Month: August 2016

This morning, Presidents Trump and Putin announced the surprise signing of a new treaty designed to divide Europe into two spheres of influence.  Former NATO countries will now become American colonies, while former Warsaw Pact nations will be owned by Russia.

Trump could not be reached directly for comment, but on his way back to the Trump White House, he tweeted “ANOTHER AMAZING DEAL!  WE GET THE GOOD PARTS, AND PUTIN GETS THE LEFTOVERS!  WELCOME TO TRUMP UNIVERSITY!”

Upon hearing that European reaction to the deal was strongly negative, Trump tweeted “MERKEL AND THE REST ARE SUCH LOSERS!  WESTERN EUROPE WILL BE LUCKY TO HAVE ME AS ITS RULER!”

President Putin applauded the deal, saying “It’s always a pleasure doing business with a strong man like myself.”

The agreement will be implemented with new regulations similar to the 17th Century Navigation Acts to make sure that America always runs a surplus with its colonies and so “wins at trade”.  When asked about European objections to the deal, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Palin responded “The Germans colonized us hundreds of years ago.  Don’t you think they would do it again, if they could?  You betcha!” When subsequently advised by reporters that the Germans had never owned any colonies in North America, she said that was a lie spread by the “lamestream media.”

Palin also indicated that she was looking forward to seeing the new Russian bloc from her house.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has been directed to find funds for a new, larger Trump monument commemorating the deal in his budget.  Ryan angrily denied that he was “enabling” Trump by building monuments to him and pointed out that Trump was showing that he was “becoming a real Republican” by suggesting cuts to Medicaid to pay for the monument.

And now, we have the Rio Games.

They’ll make our election look tame.

The fans full of hope.

The Russians can’t dope.

For winners, great fortune and fame.

Historically, there have been four reasons to host the games:

1.  Our national ideology rocks!  Examples:  Berlin 1936; Moscow 1980; Los Angeles 1984.

2.  OK, we lost the war, but we’re back!  Examples:  Rome 1960; Tokyo 1964; Munich 1972.

3.  We’ve graduated from the Third World!  Examples:  Mexico City 1968; Seoul 1988; Beijing 2008; Rio 2016.

4.  Let’s have a party and attract some tourists and foreign investment!  Examples:  everyone else.

The problem is that the Olympics have become so expensive, #4 has become harder and harder to justify, and the other rationales can only work under very limited circumstances.  As a result, unless the costs can be reduced or the profits distributed differently, you may start to see the Summer Games exclusively in authoritarian Third World countries with an image problem and lots of money to spend.

To be at all interesting, a scandal has to revolve around one (or more) of three motivations:  money; power; and sex.  The e-mail issue doesn’t implicate any of them.  What is it about?  Stupidity?  Carelessness?  Yawn.

Ronald Reagan got a substantial boost from the performance of the American athletes in the Los Angeles games in 1984.  Given that the Democrats are making a concerted effort to appeal to American patriotism in the face of Trumpian gloom and doom, could the same thing happen in Rio?

Probably not, for the following reasons:

1.  The incumbent cannot benefit, because he can’t run for re-election.
2.  The 1984 Olympics coincided with a dramatic improvement in the American economy.  That isn’t happening today.
3.  The country is more polarized now than in 1984.

That said, if we don’t win the medal count, you can expect Trump to blame it on the “losers” Obama and Clinton.

Consider the following lyrics:

There’s colors on the street.

Red, white, and blue.

People shuffling their feet.

People sleeping in their shoes.

There’s a warning sign on the road ahead.

There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead.

Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them.

So I try to forget it any way I can.

 

Keep on rockin’ in the free world. . .

Those words were written in 1989.  They might as well have been written yesterday.