Trump’s badly timed opportunism is anything but PresidentiaL
On a recent Southwest flight, the attendant gave out little bags of pretzels bearing some peculiar language. “My mom and I created Stellar Snacks in 2019 with a dream of crafting pretzels infused with passion,” the writing on the bag said. “It’s not just a pretzel … it’s a labor of love.”
Oh, really now.
Yes, marketing is important. And yes, it’s normal for marketers to stretch the truth just a bit to sell their wares.
But there are times when we must call BS for what it is. That’s kinda the way it is in our presidential election race now, too.
There’s an extraordinary amount of BS out there as we get closer to Nov. 5. Today, for instance, Donald J. Trump offered this reaction to the missile attack by Iran on Israel:
“Under ‘President Trump,’ we had NO WAR in the Middle East, NO WAR in Europe, and Harmony in Asia, No Inflation, No Afghanistan Catastrophe,” Trump posted on his Truth Social outlet. “Instead, we had PEACE. Now, War or the threat of War, is raging everywhere, and the two Incompetents running this Country are leading us to the brink of World War III. You wouldn’t trust Joe or Kamala to run a lemonade stand, let alone lead the Free World.”
Never mind that in 2018 Trump pulled the U.S. out of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, ratcheting up hostilities between the countries. Ignore the fact that an Iran-backed group then, in December 2019, launched rockets at an Iraqi military base, killing a U.S. contractor and wounding our soldiers and others, and provoking retaliatory strikes in Iraq and Syria by the U.S. Never mind that in the following month, the U.S. killed the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, triggering missile attacks on U.S. forces and killing some of them.
This was peace?
The truth – as opposed to the marketing – is that tensions between Israel and Iran, as well as between Iran and the U.S. have been a constant for many years. They are erupting now, all in the wake of the October 7, 2023, invasion in Israel by Iran-backed Hamas. That triggered Israel’s Gaza invasion and led to increasing rocket attacks on Israel by Hezbollah. And that, in turn, set off the Israeli reaction in Lebanon that has led us to today’s missile attacks by Iran.
But none of those historical facts deter Trump from arguing that these eruptions — and others — would never have happened had he been in the White House again.
“If I was in charge, October 7th never happens, Russia/Ukraine never happens, Afghanistan Botched Withdrawal never happens, and Inflation never happens,” Trump claimed. “If I win, we will have peace in the World again. If Kamala gets 4 more years, the World goes up in smoke.”
His claims sound wonderful. They are also ahistorical nonsense.
How would Trump have halted Hamas, whose members built extraordinary tunnel networks in Gaza for years, including during his term? What could he have done to deter the group that he hadn’t done before, as it burrowed beneath Gaza? The terrorist group’s timing likely had more to do with it seeing a chance to take advantage of tumult in Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s domestic problems. Indeed, Hamas’s war-triggering actions likely had even more to do with the threat it saw in then-growing Saudi-Israel rapprochement and diminishing support in Gaza for the group.
As for Russia and Ukraine, the latest war’s roots go back at least to 2014, a couple years before Trump’s ascension to power. Back then, Russian paramilitaries took over Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk areas and Russia then invaded Crimea, taking control of the region. Thousands of Russian soldiers flooded in over the next several years and fierce fighting raged between 2017 and 2019, during Trump’s term. Did Trump do anything to toss Russia out? Despite a peace agreement, Russia then began its fullscale invasion in early 2022. It was all of a piece.
And, as for Afghanistan, one can only wonder why Trump maintained U.S. troops there during his entire term. It was clear for many years that the U.S. had won nothing enduring in the country since 2001. So why did Trump leave the withdrawal from one of America’s longest and least successful wars to his successor? Why were American soldiers still dying there on his watch?
Trying to rewrite history in the self-serving way Trump is doing may fool some of his backers. After all, they likely see him as a strongman who can set the world aright and cure domestic and foreign ills. In his rhetoric, Trump offers strength, harmony and peace.
But was there really harmony and peace during his tenure – at home or overseas? Recall that George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by police in May 2020, in Minnesota, during Trump’s last year in office. The event triggered protests nationwide, with disturbances in well over 100 cities. As for peaceful relations overseas, recall the coronavirus tensions with China in 2020 and Beijing’s clampdown on Hong Kong, as tensions between the U.S. and China grew. Were these times of tranquility?
For all of his business failures – which include six bankruptcies – Trump is a clever marketer. “The Apprentice” turned him from a struggling developer with a bad rep in New York into a national emblem of tough-minded leadership, never mind that the show was a venue in which facts never mattered.
Now, Trump’s efforts to rewrite history will likely con some of his devotees just as the “reality” show did. Perhaps they are the sort of folks who can believe that pretzels can be “infused with passion.”
But will he fool anyone with a passing acquaintance with facts? Anyone who has some understanding of history?
What is happening now in the Middle East is extraordinarily dangerous. Keeping full scale war at bay will require delicate diplomacy, and even with that a far greater explosion may well be unavoidable. If Trump were a decent leader, he would keep his mouth shut about that and, maybe, even support President Biden’s efforts.
But then, this is a man who sells sneakers, Bibles and even a picture book bearing a cover with the image of him raising his fist after being grazed by a bullet. You can get Trump’s signature on the book for $499. This is a man who brought public a social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, through a shady offering, only to have it fall from its March 2022 high of $97.54 a share to the current $16 (no doubt, with many of his followers taking the hit).
The would-be president’s marketing is shameless. Now, at a time of global peril, it’s also dangerous.