Trump is Toast
Well, all good things must come to an end. But first, let’s play word association: Authoritarian Populist. Racist. Bigot. Xenophobe. Bully. Buffoon. Bankrupt. War-mongerer. Torture fan. Genocidal...
View ArticleSocial origins of the Politically Absurd.
The 2016 US presidential election is a an existential crisis of American society politically manifest as a theatre of the absurd. The story line revolves around a clash of visions over what constitutes...
View ArticleWhat a bummer.
Well, THAT sucked. Myself and a zillion other pundits got the US election wrong. In fact, pretty much everyone with a Ph.D. in Political Science got it wrong as well as most veteran political...
View ArticleSailing aboard the SS Futility.
The RNZN is celebrating its 75 anniversary through this upcoming weekend, with 18 foreign warships attending the events. There will be fleet review on Saturday and an open house on the ships on Sunday....
View ArticleIt is not about the monkey, it is about the machine.
In the late 1980s I found myself sitting at a research institute in Rio de Janeiro pondering the sad fact that George H.W. Bush (aka Bush 41) had just been elected president. This was a guy who sat...
View ArticleWar for war’s sake?
An article in a US magazine about the Senate confirmation hearings of US Secretary of Defense nominee General (ret.) James Mattis struck a chord. The author pointed out that the hearings basically...
View ArticleFrom failure, opportunity comes.
When President Trump signed the executive order withdrawing the US signature from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TTPA), he signed the death warrant of that multinational trade deal in its...
View ArticleFoxes in the hen house.
Here is a thought. Among all the wretched news coming out of the US this past week, two somewhat lesser items struck me. One was that Trump’s son-in-law was granted a high level security clearance, and...
View ArticleWhere to draw the line?
Here are some thoughts for readers. It is reported that former US Sen Scott Brown (R-MA) has been nominated by the Trump administration to be US ambassador to New Zealand. Besides a record that...
View ArticleThe problem of US presidentialism.
Citizens of mature democracies frequently complain about politics and politicians, whether it is the influence of money in politics, the rise of corporate lobbyists, or outright corruption, but they...
View ArticleA tacit admission of decline.
In international relations theory, there is one standard that is commonly used to differentiate between superpowers and great powers. Superpowers intervene in the international system in order to...
View ArticleLetters from America: Opioids and Venezuelans.
I am on an extended stay in the US that will see me in several states and regions before my return to NZ in December. I decided that this is a good opportunity to write an occasional “Letters from...
View ArticleLetters from America, take two: An interview about Trump, North Korea and a...
I have agreed to provide a weekly commentary to Mitch Harris on his Night Talk show on Radiolive. In the first instalment we roamed over a series of subjects, but the focus was on the ongoing...
View ArticleLetters from America, take three: a scab got picked.
Donald Trump picked a scab during his campaign for the presidency and now the puss is draining out. It will be a while before the wound is cleansed. The puss is racism, xenophobia and bigotry. When I...
View ArticleMedia Link: Second radio interview in the US travelogue series.
There is some overlap between yesterday’s post and today’s radio interview, but there is also a a fair bit of other material as well:...
View ArticleLetters from America, take four: The spokes came off the wheel, then the...
Pablo is in the USA and having technical problems, so I am posting this on his behalf. -L Donald Trump’s last two weeks could well be the turning point in his presidency. Given that I have been wrong...
View ArticleLetter from America, take five: Trump’s midterm election strategy.
After weeks of crisis and scandal, Donald Trump was cut a break by Hurricane Harvey. Several million people’s pain provided him with some temporary relief from the DC presure cooker, if not a small...
View ArticleLetters from America, take six: Flirting with disaster.
The theme of the week in the US is “flirting with disaster.” Trump did well on his return to Texas for a second time after Hurricane Harvey–he looked a bit more presidential and at least went to the...
View ArticleMedia Link: Chinese influence operations, Hillary’s blame game, Trump’s...
As part of the series of radio interviews I do with Mitch Harris on RadioLive on Wed nights, this week we decided to be a bit more free ranging than usual (since the normal focus of the radio version...
View ArticleMedia Link: Culture Wars and more reasons to wonder about the Trump agenda...
This week Mitch Harris and I talked about Trump’s attacks on the so-called “take a knee movement,” his lack of compassion for the Puerto Rican victims of two hurricans and the increasingly risky...
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