Alliances Do Not Last Forever.

 The following little rumination was written in January of this year and then either just not used or forgotten about so it is very interesting to read a few months later. I wrote it early in Trump's second term when his tariff-inclination was at a peak!

 Although one might have been critical of America from time to time, succumbing to the usual British semi-sneer about the frequent vulgarity and frankly often dumb events and people, STILL, America was always there; speaking its own version of easily understood English [so comforting to the linguistically lazy Brits]; different from us but sort of descended from us and with many ways and customs comfortingly familiar to us. It did not occur to me not to send my eldest, when she was just 12 to stay with American friends in a swap with their daughter of similar age. That same daughter and her family now live and work in California and have greatly appreciated their thoroughly enjoyable lives and careers there. One hears so much of the terrifying gun culture of life there and prays that it avoids one’s nearest and dearest. At the same time, we know life here couldn’t get THAT precarious and potentially hideous, could it?

Trump's second inauguration day. J.D.Vance alongside,
with Melania Trump.
Oct 2024.

When the last political decision anyone here wanted, was made and Trump managed to be voted in for a second term as President, disbelief was high. Although it was not the huge majority consistently claimed by the President’s men, he won, in part thanks to the over-large ego of Joe Biden who clung on too long to his intention to run again despite his obvious ageing. And the Democrats, amazingly,  allowed him to stand again But Trump won and we feared the worst. But the imagined worst was nowhere bad enough!

Musk in D.O.G.E. mode.

Trump'a frantic avalanche of legislation and sweeping anti-Constitutional decisions made since his election a few months ago have frightened and outraged many Americans and appalled much of the Western world. He has two loyal lieutenants; J.D. Vance [Vice-President] and Elon Musk, unelected but Trump-selected, as Chief Trouble-shooter and these two have leapt into action; Vance has directed clumsy ignorant insults masquerading as advice to Europe’s leaders, advising that the greatest threat to Western countries came from within those same countries. Musk, Head of the Trump-appointed DOGE [Dept. of Government Efficiency] has recruited bright young men to run around extracting nationally sensitive statistics on population and policy, while incomes to  

Federal workers told to justify their jobs or lose them.

international bodies have been slashed, many thousands of workers in ‘industries’ such as the F.B.I. Education, Health, have been summarily sacked without any apparent understanding of the overall effects of these wide-ranging removals; all in the trumpeted drive to cut Government expenditure.  In addition, Trump has been enraged apparently by D.E.I. initiatives which have been summarily cancelled; he has pardoned Jan 6 rioters including those who seriously injured policemen and banned biological men from women’s sports. This welter of changes has amounted to what Bannon calls, ‘flooding the zone’. The idea is that, by promoting a dizzying array of initiatives and announcements, your opponents are wrong-footed, not knowing what to take seriously. It is interesting to note the terminology used; not ‘fellow Americans’ but ‘opponents.’

Trump and Putin

In the meantime, Donald is trying to create a global trade war through widespread use of tariffs [tariffs being one of his ‘favourite’ words.] Outrage is only now starting in America as Trump’s approval ratings begin to plummet in what one hopes will be a landslide. One tariff example will suffice: Sterling Heights, outside of Detroit, is ‘an auto-industry-dominated city’ that could see massive num
bers of jobs lost if the President makes good on his tariff threats to Canada and Mexico. There are no other local employment possibilities of scale available. Most of the population is in some capacity, ‘in the auto industry’. This is a disaster for ordinary workers and certainly, not a good look for Trump!

Volodymyr Zelensky
President of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Trump has followed up his suspected admiration for Putin with a reportedly productive conversation with Vladimir on February 12 resulting in the proclamation that negotiations to end the war in Ukraine would start ‘immediately’. Ukrainian membership of NATO was ruled out and Ukraine itself accused of starting the war while Zelinsky was labelled a dictator and accused of avoiding national elections. Neither the Ukrainians nor Nato allies had been consulted prior to these decisions and were evidently not considered to be essential to subsequent discussions. Eventually it was conceded that the Ukrainians should be present in discussions about their existential future, though Russia was not keen on a European presence.

Trump refuses to sign the bipartisan Housing Bill which
offers many benefits and safeguards to would-be buyers.
He wants Congress to pass his Save America Act,
voter I.D legislation, first.

The British population overall sees Trump as a criminal, misogynist, egotist with a hugely inflated self-belief; someone who sees national and international life as a business in which he is engaged in a constant search to profit from losers whom he vilifies. There is no special relationship with the Donald only a small opportunity for the other person to persuade him that his suggestion may be in Trump’s own interest. All of the above is an explanation of why the long, long alliance of the U.K. with the U.S.A. since WW2, beneficial to both, comfortable mostly, constant, reliable and comfortably familiar has changed. We can no longer have America, always there as a trusted friend; Perhaps, an occasional co-conspirator and slightly dodgy neighbour which has unsavoury alliances and relationships with gangster states like Russia where opposing political contenders are pursued and murdered. Aka Alexei Navalny among many.