America, Inc. (Update)

No, this is not about the plutocracy that's running the country, this is about the idea of a "businessman" (read "con artist and crook") being fit material for the presidency. Via Digby:

This is from a WSJ op-ed today by Economic adviser Gary Cohn and national Security adviser H.R. McMaster:

The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a “global community” but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.

The world embraced that "elemental nature of international affairs" for several hundred years. It finally brought us two world wars and the very real possibility of annihilating civilization completely. It's thanks to cooperative agreements like NATO, and the willingness of both sides to negotiate, that we avoided that.

The sentiments expressed in the quote are about an equal mix of hard-nosed "businessman" and schoolyard bully. And there's nothing "clear-eyed" about the attitude: this is nothing but bullshit in support of a man who has no idea how the world works, whose "success" as a businessman is built on duping others into lining his pockets (which sounds a lot like the Republican party as now constituted) -- he's a liar and a cheat.

Digby:

That's exactly what I meant when I said a zillion times during the campaign that when Trump talked about "America First" he means "We're number one!" The idea was never that America would withdraw behind its big beautiful border wall. It was that we don't need no stinking allies, we're kicking ass and taking names. Our way or the highway. That's Trump. That's his voters. And that's why the rest of the world is rapidly concluding that we have become so dangerous that they have to do something about us.

I suspect that, in spite of disavowals of isolationism, the rest of the world is going to find a way to isolate us. But there's going to be a lot of shooting first.

Update: The isolation doesn't have to be military:

Chinese and EU leaders are to agree a joint statement on the Paris climate agreement saying it is "an imperative more important than ever".

A draft of the document, seen by the BBC, stresses the "highest political commitment" to implement the deal.

It will be widely seen as a rebuff to the US, as President Trump prepares to announce on Thursday if the US is withdrawing from the accord.

Via Bark Bark Woof Woof.

And so it begins.