Trump of Arabia

     Trump's close friend and former campaign advisor Roger Stone predicted in an interview that the president will soon be speculated about in the news media as having early stage Alzheimer's Disease. A long time political trickster, Stone himself may be on the verge of facing a Congressional investigatory committee looking into the Trump Campaign's possible connections to Russian operatives.
     One of Alzheimer's foremost features is forgetfulness.  Did Stone mention this peculiar accusation against news media because he wants the public to start thinking about President Trump in terms of someone who can't competently access his own memory?  Is Stone thinking of the example of President Reagan, who, during the last year of his second administration, began to display telltale indications of Alzheimer's, the disease that came to consume the remainder of his life?  Reagan, due to the mental condition of his last fifteen years, received much sympathy from Americans in general, Democratic and Republican politicians, and news media personalities.  Twelve years after his death, Reagan is still regarded by the political establishment and news media commentators as one of this country's greatest presidents.  This indicates that historical facts don't matter to people.  If you think I'm being snarky, look up details of Reagan's presidency and note how they don't match popular opinion about the man.
     Is Roger Stone trying to Reaganize Donald Trump?
     Is he trying to get us used to a Trump whose mental faculties have begun to deteriorate?  Getting the news media to speak, sometimes at excessive length, about a political figure's (or operative's in Stone's case) notions, ideas, words, proposed in front of cameras and microphones is easy.  Trump learned a long time ago that he can generate news cycles revolving around his tweets, many of which consist of nonsense.  He uses Twitter as a smokescreen.  He knows if he writes or says something outrageous, the news media will chew on it for hours or even days, sometimes bringing in presidential historians as commentators giving us lectures on the presidency of Andrew Jackson or the Civil War.  The Jackson controversy/distraction (created by Trump's ahistorical and speculative remarks about the man on the twenty dollar bill) sucked up a week's worth of news programming on the cable news networks.  I propose that Trump did this, and other distracting statements, on purpose, knowing that the news media will waste time debating his nonsense.  Does this make Trump stupid, or intelligent?  Someone who knowingly manipulates the news cycle (making him a propagandist) or someone who just happens to create distractions without knowing what's he's doing?
     Trump has already been called, by comedians, news people, and the occasional politician, crazy or nuts.  It wouldn't be a long leap for some to start thinking of him as mentally incompetent.  He's seventy years old.  What will he be like in four years?  Ten?  An asshole, yes, but will his mind be as sharp as the older Bernie Sanders' mind is now?
     Leaving behind an administration underneath the weight of a government investigation into "Russia ties," Trump, his wife, his girlfriend (daughter Ivanka), and a coterie of White House insiders, have visited Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and now they're in Israel, before heading to Vatican City and later Brussels and Sicily.
     Islam, Judaism, Christiantity, NATO, G7 Summit.
     Trump has spoken thus far in Riyadh and Jerusalem, the word "peace" popping up ironically in his speeches.  Benjamin Netanyahu praised Trump, speaking of a welcome change in American leadership.  I guess that the billions upon billions of dollars the U.S. gives to Israel in the form of weaponry, which they use to murder Palestinians, hasn't counted as support of the Israeli state during the Obama years.
     The Saudis received, during Trump's visit, a 110 billion dollar arms deal.  Trump, and Fox News anchors, characterized this as translating to "jobs jobs jobs."  I translate it as "Dead Yemenis Dead Yemenis Dead Yemenis."
     The Saudis put on a big show for Trump.  It resembled one of the scenes in Lawrence of Arabia after the Arabs have taken Damascus.  A celebration of upraised swords (one of them carried by Secretary of State and former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson) as men danced through the main palace where the head honchos of the Saudi aristocracy live.  Trump and his party accompanied them, Trump trying to dance a little bit, looking like an old white man attempting to find a dancing rhythm.  The Fox commentary did not include a remark on a fact of Saudi justice: Trump was visiting and bestowing military largesse upon a nation with a government that orders the decapitations of far more people than does ISIS.
     Saudi Arabian support of ISIS has also been established, as well as the strong possibility that members of that government had ties to 9/11.  Trump himself brought this up in recent years, speaking with suspicion of the government of Saudi Arabia.  Becoming president has changed his mind on this subject, apparently.  He now has no problem being feted and fed by some of the same motherfuckers who support the very terrorism Trump has condemned.  His shifting values are not due to Alzheimer's, but to a constant lifetime of immorality.
     Back home, investigations into the "Russian ties" continue, the news media spending most of their time on it, sparing not even minutes for questioning the 110 billion dollar arms deal to a nation currently annihilating Yemen, with U.S. consent and assistance.  Destroying Yemen is part of what greases U.S. foreign policy.  Donald is being a good boy when he takes the Saudi Arabian cock into his mouth.  When he reassures a thug like Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. is behind him, that "peace" is our goal, that a commitment from Arab countries to wipe out terrorism forever (an impossibility, but never mind) is something to seek realistically, even though many of these countries, along with the U.S., are states using terrorism as part of their policies.
     No, our news media spent time talking about Melania and Ivanka Trump not wearing scarves in Saudi Arabia.  That this is a good sign of things lightening up a bit in that severe country.  Of course, Melania and Ivanka also didn't drive cars in Riyadh.  It begs the question: had they asked, would they have been permitted to drive those streets?  The women of Saudi Arabia remain horribly oppressed, yet two rich American women don't have to wear scarves!  Isn't that great?
     When Trump returns to Washington and takes his first back home from the trip shit in the White House, the weight of coming back to the political shitstorm he helped create will, I think, hit him hard, a sure sign of newstime-consuming tweets to come, as news media people debate the level of "success" of his trip, ignoring the fact that he will have done exactly what foreign policymakers want: further the American goal of managing the Middle East, of maintaining the empire, which includes meeting with and placating atrocious people like the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Israel.  Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, would have, and did, exactly the same, meaning Donald Trump is the President of the United States.

                                                                             Vic Neptune