Compiling a few tweets (with an additional paragraph) on Trump’s announcement of his intention to meet Kim Jong-un:
It’s funny to watch the Establishment freak-out about Trump’s meeting with Kim (which might never actually take place, of course). For months, they’ve been saying we’re on the edge of apocalypse; but when something happens that might move us back a few inches, they go nuts.
I’m also enjoying the earnest, savvy analyses of Trump’s decision, as if it were part of some considered strategy (either wise or foolish) which will result in some kind of predictable consequences (either good or bad), instead of a momentary impulse with no plan behind it.
Equally amusing is the the universal assumption that Trump will actually go through with the meeting, instead of finding some equally dramatic way of calling it off on one pretext or another. Especially after the bipartisan militarist heavyweights are through working on him.
Because it’s all just a reality TV show to him. He doesn’t care what actually happens one way or another — peace? war? — as long as he’s the star of the show. If he feels he needs to goose his ratings to “win” the news on any given day, he’ll cancel the meeting, get big headlines.
But in any case, isn’t it better to be talking, or at least talking about talking, instead of mongering and provoking war at every turn? The worst that can happen is that the talks won’t change anything and we’ll go back to the status quo. But shouldn’t we employ the incrementalism so beloved by our savvy centrists in this case, and say, “Even the smallest step — even by the most unworthy vessels, for even the briefest duration — away from mass destruction is a welcome development”?