[ExI] POTUS says the military budget for 2017 should be increased by 50%, what do deficit hawks think about that?

[John Clark]

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman has some interesting things to
say:

===

Things are not going well politically for Donald Trump. The polls show
him underwater
on every major issue
<https://substack.com/redirect/7904c423-6b41-4d11-ad05-b1a2584a0545?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>.
And while he insists that these are fake, it’s clear that he knows better.
He recently lamented
<https://substack.com/redirect/0c651429-87af-40fa-92aa-5fab2e7cda9d?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>
that
the Republicans will do badly in the midterms and even floated the idea
that midterms should be canceled.

And as January 6th 2021 showed, Trump simply can’t stand political
rejection. He will do anything, use any tool or any person at his disposal,
to obliterate the sources of that rejection.

So as we head into the 2026 midterm season, the best way to understand U.S.
policy is that it’s in the pursuit of one crucial objective: Propping up
Trump’s fragile ego.

What was the motivation for the abduction of Nicolás Maduro? It wasn’t
about drugs, which were always an obvious pretense. By Trump’s own account
it wasn’t about democracy. Trump talks a lot about oil, but Venezuela’s
heavy, hard-to-process oil and its decrepit oil infrastructure aren’t big
prizes. The Financial Times
<https://substack.com/redirect/cf4bf0cc-0f39-4cf2-ba8c-9e11fb4f5834?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>reports
that U.S. oil companies won’t invest in Venezuela unless they receive firm
guarantees. One investor told the paper, “No one wants to go in there when
a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy of the country.”

The real purpose of the abduction, surely, was to give Trump an opportunity
to strut around and act tough. But this ego gratification, like a sugar
rush, won’t last long. Voters normally rally around the president at the
beginning of a war. The invasion of Iraq was initially very popular
<https://substack.com/redirect/e3fe7bf6-4e6d-4854-9379-a01d688dfc97?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>.
But the action in Venezuela hasn’t had any visible rally-around-the-flag
effect. While Republicans, as always, support Trump strongly, independents
are opposed:
<https://substack.com/redirect/272a4737-3e5e-4685-94ba-cc2dd5cee54c?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>

And now the story of the moment is the atrocity in Minneapolis, where, on
Wednesday, an ICE agent killedRenee Nicole Good by shooting her in the head.

Trump and his minions responded by flatly lying about what happened. But
their accounts have been refuted by video evidence
<https://substack.com/redirect/6eb29bcb-5d4a-4716-a361-9cb5c2fe37c4?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>
which
show an out-of-control ICE agent gunning down a woman who was simply trying
to get away from a frightening situation. Yes, MAGA loyalists will fall
into line, preferring to believe Trump rather than their own lying eyes.
But public revulsion over Good’s murder and Trump’s mendacity are high and
growing.

A president who actually cared about the welfare of those he governs would
have taken Good’s killing as an indication that his deportation tactics
have veered wildly and tragically off course. He would have called for a
halt of ICE actions and made sure there would be an objective and timely
federal investigation into this national tragedy.

But for Trump, ICE’s violent lawlessness is a feature, not a bug. Sending
armed, masked, poorly trained, masked and out-of-control armed thugs into
blue cities is, in effect, a war on Americans, just as January 6thwas a war
on American institutions. In effect, Trump would rather savage his own
people than be held accountable for his actions.

So in Trump’s mind, Renee Nicole Good’s murder is at most collateral
damage, in service to his insatiable need to dominate and feel powerful --
so insatiable that he is attempting to create an alternate reality,
claiming that that Good ran over an agent
<https://substack.com/redirect/7cca252e-8b35-41a5-ab11-2925ae70ffc9?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>
although
there is irrefutable video evidence that she didn’t.

And when one set of lies doesn’t work, he switches tactics – changing the
topic, deflecting, and spouting even more lies. Thus, just hours after
Good’s death, Trump proclaimed that he was seeking a huge increase in
military spending:
<https://substack.com/redirect/dfeafbbb-ac8e-4b4e-be86-2d5cd46486e7?j=eyJ1IjoiNngzbm4ifQ.I1PMvYo4mI3PquTDRhL5Dev-9_ouIq3kw6ZhrVNsy8o>

It’s a near certainty that Trump’s assertion that he arrived at an
immediate 50% increase in the military budget after “long and difficult
negotiations” is yet another lie. There’s been no indication whatsoever
that a massive increase in defense spending was on anyone’s agenda before
he suddenly posted about it on Truth Social.

So what was that about? Given the timing, it’s clear that Trump’s
announcement was yet another exercise in self-aggrandizement, as well as an
attempt to grab the headlines away from Good’s killing. But what’s also
important to realize from Trump’s announcement is that he is now clearly
conflating the size of the US military with his ego. Evidently the sugar
rush of Maduro’s capture has left him wanting more and more military
validation, particularly as his poll numbers tank.

So here’s a warning to the US military: if you continue to indulge the sick
fantasies of this man, he will drag this country into more and deeper
international morasses to feed his need for glory. Do what Admiral Alvin
Holsey, an honorable man, did – stand down and refuse an illegal order.
Here’s a warning to the Republicans: if you continue to allow this man to
perpetrate war against his own people with impunity through the actions of
ICE, you will be remembered as cowards and hypocrites. Here’s a warning to
all his other enablers: if you do not do something to stop this madman, you
will go down in history as traitors to this country.

And here’s a warning to those directly perpetrating Trump-directed
atrocities: He will not be in power forever, and I expect and hope that you
will be held accountable, personally, and prosecuted to the full extent of
the law.
 Paul Krugman
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20260110/f652a13c/attachment.htm>