For the “Respectable Right,” I mean—the Wall Street Journal Right, the National Review Right—the “Thoughtful Right”—I guess you could call them, Big Donnie’s recent speech in Poland, which I, uh, didn’t like, made their little hearts beat faster than Max Roach’s Night in Tunisia drum solo from the Jazz at Massey Hall album (which you should totally hear). Enthused—or, rather, sighed—the Journal
“Six months into his first term of office, Mr. Trump finally offered the core of what could become a governing philosophy. It is a determined and affirmative defense of the Western tradition.”
That’s right, a “determined and affirmative defense of the Western tradition” from Mr. Studio 54, a man who has probably participated in more orgies than Nero, and that is not an exaggeration.
But wait, there’s more!
“To be sure, Mr. Trump’s speech also contained several pointed and welcome foreign-policy statements. He assured Poland it would not be held hostage to a single supplier of energy, meaning Russia. He exhorted Russia to stop destabilizing Ukraine “and elsewhere,” to stop supporting Syria and Iran and “instead join the community of responsible nations.” He explicitly committed to NATO’s Article 5 on mutual defense.
“But—and this shocked Washington—the speech aimed higher. Like the best presidential speeches, it contained affirmations of ideas and principles and related them to the current political moment. “Americans, Poles and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty,” he said. This was more than a speech, though. It was an argument. One might even call it an apologia for the West.”
An apologia, motherfucker! Yeah, baby!
But then Donnie went to Moscow, and it all went to shit. It would be an interesting psychological study, probably, as to why obsessive/compulsive alpha male Donaldo turns himself into fanboy/butt boy Donnie in the presence of Vladimir. He’s so masculine! He rides horses! He told me he’s going to let me help clean out the stables! He likes me! He really likes me!
The kickback on Donnie’s most hilarious proposal, the “joint cybersecurity1 taskforce” was so furious that even Donnie had to drop it, which, as everyone has noted, is something that Trump almost never does.
Now, of course, Little Donnie’s multiple disasters—with its hilarious cast of pop stars, pushers, promoters, sleazy Russian “oligarchs”, and various other assorted hustlers, a gaggle that can only be described as “Trumpian”2—have eclipsed all thoughts of apologias. The Russian Connection, oft dismissed though never quite dead, bids fair to become the nothingburger that devoured Donald.
Yes, for the “Respectable Right” Little Donnie’s doings are a monstrous headache. For the Breitbart Boys, of course, it’s just another Democrat plot. Same old, same old! But I think that the Respectable Right, to get back to them, are still worried about Donnie and Vlad’s excellent meeting.
Back in the day—when the West was the West!—there was a bipartisan understanding that both Eastern Europe and the Middle East were of vital importance to the U.S. We had to stand tall in both! And there was a good deal of one hand washes the other thing going on between the Eastern Europe folks and the Middle East folks: “I’ll bewail your existential crisis of the West if you’ll bewail mine!”3
The True Believers endured eight years of flaccidity from “Mr. Flaccid” Barack Obama. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s frequent way off the reservation talk—George Bush lied us into Iraq? That’s so crazy!—terrified many of the RR, TR boys. But then Donnie won, he appointed lots of generals, he fired Tomahawks at Assad, he dropped that big bomb thing in Afghanistan, and he delivered an apologia! And then he went to Moscow and fell on his knees. But not to pray.
What the RR fears more than anything is that Donnie will make a deal with Russia on Syria. Yeah, it will be a “joint project” but everyone knows that Donnie has the attention span of a three-year-old. “You say we’re kicking ass, Mr. President! That’s fantastic! Yeah, if you’re happy, I’m happy, Mr. President! I can call you Vlad? Did you hear that? Did you hear it? I can call him Vlad!”
Yes, that’s what the RR is hearing in their nightmares. I recently beat up on Charles Krauthammer for bemoaning the fact that all people wanted to talk about was the Russia thing, about how, you know, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for always hassling him about all this Russia stuff—like Comey wasn’t being a total pain in the ass and totally asking for it—when what we needed to be talking about was the Islamic Civil War between noble Saudi Arabia (the Sunni guys) and evil Iran (the evil Shiites), and the key to everything was Syria: “For Iran, Syria is the key, the central theater of a Shiite-Sunni war for regional hegemony.” And now it’s dollars to doughnuts that Donnie is going to give Syria to Vladimir and his Shiite buddies for free! And that was before Little Donnie set the whole house on fire!
Have a drink on me, Charlie. Cause I think you’re going to need it.
Afterwords
Over at the National Review, Rich Lowry indulges in some epic eye rolling at the news that Little Donnie’s media “strategy” was crafted, not by him, but by the “grown-ups” at the White House: “that the response was the handiwork of the very top of the White House foodchain is disturbing, and reminiscent of the initial, wholly misleading account of the Comey firing"—"misleading” being Lowryese for “total fucking lie”.
- “Cybersecurity” is a word in Word. I’m surprised. (And, presumably, out of it.) ↩︎
- Both Donnies can only thank their lucky stars—to the extent that they have them—that Miss Universe herself never showed up in any of this. No doubt she had better things to do. ↩︎
- My go-to whipping girl for this sort of thing was Anne Applebaum, though some of my old criticism of Anne is now out of date, because she’s been firmly anti-Trump from the get-go, and wisely so. ↩︎
