Tag Archives: Syrian Tomahawk strike

The Cost of a Trump Presidency, by Antonius Aquinas

Has President Trump gone full-blown neocon? Antonius Aquinas thinks so, and argues that foes of the globalists and the interventionists might have been better off if Clinton had won. From Aquinas on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

Last Thursday’s wanton attack on a Syrian air field by the US and its bellicose actions toward North Korea have brought to the forefront the real cost of candidate Trump’s landslide victory last November.

Unlike most laymen, accountants, and financial analysts, economists look at cost differently. For economists, cost or more specifically, “opportunity cost,” means “a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action. Stated differently, opportunity cost represents an alternative given up when a decision is made.”

Such thinking can be roughly applied to the political realm. In the case of last fall’s US Presidential election, the cost of Donald Trump’s unexpected victory was not the money spent on the campaign, but the diffusion (hopefully, only temporary) of the growing anti-Establishment groundswell that was percolating not only in America, but across the globe.

The Trump phenomenon, Brexit, Texas secession talk, anti-immigration gatherings, central bank scrutiny, the exposure and decline of the lying, dominant mass media, and other populist movements and causes were symptoms of the masses dissatisfaction with their exploitation by the ruling elites. Trump’s triumph has squashed and defused many of these populist uprisings since a number of his campaign themes empathized with these trends.

To continue reading: The Cost of a Trump Presidency

Trump’s Base Revolts Against Syria Strike, by Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo notes the realignment of those cheering and jeering President Trump after the Syrian missile strike. From Raimondo at antiwar.com:

Democrats and neocons support him – Trump’s supporters, not so much

President Trump’s former enemies in the mainstream media, which he has characterized as purveyors of “fake news,” turned on a dime the moment he bombed Syria: the Establishment was thrilled that, suddenly, he was acting “presidential.” CNN, a particular target of the President’s ire, was gushing: NBC’s Brian Williams, in a bizarre turn of phrase, hailed the “beauty” of the bombing, which killed a number of civilians. Democratic party politicians, with few exceptions, stood at attention and saluted, while Trump’s Republican critics – notably John McCain and Lindsey Graham – praised the President while taking the opportunity to agitate for more extensive military action.

On the other hand, conservative media that has been supportive of Trump reviled the move: Breitbart readers weren’t happy, and neither were some of the writers. Ann Coulter was furious, and Laura Ingraham was hardly supportive. Michael Savage declared himself a “conservative peacenik,” Tucker Carlson was very skeptical, and on Twitter, the “Trump trolls” were trolling their former hero. British populist Nigel Farage, who led the Brexit referendum to victory, and who endorsed Trump, opined that Trump voters “will be scratching their heads” in bewilderment. Even over at National Review, a neocon redoubt, the voice of dissent was raised.

In short, Trump’s most vocal supporters were joining the ranks of the antiwar movement, a development the media noted with the same vitriolic disdain it had formerly reserved for Trump himself:

To continue reading: Trump’s Base Revolts Against Syria Strike