trump says he is getting ready to tell the world what American interests are. This raises the question of what he considers such interests to be. We'll get to that.
The tweet below says he is getting ready and I believe that. Will he go? He is closer to going than he was yesterday, but when he ascends in the direction of Saudi Arabia we will know that the trip has actually begun.
Don't be cruel
The words of one of Elvis's first hits counsel us to be charitable to anyone willing to indulge in air travel these days. And certainly one must be forgiving if the intention of the President when he meets with the Saudi's is to give them, at our expense, the millions in weapons they need to continue obliterating fellow Arabs in Yemen and anywhere else they like.
The POTUS speaks
Getting ready for my big foreign trip. Will be strongly protecting American interests - that's what I like to do!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2017
The signal within the few words the president has penned this morning is the ending that says -- that's what I like to do. Mostly the president likes to attack Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and spread the word that our media are fake. If he avoids these staples, we cannot thereby assume that he will gush about amber waves of grain and purple mountains' majesty, It will most likely be dog whistles to his base.
Chosen words
Trump's words are instinctively appropriate. He wants to be the protector, not the interpreter or the defender.
When we drill down we can surmise that he is not concerned with protecting the seven ICE detainees who have died when in detention this year. And the year is not half over. Protecting of their interests was evidently not part of what Trump wants to preserve.
The DC magnet
One could hazard a small bet that Mr. Trump will have an ear glued to the media he hates for any and all words from what to him is a big magnet -- Washington.
If headlines are made back home the commander in chief's task will be to out-headline them there. He may interrupt sessions with Bibi or the Pope to lash out at the Special Counsel or at Obama or Clinton or any other target that will get presses rolling and fingers tapping.
Eternal hope
The hope that springs eternal in at least some breasts is that Mr. Trump will see American interests as involving all its residents, that he will not equate our interest with rolling back every good environmental thing that Barack Obama did and that he will not appoint justices that will make life miserable for Hillary Clinton and all who share her concerns about health care.
Trump the relentless
We are learning that beneath the fluff there is a man of steel, or at least some substance capable of plying a relentless course. Its captain is the one percent. Its mission is to save a dying economy based on oil, cars, waste, debt, violence and blindness to ecological happenings. Seeing these things is nearly impossible for Mr. Trump. But he is not alone.
