‘Tis the American season to give thanks, and we have several reasons to be thankful for Donald Trump’s recent performance of the presidency.
Let us give thanks for the crassly craven calculations that are at the heart of Trump’s national security. There is a virtue in broadcasting your amorality at the highest known volumes of stupidity. Speaking at an 11 on the Spinal Tap scale, Trump helpfully outlined what amounts to the clearest articulation of the Trump Doctrine in his in-class essay on Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
“America First! The world is a very dangerous place!” he exclaimed in a dramatic flourish, as if the world doesn’t know that Trump’s presidency has indeed made the world a very dangerous place. It’s the kind of the world where a Washington Post journalist can get tortured, murdered and dismembered by a hit squad of goons working for the Saudi crown prince. It’s also the kind of world where the president says he doesn’t want to do anything because of money. Or as Trump put it, “a record amount of money” totaling $450bn, much of it in arms deals.
Besides, we can’t really be sure who was to blame because the journalist himself, Jamal Khashoggi, isn’t with us any more. So thanks to the CIA and NSA for all the tapes and intercepts. But no thanks.
“It could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t! That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Few presidents have ever engaged in this kind of metaphysical musing, at least in public. This at least is something we can discuss together with our annoying relatives over a meal of roast turkey with all the trimmings. Who can ever know everything about anything, especially when there’s $450bn sitting on the table? Who has a relationship with a dead person when you can have a relationship with a kingdom? And whoever said that America First! had anything to do with American values? That should keep the conversation lively until the pecan pie.
Bonus argument for anyone willing to take the America Second! position: who did you thank for the low gas prices on your way to your Thanksgiving meal? Because Trump pointed the way for us all, as he so often does. “Oil prices getting lower. Great! Like a big Tax Cut for America and the World. Enjoy! $54, was just $82,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “Thank you to Saudi Arabia, but let’s go lower!”
It’s not clear how anything could go lower, but it’s still good to know that Trump’s form of American nationalism includes groveling to a foreign prince who murders journalists working for an American newspaper.
Let us give thanks for Trump loading the supreme court with a beer-loving nominee while also forcing the chief justice to rebuke him for politicizing the courts. It takes a lot to trigger John Roberts, but Trump managed to do so with a few half-baked thoughts on the “Obama judge” who blocked his even less-baked policy on asylum seekers.
In response, Chief Justice Roberts issued a rare statement to the Associated Press on Wednesday pointing out that the nation doesn’t have “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges”.
This is a useful statement of principle ahead of the likely constitutional crisis to be triggered by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into all things Trumpy. Roberts said an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” Which is true, unless your name is Matthew Whitaker, and you’re hoping to get promoted from acting attorney general to the full job by a boss who wants to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey.
Let us give thanks for the delusional thinking he has inflicted on his entire Republican party, spinning a blue Democratic wave in the midterm elections into a red triumph of his own making. This splendid effort in wishful thinking and self-congratulation is a surefire way to avoid any course correction before the 2020 presidential elections.
“I won the Senate, and that’s historic too, because if you look at presidents in the White House, it’s almost never happened where you won a seat,” he explained to Chris Wallace at Fox News, as a literal president in the White House. “We won. That’s a tremendous victory. Nobody talks about that. That’s a far greater victory than it is for the other side. Number two, I wasn’t on the ballot.”
This is kind of magical thinking is a special way to stuff the turkey that is the Republican party. Trump won everything that was victorious and lost nothing that failed. He led historic wins and wasn’t present for dismal losses.
Let us give thanks for Ivanka’s emails, for reminding us how clueless this Trump White House is. Let us profusely thank her father for his wisdom about forest management, which has uncovered a previously unknown Finnish interest in cracking jokes.
As the leaves circle down on millions of American lawns this Thanksgiving, we should all be grateful for a reality TV star whose presidency has given us the clearest idea of what we should avoid in leadership the world over. Rake America Great Again.
