Daily Archives: 3 July 2019

“The Trump Doctrine”

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That’s the title of The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial last Sunday about President Donald Trump’s general foreign policy.  They’ve misunderstood it, though, beginning with their subheadline:

With this President, the diplomacy is always personal.

Well, of course it is. Just as all politics are local, so all diplomacy is personal: the principals must know who each other are and the degree to which they can trust each other.

And this:

President Trump believes in personal diplomacy and showmanship above all in foreign policy….

Well, no. Trump sees personal diplomacy and showmanship as necessary early, if not first, steps in foreign policy.  Establishment diplomats and policy “experts” are too used to conducting matters quietly and behind the scenes—and they have an unblemished record of failure in serious policy matters in areas, for instance, related to Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and northern Korea. Starting things out in a highly publicized—showman-ized—manner prevents those diplomats from hiding behind their comfortable gentility as they perpetuate their useless chit-chat.

And finally this:

But Mr Trump’s public canoodling with Mr Putin is still a sorry spectacle.

It’s amazing that journalists of the NLMSM—including those of the WSJ—still, after all these years, remain so self-absorbed that they can’t recognize when they’re being trolled.

Nike Fail

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Nike has signified its agreement with Colin Kaepernick‘s assessment that Nike’s planned Betsy Ross-flagged shoe, intended to be released for Independence Day celebrations, was offensive to some by canceling the release.  Kaepernick’s claim was that

he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery

Never mind that, were it not for those evil slavers who founded our nation and fought for our independence, we’d still be dealing in slavery and indentured servitude—and guess what would be the lot of current immigrants, legal and illegal.

Kaepernick knows all of this, he’s a K-12 graduate, and he attended college while he played semi-pro football before joining the NFL. He’s just in his current game for his ego now, and out of his desperation to be relevant.

On the other hand, the members of Nike’s management team have not just shown their pretense of ignorance, they’ve demonstrated—at the very least—their cowardice, both individually and as a group.

Arizona’s Republican Governor, Doug Ducey, has taken a proper response, canceling State-originating tax breaks for a planned Nike factory in the State.  He went on:

Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation’s independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy, and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism,

It seems to me that Nike’s decision to cancel the Betsy Ross flag shoe is offensive to many.  Nike should respond by reissuing the shoe at a discount.

Nike won’t.  That leaves it up to the rest of us.

All of us should stop doing business with Nike.  Its management team has rendered the company useless and a party to racism. All at the behest of a…person…who’s not only not on Nike’s board; he’s not even a shareholder.  He’s just an endorser—which means Nike is paying him to make the decision to cancel an Independence Day celebration that honored a key player in our independence struggle.

Our current national flag, as an evolution of the Betsy Ross flag, also is “connected to an era of slavery”—maybe we should cancel it, too.  Oh, wait—Kaepernick already is trying for that, with his shameful knee-taking while our national anthem plays and our flag is raised.

None of us should pay any further attention to Kaepernick: his is just another example of cynically manufacturing a racist beef where no beef exists.