Trump Does Not "Call Mexico's Bluff"...CNN Gets Very Confused
The headline on CNN's homepage says "Trump Calls Mexico's Bluff." The title on the story page is: "Trump To Mexican President: Better To Cancel Our Meeting." The story contains nothing about anyone calling anyone's bluff...though Trump says it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting if Mexico won't pay for the wall. If there's a bluff here, it's Trump's, not Pena Nieto's...and the the story explicitly quote the latter not calling the possible bluff, but rather trying to talk sense about the matter.
CNN is pretty much crap, of course, but they do this sort of thing all the time: put up a sensationalist headline on their home page, then put a more sensible one on the story, then change the one on the home page after awhile. Scummy.
This is all trivia, of course, compared to the fact that the President of the United States is nuts...but, then, you can only say that so many times...
OTOH, weirdly, it just occurred to me: though the idea that there is any chance that Mexico is going to pay for this thing has always been laughable...it's not really all that crazy to think that they ought to pay for it, is it? Or anyway, pay for some more sensible aspect of our border enforcement... I mean, they're not exactly taking care of business on their end of things... Though...uh...you shouldn't generally stop people who are trying to leave your country...unlike Trump's wall, that is Berlin-Wall/USSR-esque...so...scratch that thought.
Anyway: who has ever been so clueless as to believe that there's a snowball's chance in hell that Mexico's going to pay? Trump maybe. He seems to be used to people doing whatever he tells them. This is a great opportunity to make the guy flip his shit. I kind of hope Mexico starts farbling the hell out of him over this. OTOH, Trump's Mexico-will-pay delusion might simply morph into a way of deflecting criticism of the cost of building the damn thing--oh, don't worry, Mexico'll eventually pick up the tab... It's absurd...but if your supporters want to believe, all you gotta do is say the words...
Another minor point: Pena Nieto seems to commit the Berlin Wall fallacy when he says "Mexico does not believe in walls." Bullshit, dude. If Mexico has any policies limiting who can immigrate, then they "believe in walls" in the relevant sense. And if you're ever physically channeled e.g. through Customs at Mexican airports, then Mexico believes in literal walls, too, of the relevant kind.
Trump's a moron, but I'm really sick of the pretense that there is some significant similarity between U.S. immigration regulations and Soviet totalitarianism.
CNN is pretty much crap, of course, but they do this sort of thing all the time: put up a sensationalist headline on their home page, then put a more sensible one on the story, then change the one on the home page after awhile. Scummy.
This is all trivia, of course, compared to the fact that the President of the United States is nuts...but, then, you can only say that so many times...
OTOH, weirdly, it just occurred to me: though the idea that there is any chance that Mexico is going to pay for this thing has always been laughable...it's not really all that crazy to think that they ought to pay for it, is it? Or anyway, pay for some more sensible aspect of our border enforcement... I mean, they're not exactly taking care of business on their end of things... Though...uh...you shouldn't generally stop people who are trying to leave your country...unlike Trump's wall, that is Berlin-Wall/USSR-esque...so...scratch that thought.
Anyway: who has ever been so clueless as to believe that there's a snowball's chance in hell that Mexico's going to pay? Trump maybe. He seems to be used to people doing whatever he tells them. This is a great opportunity to make the guy flip his shit. I kind of hope Mexico starts farbling the hell out of him over this. OTOH, Trump's Mexico-will-pay delusion might simply morph into a way of deflecting criticism of the cost of building the damn thing--oh, don't worry, Mexico'll eventually pick up the tab... It's absurd...but if your supporters want to believe, all you gotta do is say the words...
Another minor point: Pena Nieto seems to commit the Berlin Wall fallacy when he says "Mexico does not believe in walls." Bullshit, dude. If Mexico has any policies limiting who can immigrate, then they "believe in walls" in the relevant sense. And if you're ever physically channeled e.g. through Customs at Mexican airports, then Mexico believes in literal walls, too, of the relevant kind.
Trump's a moron, but I'm really sick of the pretense that there is some significant similarity between U.S. immigration regulations and Soviet totalitarianism.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:20 AM
3 Comments:
No, it's a crazy idea. The US is responsible for its own defense, however it chooses to pursue it.
The right response for Mexico is to legalize drugs. The US is exacerbating Mexico's economic troubles by effectively encouraging the production of drug lords. This causes violence, political instability, corruption, all sorts of bad outcomes. Follow Uruguay's example.
Agreed on both points.
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