to the NATO meeting in the Hague, a reporter shouted from the press scrum:
Reporter: “Mister President, how do you feel about Iran and Israel trading missile fire after your deadline for a cease fire?”
Trump: “I’ll tell you I’m not very pleased with either of them.”
Reporter: “I don’t understand why are you displeased?”
Trump: “You basically have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what the F##k they’re doing. There, do you understand that?”
Silvia: “Oh my God. He’s going to lose suburban housewives with that comment.”
Gregor: “Give me a break. They probably use the F-word themselves. It’s not going to hurt him but help him. He might be in for some tsk tsking from NPR and the Times but he will become an overnight folk hero for saying what everybody was already thinking anyway.
Silvia: “Heather Cox Richardson wrote that he was faking his anger.”
Gregor: “The pundits don’t get it. He is being his authentic self. Democrats would do well to learn how to speak like regular people not like the elites echoing themselves as if they were on NPR.”
Silvia: “You mean like we’re doing?”
Gregor: “Guilty as charged!”
Silvia: “But the NATO trip will follow his disastrous military parade.”
Gregor: “Look, he just put on the most powerful display of military might since Truman bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Silvia: “Crippled one country, and killed millions of people in another. Trump may have just convinced Iran’s next regime to build a bomb.”
Gregor: “Yes, but they both ended two intractable wars. And if Chamberlain hadn’t been such a gentlemanly appeaser he would have blocked Hitler from invading Poland and avoided World War II.”
Silvia: “But Trump’s flying to the NATO meeting after he has snubbed all our allies.”
Gregor: “Nonsense They are thrilled he just did the world’s dirty work for them. He has them all bending over backwards to please him.”
Silvia: “How so?”
Gregor: They have all come around to paying 5% of their GDP to support NATO.”
Silvia: “A lot of the members can’t afford that.”
Gregor: “I expect there will be a lot of creative accounting to make it look like they are complying.”
Silvia: “At any rate it will allow Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to stay out of long, drawn-out wars.
“Gregor: Meanwhile it will take pressure off of Putin to end the Ukrainian war.”
Silvia: “I still think he’s a no-good, fascist, bullying autocrat.”
Gregor: “He is, but he’s our no- good fascist bullying autocrat.”
Interesting connection between Trump and Truman. Makes me want to read McCullough's book.