Trump Is Training His Base to Hate NATO and Like Putin

[Quixote1818]

By
Jonathan Chait

President Trump tweeted today that America’s NATO allies have been “delinquent for many years in payments” and should “reimburse the U.S.” That is not how NATO works. It is not a protection scheme where the allies pay the United States. It is a collective defense organization in which members agree that an attack on one is an attack on all. NATO members have agreed to increase their defense spending levels, but the target date is 2024 — which is to say, they are not “delinquent” on anything.

One cannot rule out the possibility that Trump lacks the mental capacity to understand the basic form of America’s most important alliance. But it is at least as likely that Trump is choosing not to understand this, so that he can precipitate a fissure within the alliance.

Last week, Trump’s national security advisers, who have traditional Republican views toward NATO (good) and Russia (bad), and the allies both expressed their hope that Trump would use the NATO summit to declare victory. Trump has been calling for the allies to increase their defense spending, and indeed they have. The increase has been ongoing since 2014, when Russia invaded Crimea, but the allies signaled they would be happy to let Trump claim credit. “The European officials we’ve spoken to would love nothing more than for Trump to take a victory lap and claim credit for them boosting their defense spending,” reported Jonathan Swan last week.


Snip (last paragraph): Compared to a week ago, it is now harder to imagine Trump will use the summit to leverage concessions that will make him appear like a strong negotiator, and much easier to imagine that he will use it to instigate a diplomatic crisis with NATO. By the time this is over, he may well have reoriented American foreign policy completely. It may seem bizarre that one man could do this, especially given that almost nobody in Trump’s administration or the ranks of the party’s political professionals share his goal of jettisoning NATO or closely courting Russia. Yet Trump has shown the ability to lead his base wherever he wants to take it. And where the base has gone, the party has eventually followed.

More: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-nato-summit-putin-russia-collusion.html

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. You over estimate them being trained to do anything...

They willingly attest to stupidity. dt is just an excuse.

[jrthin]

5. Well said. nt

[Sneederbunk]

7. They still piss on the carpet.

[Thomas Hurt]

2. His base already hated NATO like the UN, they are socialist conspirators

Illuminati, trilateral commission, Jews, the UN, NATO, all part of the far right whackjobs paranoiac fantasies.

[AlexSFCA]

3. his base has been hating NATO and UN for a while

my guess, we’ll be out of NATO before the end of the year if not nov. elections

[tblue37]

4. K&R for visibility. nt

[northoftheborder]

6. Scary.

[Cyrano]

8. Okay, people. Hate ice cream. Love pig shit.

C'mon people. The Orange Creature is selling snake oil.

Most of us know it. Many don't.

They'll figure it out eventually. Hopefully, before they let their "golden" idol kill us all.

But eventually, they'll "get it." No one can possibly be that stupid. Forever.

Assuming that we somehow survive this White House horror, NATO ties will tighten, Russia will be seen for what it is, and those yet to come will view the "Trump Era" with the same disgust with which we view "The McCarthy Era": A time of ignorance, fear, threats, hatred, lies, ignorance, and everything that America is not supposed to be.

Then again, maybe Trump's worldview will triumph, America will cave in to his spell. The majority will buy the poison being peddled. Most will believe everything he says. And that will be the end. We will all love Big Brother.

[inwiththenew]

9. The far right has hated international alliances and organizations for decades

Going back to at least the late 1950s. Look at some of foundational beliefs groups like the John Birch Society. The mainstream right has been slowly creeping that way. Trump is just accelerating it.