Do you think this could mean that Trump wouldn’t intervene in a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan? He’ll be in office during the years where the invasion seems likely.
<<While I don’t take much of the rhetoric surrounding invading Panama or doing a Special Military Operation in Mexico all that seriously as actual policy proposals ...>>
Honest question - why not? Your footnote that these ideas are stupid is obviously correct on the merits. But that's not relevant here. Trump clearly likes these ideas, which we can tell because he's repeated them quite a lot - they weren't just one-off musings. People have often said "Trump would never go through with [X] - it's too insane!" and this prediction has been wrong for many different values of X, particularly when Trump is serious about it. And sure, Trump does a lot of tactical bullshitting to appear moderate and hide the unpopular parts of the GOP agenda, but this isn't that. A good heuristic is that if Trump says something that sounds moderate, it's probably a lie, but if he promises some insane right-wing/authoritarian idea, he's probably serious.
I think military operations in Mexico are particularly plausible. Not just Trump himself but many other conservatives have been beating this drum for a while. And I think they see it as good politics because it pushes all the right hot buttons - bombing the cartels scans as tough on crime AND tough on the border. Excellent America First vibes. So we have to hope Trump shows humility and forbearance here ... and his first term gives us little reason to expect this.
Do you think this could mean that Trump wouldn’t intervene in a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan? He’ll be in office during the years where the invasion seems likely.
It’s a pretty open question on if he’d actually pull the trigger on that tbh
<<While I don’t take much of the rhetoric surrounding invading Panama or doing a Special Military Operation in Mexico all that seriously as actual policy proposals ...>>
Honest question - why not? Your footnote that these ideas are stupid is obviously correct on the merits. But that's not relevant here. Trump clearly likes these ideas, which we can tell because he's repeated them quite a lot - they weren't just one-off musings. People have often said "Trump would never go through with [X] - it's too insane!" and this prediction has been wrong for many different values of X, particularly when Trump is serious about it. And sure, Trump does a lot of tactical bullshitting to appear moderate and hide the unpopular parts of the GOP agenda, but this isn't that. A good heuristic is that if Trump says something that sounds moderate, it's probably a lie, but if he promises some insane right-wing/authoritarian idea, he's probably serious.
I think military operations in Mexico are particularly plausible. Not just Trump himself but many other conservatives have been beating this drum for a while. And I think they see it as good politics because it pushes all the right hot buttons - bombing the cartels scans as tough on crime AND tough on the border. Excellent America First vibes. So we have to hope Trump shows humility and forbearance here ... and his first term gives us little reason to expect this.