Trump Commentary

There is much commentary, generally negative, over President Donald Trump’s statements, among others, that he likes the idea of Boris Johnson succeeding outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May.  It’s unbecoming. It’s unpresidential. Mostly, though, it’s simply not supposed to be done for one foreign dignitary to comment on the doings of another nation’s political debate.

I’ll ignore the foolishness of “unbecoming” and “unpresidential;” those objecting on these grounds routinely shy away from saying what they mean by “unbecoming” or “unpresidential.”  We’re simply supposed to accept their august pronouncements without question.

There’re a couple of larger issues in play here, though.

Why shouldn’t Trump weigh in on this or that British political debate?  After all, the Brits, including Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbin among several, routinely weigh in on American political debates.

More important than the triviality of such tit-for-tat, though, objecting to his speaking up—or to Khan’s/Corbin’s speaking up—insults the citizens of both countries: those objecting are saying that the citizens are so droolingly stupid that they’ll actually be swayed by what a foreign leader says about their own leadership or what that foreign leader says about any other domestic matter.

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