By clinging to American primacy through force and intimidation, Donald Trump is, ironically, undermining US global power. A saboteur trying to subvert US interests from the inside could hardly do better than what he’s accomplished through sheer incompetence.
No, please don’t give him that much credit. If you saw him run a casino, you’d swear he was doing it on purpose, but he isn’t. He really just is that dumb.
I’m not saying he’s not also in Putin’s pocket, but don’t try to convince me that he has the brains necessary to make sabotage look like incompetence. He’s nowhere near that clever.
I’m not saying he’s “brilliantly” obfuscating his intent. For one, it’s blatantly obvious. Second, it doesn’t take intelligence to do what he’s doing. Third, my original point is that everyone from media to government officials are clearly in denial about what’s obviously happening, and are constantly downplaying the seriousness of his actions by attributing them solely to incompetence. There’s no chance of countering somebody if you can’t accept the reality of what they’re doing.
At this point, I assume only future historians will have the wherewithal to actually point out the intent behind it all.