Pragmatically Distributed

There are only three possible reasons why Kamala has gained so much momentum since mid-July –

1) Kamala suddenly became a great candidate.

2) Trump made mistakes.

3) Vance is doing what no VP should ever do or has ever done in many decades: Make himself the center of media attention.

Let’s start with what we know is NOT happening.

Kamala is not a great, or even a mediocre, candidate because she still sounds like an incoherent drug addict with an extreme Progressive record.

Trump has not made any mistakes.

That can only mean that the problem is Vance and he needs to be replaced just as Tom Eagleton was replaced in 1972 as a Vice Presidential candidate.

Who was Tom Eagleton?

No one remembers because it was (and still is) easy to replace a controversial Vice Presidential candidate after a major party convention.

Like Eagleton, no one will remember Vance if he is replaced as Trump’s runningmate any more than Eagleton was remembered beyond a brief period of media headlines.

Headlines about Vance being fired will be quickly replaced by some other news story because of how rapid the news cycle has become.

However, if Vance remains the consequences for the Trump campaign look dire because he is doing what no Vice Presidential candidate must ever do: Become the center of negative media attention with his own problems, problems that are so advantageous to Democrats that they are talking about Vance at least as much as they are talking about Trump.

Although Kamala gave Trump a gift by selecting Tim Walz as her running mate, Walz’s vulnerabilities will be negated when he exposes Vance’s weaknesses.

Vance will interfere with portraying Kamala and Walz as radical because Vance’s own negatives with women and moderates are dragging down the Trump campaign, thus making Walz something of a neutral entity when he would (without Vance) be a risky negative for Kamala.

Tim Walz in his rallies with Kamala advertised why Vance is being mentioned at least as much in Democrat attacks against Trump: Vance is giving them tons of material to drag down the Trump campaign, especially by raising his negatives with women and moderate voters.

First, they are painting Vance as an inauthentic opportunist and career-climber who has no core principle. Vance claims to be a hillbilly but he was a venture capitalist and Yale Law graduate. He claims to be pro-Trump but started his media career as a NeverTrump partisan. He claims to be anti-abortion but flipped a few weeks ago and endorsed the abortion pill.

Secondly, they are portraying Vance as weird because he radiates beta male energy which repels women voters (especially attractive women voters) like vampires hate garlic.

The media, too, is going after Vance’s weaknesses because he is getting at least as much negative coverage as Trump.

Consider what America is debating in the media and online that has NOTHING to do with Trump.

Much of the media debate centers around the following non-Trump problems with Vance –

• • Vance wanting to dilute voting rights for childless women.
  • Vance’s couch.
  • Vance’s ham-fisted statements on women enduring domestic violence instead of seeking divorce.
  • Vance’s time as a Bilderberg-attending NeverTrumper who was ready in 2016 to rejoice if Hillary had defeated the man whom Vance called the Republican “Hitler” and dance on Trump’s political grave live on CNN and MSNBC.
  • Vance’s childhood.
  • Vance’s book.
  • Vance’s statements on abortion.
  • Vance’s treatment of his kids.
  • Vance’s weirdness.

Do you know what all these screwups by Vance have to do with Trump?

NOTHING.

Yet, Vance’s scandals are taking up half of the campaign coverage and giving Vance unprecedented negative ratings for a Vice Presidential candidate.

EVEN TRUMP HIMSELF has had to waste his valuable time defending Vance’s statements.

No VP candidate in recent memory has forced the head of the ticket to defend them this constantly, or distract media attention from the top of the ticket with negative news about the VP, in the way Vance is making Trump expend time and energy defending Vance.

The golden rule of VPs is that they should be so boring they do not attract much attention so that they can do no harm because VP candidates almost never get positive coverage that lasts more than a few minutes unless they pull babies out of a burning building.

Al Gore was boring, but he didn’t give much material for attacks because Bill Clinton was the star of the show in his 1992 and 1996 campaigns.

Clinton did not have to waste much time defending Gore.

In 1988 and 1992 Dan Quayle was easy for George HW Bush to get out of the spotlight because all he did was misspell potato. Despite being a bit of a joke, both campaign’s still centered around George HW Bush.

George HW Bush did not have to waste much time defending Quayle.

But Vance has gone far beyond just being an Al Gore/Dan Quayle type of a slightly irritating Vice President.

Vance is making himself the center of VERY negative media attention and giving Democrats so many opportunities to attack him with negative ads that there is no way to stop Vance from dragging down Trump’s ticket by hiding him in a basement because his controversies are too well known now, even if Vance goes into hiding for the next three months.

The only way to unburden Trump from Vance so that Trump can unburden America from Kamala is for Vance to be fired as the runningmate.

Fortunately, Vance can be replaced quickly and the initial controversy will be drowned out by other news in a few days if Trump fires him.

However, keeping Vance will only divert more energy from Trump in defending him, give Kamala and Walz more opportunities to drive down Vance’s approval ratings with moderates and women, enable Kamala to distract from the problems with Walz, and keep Vance consuming most of the media’s attention.

Israel’s military retaliation to any attack by Iran and its proxies should be wildly disproportionate and in response to the intent, not the effect, of the attack.

If the attack is large scale (as was the previous missile and drone attack by Iran) then the intention of Iran is to kill many Israelis.

The earlier Iranian barrage used hundred of missiles and drones. That number of munitions was large enough to kill thousands of Israelis despite the fact that Israel and its allies were able to intercept 99% of the incoming fire.

Unfortunately, because that assault caused almost no damage due to the exceptionally high interception rate, Israel responded with a weak slap on the wrist retaliation.

However, as Israel and the major powers learned on October 7th, no intelligence agency is omniscient enough to be able to anticipate and stop every possible threat, and weak retaliation only encouraged Iran to prepare a second direct attack against Israel.

Instead of responding to threats strictly in a defensive manner the Israelis should switch from deterrence to inflicting serious, disproportionate harm to Tehran’s ability to project power in the Middle East REGARDLESS of whether Iran’s attack causes any damage.

The Iranian targets Israel should destroy are Iran’s nuclear program, energy infrastructure, and Hezbollah.

The Iranian nuclear program needs to be destroyed because a nuclear armed Iran will be harder and more dangerous to retaliate against than an Iran without nuclear weapons – even assuming Iran isn’t crazy enough to launch a nuclear first strike despite Mutually Assured Destruction, an assumption that after October 7th should never be made in strategic analysis of any Islamic terrorist state.

Iran’s nuclear program is the key strategic deterrent asset they need to become even more aggressive with their sponsorship of terrorism and expansion of their influence across the Middle East. Israel should use every weapon at its disposal to destroy it before they can build a nuclear weapon.

Destroying Iran’s energy export infrastructure (including pipelines, port machinery, refineries, and all related logistical infrastructure) will collapse their energy export revenue to zero. The loss of energy export income will shatter their finances for domestic projects and their ability to supply their numerous Middle Eastern proxies because fighting a proxy war requires the leader of a proxy coalition to have significant military-industrial resources to keep their proxies supplied.

Finally, after Israel neutralizes Iran’s nuclear weapons and energy export income the Israeli’s should destroy Hezbollah in a ground invasion of Lebanon in order to eliminate Iran’s strongest proxy military force and make clear to every other regional supporter of Iran that the Ayatollah’s are unable to protect them against Israeli military power.

This will, in turn, make Iran-sympathizing forces in the Middle East more reluctant to support an Iran that would be greatly weakened in the region following Israel’s destruction of its nuclear program, its energy export abilities, and its most dangerous proxy army.

As Trump commences his heroic battle to ward off the atrocious specter of a Kamala Administration an assessment of her strengths and weaknesses is called for.

The advantages Kamala has at her disposal are underwhelming, to put it mildly because she has so many vulnerabilities Trump can exploit.

She can be expected to use Vance as a punching bag because he is likely to be more negatively viewed by women voters and moderates the more they learn about him.

Vance gives Kamala plenty of attack material to work with because of his past positions where he expressed skepticism that women who become pregnant through rape should be allowed to have an abortion, where he appears to support the idea childless men and women should not vote (George Washington, who had no children of his own, would not qualify to vote under this standard) and other statements about nationwide abortion restrictions.

He has appeared to adjusted his position on abortion recently, but if he keeps having to “adjust/correct” past comments on abortion (not to mention “clarifying” what he meant about other statements such as when he compared Trump to Hitler) he begins to sound more and more like John “I was for it, before I was against it” Kerry in 2004.

Although VP candidates rarely help, they can harm a campaign if they are bad enough.

And Vance (if he remains the runningmate) will need the Trump campaign’s help to “clean up” embarrassing statements he has made, which Kamala will try to exploit by keeping the spotlight on Vance in order to indirectly drag down Trump’s numbers and prevent Trump from gaining too much momentum by constantly making the campaign go back and clean up some mess Vance created in old interviews and writings.

Nevertheless, by himself Vance is probably not enough of a burden to cost Trump the election.

Therefore, Kamala will probably combine attacks on Vance with an aggressive movement to define herself as a moderate and fresh face in the hopes that by early October she will have closed the gap with moderates enough, and motivated base turnout enough to just barely eke out an Electoral College win.

Trump can counter this with the following lines of attack to kick down her support with moderates and raise her negatives in order to hold and widen his current swing state polling advantage.

1) Accuse Kamala of drug use.

Kamala sounds like her brain has been fried by marijuana, and other substances, and I would expect Trump to deftly raise this issue since Kamala would be forced to respond. The problem is the more she speaks in public the more the public becomes convinced she is actually on drugs simply because she does sound like she is on marijuana.

2) Attack Kamala on the Green New Deal which will benefit Chinese manufacturing.

Since the Chinese have an inherit industrial advantage in rare earth materials, Kamala’s plans to transition to “green energy” means that the Chinese military-industrial complex will gain trillions in energy industry dollars because our wind, solar, and electric vehicle manufacturing will be heavily dependent on supplies from Chinese manufacturing. This will also mean Michigan’s auto industry will be wiped out by cheap electric vehicle imports from China.

3) Roast Kamala for her immigration policies.

The entire Biden disaster on immigration policy can be blamed on the supposed “Border Czar” just as many other Biden disasters can be transferred to her.

4) Trap Kamala on transgender scientific experimentation on children and biological men in women’s sports.

Because the Democrats cannot say no to their base of “policy experts” they have little to no ability to reject fringe opinions even if they are unpopular with a larger segment of their voting base. This is the case with Progressive transgender stances on experimenting on children and putting biological men in women’s sports. In theory, the Democrats should have ignored their transgender activists and their policy preferences completely because their policies on children and women’s sports antagonize the far, far larger voting bloc of suburban women in favor of a very small transgender voter demographic. But because the activists are the ones who choose Democrat politicians and because the Progressive movement is structured around a siloed structure that cannot prioritize, the Democrats will defend transgender policies on children and women’s sports if Trump attacks the past support Harris has given to those causes no matter how many women voters the Democrats lose.

5) Homelessness & defund the police.

Trump can tie Harris’ support for defund the police to the current homeless crisis plaguing California, a state which has achieved an impressive 100% rate of homelessness. Trump can say that she caused the homeless crisis because she encouraged California police to not enforce laws and not prosecute criminals. This is a unique attack specifically damaging to Harris and would not be effective against any other Democrat who is not from the West Coast (like Gavin Newsom).

In many ways game theory is great because achieving any objective is allowed.

Any objective (no matter how crazy, evil, stupid, or any combination of the three the objective may be) is perfectly legitimate.

On one condition.

That the costs of achieving the objective are acceptable.

Keeping the iron law of risk/reward calculations in mind, which of the two following Taiwan policies brings more benefits to the United States –

1) Do what Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan did when they indefinitely deterred the Soviet Union for 50 years from invading Western Europe by keeping them scared of fighting the US by applying their policy of indefinite deterrence to Taiwan and frighten China from invading using the threat of fighting the US (which in turn means the US and China would not fight just like the US did not need to fight the Soviets in Europe).

2) Decide for whatever reason that the US under Trump is too weak to do what Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan were strong enough to do for 50 years in Europe with their policy of indefinite deterrence, and not use indefinite deterrence to scare China from invading Taiwan because of the danger of fighting the US.

Which one carries more risk?

The first option is no more risky than making a threat because China would no more be willing to actually go to war with the United States if it knew America would defend Taiwan than the USSR was willing to fight America in Europe.

Besides, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be more likely to fail than a Soviet invasion of Western would have because Taiwan is protected by a water barrier that, from its narrowest to its widest points, is 81 to 140 miles long, and because contested amphibious landings are the hardest type of offensive operation to pull off, especially when it is contested not only by Taiwanese forces but also has to fight US air and naval power: No contested major amphibious invasion has succeeded since MacArthur led the Korean War’s Inchon Landings.

Since simply threatening war over Taiwan prevents the war from happening in the first place (exactly as Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan prevented war in Europe for 50 years by threatening the USSR with war) we avoid the considerable costs of the second option.

The second option carries absolutely enormous risks.

The problem with not deterring China indefinitely from invading Taiwan with the threat of war with the United States is that this option ignores the point that America’s economy is directly tied to the post-WWII promise to defend the interests of the first world in the European, Asian, and Middle Eastern theaters.

The Asians, Europeans, and Gulf Arabs have given America 80 years of economic benefits to protect them (third world nation building is not relevant to a strategy of indefinite deterrence since we are not “rebuilding” these areas but instead are simply continuing to keep existing states safe from external invasion as we successfully did throughout the Cold War).

The benefits America gains are (among many others) petrodollar supremacy as the world’s reserve currency.

In exchange for American military support, Asia, Europe and the Gulf Arabs agreed to prop up the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

While there is certainly room to negotiate other economic concessions to the US by using our military support as negotiation leverage, the paradox is that the US must never actually terminate our security shield for any of those three regions because doing so would mean that they feel no reason to continue their end of the post-WWII bargain by keeping the dollar as the world’s reserve currency because we did not uphold our end of the post-WWII agreement to provide them security.

Having any one of Asia, or Europe, or the Gulf Arabs abandon petrodollar supremacy for a triumphant Chinese yuan would be certain to destroy the American economy considering Social Security and Medicare are close to bankrupt: It would be impossible to finance multi-trillion dollar deficits unless the dollar is the global reserve currency.

And it is certain that if Taiwan fell to China it would be considered enough of a threat to Japan, South Korea, and the rest of America’s Asian allies that they would have to replace the dollar with the Chinese yuan as the new hegemonic global currency, and in turn Xi would displace Trump as the most powerful man on earth.

Among the many reasons East Asia would have to agree to displace the dollar with the yuan if Taiwan falls to China would be –

1) The loss of Taiwan would give China control of the multi-trillion dollar cargo traffic going through the South China Sea.

2) With control of the South China Sea trade routes, China would be in a position to cutoff the naval trade routes that Japan and South Korea depend on for their survival because they are resource poor, thus, forcing them to further break their crucial economic and military ties with.

3) Control of Taiwan would allow China to expand its growing naval power (which is already larger than the US Navy) across the Pacific because they will have breached the first island chain line of defense and thus would be harder to contain than they are today.

4) Our remaining Asian allies such as India and Singapore, would abandon the US dollar and make other multi-trillion dollar economic and military concessions to China because they will think if we allowed Japan and South Korea to be isolated by a Chinese annexation of a strategic asset as important as Taiwan that America would also do nothing to protect them.

5) By taking control of Taiwan China would not only get control of their semiconductor industry, China would also have “backdoor” access to American military systems because the vast majority of American warships, fighter planes, and ground systems use Taiwanese computer chips that would now be exploitable to Beijing.

Likewise, Europe and the Gulf Arabs would conclude that if we will not defend Taiwan – which is strategically crucial to the security of Japan and South Korea – America will not defend them and they too would have to make military-industrial concessions to China and adopt the yuan as global reserve currency.

The Gulf Arabs abandoning Trump and the dollar because they see Xi as more powerful than Trump would mean China gaining access to another multi-trillion dollar trade route – the oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the global cargo traffic through the Suez Canal.

Of course, the vast majority of isolationist pundits such as at Zerohedge want to see the dollar destroyed which is the primary reason they want America to abandon Europe, Asia, and the Gulf Arabs since they know that dollar supremacy is directly tied to American military supremacy.

As far as isolationist pundits are concerned this all fine because they will not get the blame for the consequences because they have no responsibilities and, therefore, these pundits can say absolutely anything they like (short of making of death threats) no matter how ridiculous without paying consequences that may not even be in the trillions, but may end being the first quadrillion dollar American economic crisis.

After Trump’s more spectacular than Houdini escape from almost certain death – a success (for Trump, if not quite Federal law enforcement) that might be a greater, more iconic, historical achievement than the survival of Teddy Roosevelt and Reagan after they famously evaded assassination – the Democrats are still pursuing their pre-shooting plan of replacing Biden.

However, the circumstances post-shooting are such that it is not clear whether they wouldn’t be better off just leaving Biden in place.

Before July 13 there were some Democrat governors angling to replace Biden at the top of the ticket after his disastrous debate against Trump.

However, after July 13 when Trump looks damned near unstoppable in November the Democrats may not be able to get away with replacing Harris at the top of a post-Biden ticket because any Democrat governor with serious presidential potential is now looking to skip boarding a sinking 2024 ship to instead wait for 2028 when they can run from a completely fresh starting place.

If their best governors (by their standards) will be reluctant to enter at the top of the ticket then that means they may not have a way to deny Kamala the presidential nomination.

If Kamala is the nominee she may actually do worse than even Biden would if he just stays in; the latter of which may be impossible after more and more Democrat leaders have come out against Biden.

If Biden still refuses they may have no choice but to resort to rigging the Democrat Convention vote to deny him the nomination.

How to maneuver out of this trap is something only Trump would be lucky enough to pull off.

Operation Nickel Grass

“Operation Nickel Grass was the codename for a strategic airlift conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. Between 14 October and 14 November of that year, the Military Airlift Command of the United States Air Force shipped approximately 22,325 tons of supplies, including tanks, artillery, and ammunition, in multiple flights of C-141 Starlifters and C-5 Galaxys.[1][2]: 88  This initiative was undertaken to help improve the position of the Israeli military in the face of a large-scale joint offensive by Egypt and Syria, both of which had been receiving extensive support from the Soviet Union.[1]”

The 1973 Yom Kippur War 

“At the same time, the Egyptians recognized that despite their improvements, they were defeated in the end, and became doubtful that they could ever defeat Israel militarily. Therefore, a negotiated settlement made sense.”

The proposal by General Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz for ending the Ukraine war is completely idiotic not only because it ignores the brilliant example set by President Nixon in Operation Nickel Grass during the 1973 Yom Kippur War where Nixon decisively ended a proxy war quickly by rushing the delivery of enormous amounts of military aid (in stark contrast to Biden very, very, slowly sending limited “drip-drop” amounts of aid to Ukraine) to an American proxy ally to defeat an invader and reclaim their lost territory, a defeat that directly forced Egypt to make a historic peace with Israel a few years later.

It is also a worthless proposal because, regardless of who was responsible for starting the war, the battle in Ukraine is now strategically DIRECTLY LINKED in the minds of Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese leaders to whether Xi or the American President is the more powerful leader, and how successful America will be at either deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or (if deterrence fails) how likely America would be to defeat a Chinese invasion.

If Kellogg and Fleitz want to convince Northeast Asia, the Gulf Arabs, and the Europeans that Xi is a more powerful leader than Trump (and therefore Xi, not Trump, is the most powerful man on earth) then this is an excellent plan, although they should be working for Chinese Communist spy agencies instead of Trump.

Their plan would also hand Xi and his Communist Chinese military-industrial complex access to more control over the global supply of rare earth metals because Eastern Ukraine, which Russia has occupied much of, has the largest supply of rare earths in all of Europe.

Kellogg and Fleitz are making Xi look stronger than Trump because Xi is doing EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE foreign policy than what Kellogg and Fleitz are recommending.

While Kellogg and Fleitz are recommending Trump weaken his global power by abandoning our strategic allies in Europe, Xi is doing the opposite.

Xi is supporting Chinese alliances, sending military aid, and expanding Chinese diplomatic influence to displace American influence with the multi-billion dollar Belt and Road Initiative as well as other military alliance building measures Xi has implemented –

It is considered a centerpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Xi Jinping’s foreign policy.[5] The BRI forms a central component of Xi’s “Major Country Diplomacy”[b] strategy, which calls for China to assume a greater leadership role in global affairs in accordance with its rising power and status.[6] As of early 2024, more than 140 countries were part of the BRI.[7]: 20  The participating countries include almost 75% of the world’s population and account for more than half of the world’s GDP.[8]: 192 

Kellogg and Fleitz’s plan would not only make Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan think Xi is more powerful than Trump, it will also make the Gulf Arabs (especially the Saudis) view Xi as the “stronger horse” and look more seriously at abandoning the metro-dollar in favor of the Chinese yuan, thus helping end dollar supremacy on Trump’s watch.

And the campaign can confirm in discussions with diplomatic representatives of the Northeast Asian democracies and Gulf Arab diplomats that the US abandoning Ukraine will have a devastating effect on American power in Asia and the Middle East.

The central reason Kellogg and Fleitz’s plans will make Xi look stronger than Trump is that there are two main territorial starting points to choose from in peace negotiations –

1) Negotiations starting at the January 2022 lines (this is the good starting point and this article will explain it in more detail).

2) Negotiations starting at the June 2024 lines and no NATO membership for Ukraine (the disastrous Kellogg and Fleitz proposal).

One of many problems with this is that the Japanese (and their Asian allies) would say that the Kellogg and Fleitz proposal is much more likely to encourage a Chinese attack on Taiwan because it would let Putin get away with territorial gains in the short term, and put him in an excellent position for him (or whoever his successor is) to attack Ukraine for more territory in the future since Putin would have NO OBSTACLE to attacking again because Ukraine would not have NATO membership to deter a future Russian invasion.

If Kellogg and Fleitz give Putin this much territory then there is no reason for Xi to think he can get away with taking over Taiwan.

And Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese diplomats (as well as Gulf Arab diplomats) will all tell Trump in person that abandoning Ukraine would encourage Xi to try to invade Taiwan (the campaign is free to invite Asian and Gulf Arab officials to discuss how Ukraine is relevant to Asian and Middle Eastern security).

The Japanese, South Koreans, and Taiwanese want to see Ukraine win in order to achieve two objectives –

1) Deter Xi from attacking Taiwan because a Russian defeat would make it less likely Putin would have enough surviving military power to simultaneously open a second front in Europe to divide American resources during a Chinese invasion (By contrast, the Kellogg and Fleitz proposal would SUBSTANTIALLY INCREASE THE RISK that Putin would be strong enough to assist a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by simultaneously attacking in Europe in order to divert American forces from Asia).

2) In the event China invades Taiwan anyway (despite Russia losing in Ukraine and not having enough military power to open a second front in Europe) it would be more likely the invasion would fail because America would have the major strategic advantage (thanks to Ukraine winning) of being able to concentrate almost all of US military resources to Asia to defeat a Chinese invasion force.

The Kellogg and Fleitz proposal would undermine these objectives of our Northeast Asian allies who all have a major strategic interest in seeing the Ukrainians destroy the Russian Army.

Some Republicans, like Josh Hawley, have said we need to ignore Ukraine to focus on Taiwan.

The problem is Taiwan IS NOT SAYING they want us to cutoff Ukraine because it is jeopardizing Taiwanese security

Japan has donated over $6 billion to Ukraine.

South Korea has given over $2 billion to Ukraine just this year.

And Taiwan has given $120 million to Ukraine and strongly endorsed their war effort –

Representative to Latvia Andrew Lee (李憲章) on Wednesday signed the agreement on behalf of the Taiwanese government with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Estonian Centre for International Development to collaborate on the Residential Program for Ukrainian Parentless Children and Foster Families.

“Together, we are standing for democracy and showing authoritarian regimes that like-minded allies will stick together and prevail,” ERR News quoted Estonia-Taiwan Friendship Group chair Kristo Enn Vaga as saying./p>

[…]

The Taiwanese government and people have donated about US$120 million and 800 tonnes of humanitarian and medical aid to Ukraine since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, Lee said.

If Taiwan was concerned that resources sent to Ukraine were diverting resources from Taiwan then they would be saying to American diplomats “Don’t send weapons and financial assistance to Ukraine, send them to us instead!”

But that’s not what they are doing.

The Gulf Arabs, especially the Saudis, expect us to help European security by helping Ukraine because they (like the Northeast Asians) see America as more willing to prioritize European security over any other area of the world because they see us as more culturally similar to Europeans.

HOWEVER, if we abandon Europe, which Northeast Asia and the Gulf Arabs view as more culturally similar to America, then they will assume America will do nothing to do protect them.

If the Gulf Arabs give up on America as an ally because they lose trust in our ability to counter their main enemy, Iran, then the Saudis will abandon the dollar and develop nuclear weapons which will set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

If Europe loses trust in America, they will start dumping the dollar in favor of the euro and countries like Poland will also start developing more nuclear weapons, which set off a nuclear arms race in Europe.

And Japan and South Korea will abandon the dollar, view Xi as the superior ruler to Trump, and start developing their own nuclear weapons.

The perception of Xi surpassing Trump as the most powerful man in the world, the start of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Europe, and Northeast Asia, and the collapse of the dollar as the world’s reserve policy is what Trump’s advisors call “preventing World War III.”

Their plan also wrongly assumes that Zelensky has no choice but to accept a deal that cedes the June 2024 lines to Putin immediately, and does nothing in the future to prevent a Russia with demonstrably genocidal objectives from attacking Ukraine again because it does not offer them NATO support.

In fact, Zelensky has enough leverage and options to reject the Kellogg and Fleitz proposal.

His likely negotiation strategy would be to clear up the misperception that he has no leverage.

In situations where a party with leverage enters a negotiation with another party that believes they have little leverage, then the standard strategy for the supposedly weaker party is to first make clear what leverage the party has and that they would be prepared to reject any bad offer. The exception would be if the supposedly weaker party wishes to continue to be perceived as having little leverage, but this would not be something Ukraine would try to portray.

Instead, Ukraine would probably explain that the negotiation starting point for them will be the January 2022 lines, but not the proposed June 2024 lines.

The reason for this is that since the Kellogg and Fleitz proposal would effectively give them a choice accepting their plan which would let rest and reequip for a future invasion, or between rejecting the proposal and continuing to fight a Russia that has already suffered significant losses, then Ukraine will choose to continue to fight without the United States because Russia is weaker now than they would be if they are allowed to rebuild and then invade again in the future.

Ukraine would also explain that they will continue to fight the war without America by using European financial and military assistance which has amounted to over $100 billion in various types of aid and which the Europeans will be able to continue to afford in order to prevent Russia from attacking other European nations.

Although European aid still wouldn’t match the potential America can provide, more tens of billions of dollars worth of assistance would be good enough that Ukraine could still be able to continue the fight.

Instead of the Kellogg and Fleitz proposal, the following is how a smarter deal based on the January 2022 lines would work.

Refusal by Russia to accept this offer would result in Trump sending levels of aid to Ukraine that would dwarf what Nixon provided to Israel in 1973.

Russia agrees to withdraw to the January 2022 lines.

In exchange, Ukraine sells Crimea and the part of Donetsk that was occupied in January 2022 for war reparations (the reparations amount will be determined during negotiations).

Ukraine agrees to give American companies favorable terms for supporting mining operations of rare earth metals.

After the war, Ukraine agrees to put 3 Cold War sized Ukrainian divisions (about 12,000 to 18,000 soldiers per division) in the Baltics to support our NATO deterrent against Russia and to dissuade Russia from attacking the Baltics to assist a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Ukraine will primarily receive further armaments, on an accelerated timescale and in large quantities, from retired American systems waiting to be decommissioned (because it saves us money since it is expensive and time consuming for the US to have technicians dismantle these retired systems) or Ukraine could purchase newer systems either by themselves or by having Western Europe purchase them on Ukraine’s behalf.

All American allies are freed from requiring any further approval from the United States to donate or sell any of their own American produced weapon systems to Ukraine.

Ukraine will be formally invited to join NATO to deter a future Russian invasion.

As an interim measure to prevent Russia attacking while Ukraine’s application for NATO is in progress, the newly restored January 2022 lines will be enforced by NATO aircraft imposing a no fly zone against Russian air and ground forces.

Trump wisely distanced himself from Project 2025 because it was simply bad strategy.

But apparently some of his foreign policy advisors are setting him up for an even bigger PR problem with an even dumber idea than Project 2025.

According to Politico, these advisors are signaling to the Europeans that, for some bizarrely idiotic reason, the US will end intelligence sharing with NATO.

Let’s set aside any of the foreign policy and security issues this may cause.

Instead, we will focus PURELY on the PR consequences of team Trump trying to do this.

Among those PR implications –

Do these advisors know which NATO member has the most important intelligence agency in Europe?

Britain.

Do they know which British intelligence agency is equally as famous worldwide as the KGB for its spying prowess?

MI6.

Do these advisors know the most important reason MI6 holds a very prominent place in America’s public consciousness?

All of the James Bond movies and novels.

Do these advisors know what the response will be of Europeans to the US cutting off (even partially) the flow of intelligence sharing to NATO?

According to Politico, other NATO members informed these moron advisors that they will retaliate against the United States by refusing to share their intelligence with America.

Do they know which European nation’s intelligence agency will also be involved in breaking relations with American intelligence agencies?

Britain’s world famous, James Bond employing, MI6.

Do they know how Democrats will exploit a breakdown in relations between American intelligence and Britain’s MI6 (even if only a partial severing of cooperation)?

The Democrats will exploit the golden opportunity Trump’s foreign policy advisors handed them (for no apparent reason) and say that America has broken off intelligence cooperation with James Bond (so to speak).

There would be an especially big problem if cooperation is reduced and a terrorist attack happens later; even if the attack wasn’t expected at all by by MI6 or any other European intelligence agency the Democrats would still say that Trump caused it by breaking off communications with “James Bond” who would have heroically prevented it if only whoever the idiot advisors who want to stop intelligence sharing with NATO had bothered to pick up the fucking phone.

Is the time and energy necessary to defend a break with British intelligence (which not a single American voter wanted and which not a single voter ever thought in their life would happen between the US and the British) something that will benefit the Democrats or Trump more?

Obviously, breaking cooperation (even slightly) with NATO intelligence (which would automatically lead to Britain’s MI6 diplomatically forming a united front with its European allies and retaliating with reduced intelligence sharing) would be handing the Democrats a gift wrapped, powerful weapon of a PR disaster that they will happily use against Trump.

Imagine media headlines asking “Why does Trump hate James Bond?!?!” flying across the newsrooms and internet streams to ZERO possible benefit to Trump.

If a certain segment of Trump’s foreign policy team is more interested in creating a PR disaster to the advantage of the Democrats then perhaps it is time for someone in the Trump campaign office to send them and their resumes over to the DNC where they will be a much better fit because these foreign policy advisors are clearly every bit as interested in harming Trump’s agenda as the Democrats are?

Obviously, it is safe to assume that Biden’s position as the Democrat nominee is probably untenable.

Although there is a small possibility that Jill and Hunter Biden will be able to stem the tide long enough for Joe to refuse to stand down and officially secure the nomination, looking at the various scenarios involving a replacement is more than called for.

It would be safe to assume that Democrats will not replace Biden with Harris since she polled even worse than he did pre-debate.

It should also be assumed that they will find a way around the problem of how to transfer Biden’s campaign funds to another candidate, either by finding some kind of strange loophole in the considerable legal complexities of campaign finance law or simply by breaking campaign finance law outright.

Once they have the financing issue resolved the Democrats will face a decision about whether to recruit an ideologically pure Progressive or a moderate, or, more accurately, someone they can spin as “moderate.”

Most likely they will go for a moderate since they will be banking on the media giving the new candidate a “honeymoon” period in August, unenthusiastic Democrats solidifying around the new nominee, moderates taking a second look at the Democrats with a new nominee, and voter mail fraud.

The honeymoon period should last a month or less and then fade going into September.

In order to shorten the honeymoon period as much as possible the Trump campaign would be wise to start making earlier ad spending reservations than they were planning against Biden since a new candidate would be an unknown to the electorate. The faster they can define whoever the replacement is as a hardcore Progressive to moderates the sooner the poll boost they would get is brief and begins to normalize again with Biden’s pre-debate poll numbers.

The standard for any presidential campaign when selecting a runningmate is nothing more or less complicated than selecting a VP nominee who brings the most benefits over costs to the campaign relative to other options.

This is no less important for the Trump campaign which, despite very impressive poll numbers, has to be wary of the fact that Democrats could potentially use mail voter fraud like they did in 2020 to steal the election (which Democrats refer to as “fortifying” the election) because, obviously, no pollster can poll vote fraud.

Since the Supreme Court dodged handling voter fraud in 2020, then in the event the Democrats try to steal the 2024 election with mail in ballots again the default assumption by the Trump campaign’s legal advisors would have to be that the Supreme Court would not assist Trump to stop Democrat “election fortification” in 2024 anymore than they did in 2020.

Therefore, in order to minimize the risk of voter fraud stealing the election from Trump again, the campaign has a great self-interest in increasing their margin of victory as much as possible in order that Trump exceeds the “margin of fraud” which is perhaps the biggest unknowable factor of the campaign.

In order to runup the score as much as possible over Biden, the VP choice will be perhaps be the most important decision the campaign makes in determining if his margins are so big that Democrat fraud cannot numerically make up for it.

If we judge the VP candidates by the simple standard of who gains Trump the most net votes as possible then there is a case for Rubio over Youngkin.

Youngkin would gain Trump extra moderate and suburban women’s votes.

Rubio would also do well with moderates and suburban women’s votes.

This would be critical to winning Pennsylvania (as well as Michigan and Wisconsin) because Pennsylvania’s swing districts are concentrated around the suburbs, especially the vote-rich and politically moderate Philadelphia suburbs which is where statewide elections in Pennsylvania are won and lost.

The working class areas of Pennsylvania, and the rest of the Rust Belt, are not a concern at all for Trump since he will run up huge margins there.

The suburbs are what will determine Pennsylvania, and both Youngkin and Rubio would be about equally good.

However, Rubio as a Cuban would be more likely to help Trump with Hispanics in Arizona and Nevada, possibly even in New Mexico if polls show more narrowing there.

That gives Rubio three extra demographics (moderates, suburban women, and Hispanics) compared to only two for Youngkin (moderates and suburban women).

By this measure, the least helpful to Trump would be Ramaswamy and Vance because they only help Trump with a demographic he already has 100% locked down (working class whites) and are turnoffs to moderates and suburban women, whom Trump will need as much as possible in order to counter the risk of voter mail fraud.

The only working class whites who Trump doesn’t have are the most hardcore labor union members who will never vote anything except Democrat no matter who the Republicans run for President and Vice President.

Neither Vance nor Ramaswamy can gain Trump anymore working class whites beyond what Trump himself (by virtue of being Donald Trump!) already has in the bank.

It is not even clear in Vance’s case if he appeals to working class whites as much at all since he didn’t win his Senate seat in Ohio by as large a margin as other statewide Ohio Republican candidates won their elections the year Vance was elected.

Nor is it clear Vance is even sincere in his beliefs considering he once called Trump Hitler-like.

For moderates, suburban women and Hispanics neither Vance or Ramaswamy gain a single vote and they would probably cost Trump more in these three demographics than he would get from a better runningmate option.

Trump’s presidential campaign is not just a powerhouse performance that has expanded the Electoral College map to Virginia, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and other states previously rated as safe Democrat.

His masterful run to end the excruciating abomination of the Biden usurpation has also created a golden opportunity to become an even more historic campaign by selecting a runningmate who will expand his appeal to moderates and suburban women voters specifically.

A VP choice that helps Trump with those two demographics would provide the Donald with four major advantages –

1) A VP who attracts (or, at a minimum, doesn’t repel) moderates and suburban women will increase Trump’s downballot coattails in House and Senate races.

Trump’s 2nd term agenda would be heavily dependent on how large a House and Senate majority the GOP wins in 2024. If the GOP has only small majorities, or is in the minority, in either chamber Trump would, obviously, have greater difficulty getting his way than if he wins both chambers by convincing margins.

The outcome of Congressional races will be closely linked to Trump’s performance at the top of the ticket. The more Trump can run up the score in the general election the more House and Senate Republican candidates he will pull across the finish line. The best way to maximize how many downballot races go GOP is through a VP who enhances the appeal of his ticket by attracting more moderates and suburban women voters.

2) Minimize the risk of a non-Harris replacement for Biden.

Although it would be difficult for Democrats to replace Biden with someone other than Harris (primarily because of the difficulty of transferring Biden’s campaign funds to someone other than Harris) it would be unwise to rule out the possibility that the Democrats wouldn’t be able to bend or break election rules by installing someone besides Harris as their presidential nominee.

If Democrats did manage to install a non-Harris replacement for Biden they could, in combination with their usual mail-in vote fraud, narrow the gap with independents with negative ads, increase their base voter enthusiasm in the last few months, and possibly eke out a narrow Electoral College win.

To avoid the risk of a non-Harris replacement who might be able to regain lost ground with independents Trump would be best served by a runningmate who would lock in his existing margins with moderates and suburban women voters and expand them further.

3) Keep the public’s focus on Democrat Party infighting over Biden’s mental capacities by not selecting a runningmate who would easily be attacked by the media.

An easily attackable running mate would help the media shift public attention and campaign momentum away from Democrat infighting to Trump’s VP. The VP should be someone who would add to the Trump ticket with appeal to woman and moderates and who wouldn’t have their own negatives to help Biden deflect from his own problems.

4) Satisfy major Republican donors without compromising Trump’s central policies of immigration and protectionism which are his most popular issues.

The best option for a runningmate who can attract more moderates and suburban women is Glenn Youngkin based on his proven experience winning those voters in Virginia.

Rubio and Burgum could also attract moderates and suburban women.

By boosting Trump with moderates and suburban women they would help maximize how many House and Senate Republicans win along with Trump, minimize the potential threat of a non-Harris replacement for Biden, prevent Biden from diverting attention away from his senility to Trump’s VP, and boost fundraising by making large donors happy.

The two choices that would actually harm Trump’s chances achieving the 4 listed objectives are Ramaswamy and Vance because both of them are toxic to moderates and suburban women voters, and are easy to attack by the media (and would thus shift attention away from Democrat infighting). Since they do not appeal to any voters Trump does not already have locked down, they would lose Trump more votes and lose more House and Senate seats than he would gain if either Ramaswamy or Vance are chosen as his runningmate.