I read this morning in The Guardian (Online) “As retired Admiral Mark Montgomery recently put it, the strategy of Donald Trump is not unusual “if you’re watching the Sopranos.” It is unprecedented for a president. In a single word, our commander in chief is an extortionist. He makes threats that exceed his authority, and he counts on his targets recognizing that it is cheaper to give in to those threats than it is to fight them. Seven months into the extortionist’s reign, almost every target has caved.”
But extortion has been Trump’s chief business weapon for decades. He regularly threatened contractors working with him with lawsuits if they didn’t reduce his bills, for example. But since The Donald, aka The Orange Menace, has gone global he has become a terrorist. He regularly threatens poor countries, which by being poor cannot buy as much in the way of U.S. goods as the U.S. buys of theirs, with crippling tariffs. These tariffs are not trivial to a poor country as they put businesses out of business and in small economies, the government can come crashing down quickly.
Why extort a country which has nothing to extort? The only reason is to strike fear in others. Like the mafioso who shoots you in one of your kneecaps and then tells you it would be a terrible shame if that were to happen to your other kneecap. Imagine that, aka The Mango Menace, aka The Mango Mussolini, aka The Mandarin Mussolini has within just one half of a year of his administration made terrorism an official policy of the United States of America.
I am reminded of Henry II of England’s immortal whine: “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” referring to Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170, but in our situation it applies as “”Will no one rid us of this troublesome pol?”
“In whichever way a democratic system might be sick, terrorism does not heal it; it kills it. Democracy is healed with democracy.” (Italian prosecutor Virginio Rognoni, who took on the Red Brigades in the 1980s without resorting overmuch to police-state tactics—Source: Christopher Hitchens, And Yet…: Essays (p. 148). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition)
Uncommon Sense 