Hijacked? Or Masterfully Planned?

Well, then.  In reviewing current events, it almost seems as if the recent election was for naught, doesn't it?   Of course, it was unrealistic to believe that all that was promised would be immediately delivered, but one has to wonder about the deviation of the expected course of the ship of state.  Consider:

Too liberal, too young to govern covertly

Has the Trump administration been hijacked by the neocons?  Was a strike against Assad an emotional knee jerk response to Ivanka and Jared's whining about gassed dead babies?  Or was it a masterful play in shaking up the dozen or so players - including and possibly especially Russia and Iran - involved in the Syrian civil war quagmire?  The message is clearly Trump ain't Obama.  From the conservative point of view much has been said about the Kushners' neocon influence on the president, possibly leading him astray from his nationalistic and populist tendencies that were the promises of his campaign.  You know, Monroe Doctrine, America first?  There might be merit to that assertion.  The Semites - that includes Jews and Arabs - are now and have always been a tribal people, and to expect them to embrace and participate in a western style democracy is folly.  Let's not forget what happened in the Middle East after the US toppled other corrupt - but stabilizing - dictatorships in the region.  Those despots may be bad guys, but at least the region was relatively stable; there was no ISIS and Iran didn't have nuclear capability.   There was no threat from radical Islam; it was kept under very tight control.  If anyone is to be militarily targeted, let it be Al Qaeda and ISIS.  Assad is merely a big fish in a small pond and is doing more good than bad being left where he is.

US power projected into North Pacific

And speaking of rattling sabers, Kim Jong Un of North Korea seems intent on getting himself whacked.  His habit of launching ballistic missiles at whales in the Sea of Japan has prompted Trump to send the Carl Vinson Strike Group of the US Navy's Third Fleet his way in an obvious show of American force. Then he sits down for a little dinner with China's Xi.  Get that little guy under control, is the message, or we'll do it ourselves.  Bold.  In response, a pissed-off Putin goes back into Nicaragua.       

Trump voters are still scratching their heads about the ill fated health care bill that - thankfully - failed last month.  Repeal was the campaign promise, so just repeal the onerous ObamaCare bill.  Let market forces provide demand driven services and determine pricing.    Mo Brooks, Alabama Republican member of the house, filed a bill to do just that two weeks ago.  Here it is in its entirety:  "Effective as of Dec. 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted,"   It's crisp, to the point and succinct.  The House Republicans should take that and run with it.  It appeals to the voters, but not to the establishment, who are cashing donor checks from the insurance lobby.  Meanwhile, the liberal press is already trying to hang the ObamaCare albatross around the GOP's neck.

Someone has to answer for Benghazi

What else?  Tax cuts?  Maybe later.  Border wall?  We're working on that.  Stop the Muslim invasion?  We're implementing extreme vetting.  Delete the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency?  It's in the works.  Drain the Swamp?  There's still a lot of Obama holdovers left in DC to weed out.  What about prosecutions?  Hillary, Obama and Rice aren't out of the woods on their corruption and crimes, and Americans want to see some justice applied in the "too-big-to-jail" nonsense.  And rightfully so.  Lerner and Comey take note. 

OK, I know that's a lot to accomplish in the administration's first 100 days.  At least we got a constitutionalist on the Supreme Court.  I hope just hope Neil Gorsuch doesn't turn like the once pure John Roberts did.  And within the next four years possibly Kennedy and Ginsberg will retire, in one way or another, and the chance to appoint two more constitutionalist jurists may present itself.  One can hope.

So Trump is either a bull in a china shop, or is one of the most masterful non-politician politicians the world has seen since Machiavelli.  Or possibly both.  But the voters, I suspect, had kind of a notion of what to expect of Trump when they elected him.  After all, he was elected to shake things up - disrupt the status quo - and he is assuredly successful in that task.  So far.