Look at me everybody–I am great and powerful

Our supercilious head twit gave a speech yesterday at the United Nations so that  representatives of most of the countries in the world could see what a jerk he is. As usual, it was all about him. He began bye lying about his accomplishments in his first eight months of office, both domestically and internationally. He then rambled around talking about why the US paid a disproportionate amount of the UN budget and was not getting in his opinion a reasonable return on investment. He discussed that there were underway some indefinite plans to restructure and revitalize the United Nations and that that showed great promise. He decried the bureaucracy of the United Nations and generally dismissed multinational organizations as being ineffective and impractical, and that went for trade agreements as well. It is not clear what he thinks the United Nations actually is. What is clear is that he envisions a future when the United Nations does what he tells it to do.

He discussed North Korea. He did not say that North Korea's belligerent statements and actions could lead to  catastrophe in the far east causing millions to die. Instead, in one of the most callous statements probably ever heard, he said that should North Korea either start armed conflict or otherwise seriously provoke the United States he would totally destroy it. He has elevated stupid reckless demagoguery to hitherto unknown heights. The death of millions of people apparently he considers some sort of negative externality.

He then turned to Iran. This weeks" worst deal he has ever seen" is the agreement with Iran that he appears to think was a bilateral agreement. It doesn't occurred to him that if he could make a deal like that with North Korea he would be universally applauded. He seemed to threaten Iran with armed conflict. Other than Bebe Netanyahu, and the cheerleaders Trump brought with him, there was mostly silence. I suppose he expects the United Nations to take action at his direction against Iran but it is more than clear that our European allies and Russia and China are not going to.

Perhaps the most frightening thing about this is that it is clear from his brief appearances today that he thinks he was a smash hit. He does not appear to be doing the single most important thing he could which is to work comprehensively with China on many fronts including North Korea because it is in China's interest to have a stable North Korea but one that ceases its belligerent and provocative actions. We appear to be in a metaphorical perfect storm. We have  incredibly difficult problems to solve and simultaneously have the most ignorant arrogant incompetent lying President ever and a Congress mired in political ideology and totally uninterested in solving problems in a reasonable fashion.