Also known as “the last straw”.
Ah, yes, I forget that in 2018 it’s no longer considered illegal for our leaders to lie to us in order to serve foreign interests, use trillions of dollars of taxpayer funds to fight a war based on blatant lies, and send our troops to die for private profit.
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Scary thought: If he isn’t gone before the end of January, we may be better off keeping him. Imagine 10 years of President Pence 
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There’s a huge difference between winding down a foreign conflict and American intervention in a smart, systematic, timely way – which I am all for – and abruptly pulling out without doing any of that, which can destabilize the region and cause the US issues for decades to come. That’s what Trump is doing against everyone’s advice, including the Republicans.
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Considering Pence was so bad as a Governor that his own party was trying to get rid of him, when Manafort poached him for Trump’s campaign, I don’t think there’s reason to panic about Pence having a long reign even if Trump quits / drops dead / is successfully impeached and removed.
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Stupidity, ruthlessness, commands issued out of fear of exposure or disappearance of the Mother of All Gravy Trains, corruption, treason… the results have been, are, and will be the same. A lot of death and destruction, waste, loss of blood and treasure, etc.
I am not defending Mattis or his actions in the course of his military career.
I am inexpressibly pissed off that in the U.S. we face a dwindling pile of worsening options. It’s like when the Three Stooges’ Curly asked if he’d rather be burned at the stake or have his head cut off…
… and he replies:
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If the Joint Chiefs and regional commands aren’t privately preparing contingency plans for what they will & should do in the next year if/when Trump tries to wag the dog when shit gets real with Mueller, we could be in a world of trouble.
It’s one thing to decide to withdraw from intractable wars on a spur of the moment fit of pique and without adequate preparation, but if the 3am tweet is about how we’re about to launch missiles and send a carrier group along with a few divisions, that’s a whole 'nother matzo ball.
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The thinking that there were ever any adults in the room is sadly a false premise.
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You can draws parallels to both Stalin and Hitler, but Trump is so much more inept, that he really doesn’t compare. At least not in a useful way.
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Incompetence isn’t a free pass for lying to Congress.
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“on an apparent whim”
Or rather, direct orders from his handlers in a hostile state that has been recently saber rattling literal nuclear Armageddon.
Wasn’t Hitler an (apparently) inept and bumbling laughing stock until 1933 or so? If you’ve got grand ambitions that you know a lot of people are going to find distasteful or unacceptable, there’s value in projecting an image of ineptitude, at least for a while. Gives you time to lay groundwork and soften up the populace with relatively banal outrages, and lots of them.
And so much the better if you can also pull off the trick of seeming inept to your opponents, while your supporters see you as an infallible, ultra-intelligent god-emperor. Since Trump has managed to pull off that particular odious trick for two years and counting, I have a hard time considering him truly inept. I think there’s more shrewd long-con playbook than idiotic petulance here.
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“timely” always seems to mean “forever”.
That worked great for us in Vietnam, Korea, etc, etc…
The entirety of our historical incursions contradicts you.
What are your thoughts about the importance of having “a plan” and/or “a clue” before making strategic decisions?
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Contradicts that badly timed/planned/executed disengagments (military/diplomatic/covert) lead to a destabilised region and the rise of insurgents?
Iraq.
Afghanistan in the 80s.
Iran.
Libya.
Deposing José Santos Zelaya in Nicaragua.
The bombing of Cambodia.
Etc?
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Somalia.
Yemen (probably, let’s face it).
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I don’t think Trump’s inteptitude is an act, or that he has some grand long-term plan he’s hiding via misdirection. I think he’s what appears to be: a very nearly illiterate man in cognitive decline with almost no knowledge of history or science or culture, no attention span, and no ability to grasp complex concepts beyond what he likes or doesn’t like in that moment. Whatever he is, he most definitely isn’t Hitler or Stalin, who were both incredible intellects with a frighteningly powerful command of details and analysis. (obviously both unparalleled evil, to be sure)
BUT, Trump is incredibly good at is grifting. He’s a scam artist non pareil who understands in his bones how to manipulate a crowd and appeal to their basest instincts by being an obnoxious boor’s ideal of the Classy Billionaire. I think we (“we” being the non-awful part of the country who is horrified by him) underestimated him badly by believing those skills were not enough to carry him to this office, and we overestimate him when we search for a deeper plan on his part that we’re not seeing.
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