Monday, August 15, 2022

Always Himself That the Coward Abandons First (w/ Update)

Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.
-- All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

Good Lord, I've been blogging once a day ever since the word dropped that trump finally pissed off the wrong people - librarians! - and I was hoping to take a break from the matter, but during the day THIS popped up on the tweets. Well, originally it popped up on trump's bad attempt at Twitter, but apparently during the FBI warrant search at Mar-A-Lago they also seized three of donald trump's passports (via Meredith McGraw at Politico):

On Monday, the former president announced that the FBI confiscated three of his passports — two of which were active, one expired — during the search of his private residence in Palm Beach last week.

“Wow! In the raid of Mar-a-Lago, they stole my three Passports (one expired), along with everything else. This is an assault on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our Country. Third World!” Trump shared on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Before you start wondering why one person needs that many passports when one usually suffices:

It’s not uncommon for people to own two passports, especially those who do a large amount of government-related or international business traveling. It’s unclear why Trump’s were taken. Trump is embroiled in a number of complex legal matters though he has not been charged in any of them.

Amid all the drama over the FBI search, Trump had wanted to travel overseas to spend time at his golf resorts in Scotland. The Trump Organization owns three golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland. Trump Turnberry, Trump International Scotland in Aberdeen, and Trump International Golf Links in Doonbeg, Ireland...

It does seems a bit odd that trump would want to travel abroad just as various civil and criminal matters back here stateside are kicking into gear. Hence the near-immediate speculation on social media that trump - with serious criminal allegations involving his theft of records and possible espionage charges related to that - is turning into a flight risk.

Which of course begs the most obvious question: Where the hell could donald trump flee to avoid criminal arrest?

If the situation here in the United States becomes dire for trump, it's likely involving legal woes that would alienate and anger our allies abroad. So fleeing to any of those places - especially Europe where NATO and the EU would reject any sanctuary for trump - is extremely unlikely. If trump thinks he can run and hide in the nations where he owns his golf courses - which is pretty much just Scotland - he's in for a rude welcome (and boot out the door).

Any of the nations who trade extensively with the United States - whose economies rely a lot on that trade - also will not risk the likely sanctions that our government would slap on them the second they find out trump is hiding in their borders. I would think most of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America (even Brazil where a friendly autocrat reigns) will be off-limits to trump.

Basically any nation with an extradition agreement with the United States would be a risky hiding spot. Again, a lot of these nations can ill afford to have an angry American government cutting them off financially to force trump's return.

Granted, there are some nations out there strongly allied to the U.S. who also don't have an extradition treaty, and are in a complex political situation that could disrupt any effort to apprehend a fugitive trump. Most obvious one that comes to mind is Saudi Arabia. Of the nations out there, they provide a key commodity for U.S. interests - oil - and are major allies in geopolitical matters - stability in the Middle East and the containment of Iran. It doesn't help matters that trump and Saudi Arabia are tied together through some questionable business matters including trump's son-in-law getting a $2 billion investment deal with the Saudis... and that Saudi Arabia may be one of the foreign powers that trump may have shopped the national security documents.

But allowing trump to find sanctuary in Saudi Arabia would be a shocking move, and one that would alienate them from not just the United States but other allied nations. It could provide an impetus for anti-Saudi forces in the U.S. - and there are a number of them angry at Saudi human rights abuses and probable ties to anti-U.S. terror groups - to push to cut all diplomatic, military, and financial ties. While it would be a major shock to the global economy, it's one the Saudis may not survive - it would leave them vulnerable to Iran and to their own extremist factions looking to form a more fanatical regime - unless they throw in with the only forgiving superpowers left on the planet (China and Russia).

Which then brings up the few nations where trump could flee: the nations that are in political and economic rivalry with the United States, like China and Russia.

Other nations opposed to us - Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran - may be intrigued with the idea of housing trump to thumb their noses in our general direction. But even they have to know trump brings his own baggage and bad behavior with him, and he may not be worth the headache. Not to mention the possibility that providing trump sanctuary would be a casus belli excusing the United States to invade them (even North Korea with their threat of unleashing their small nuclear arsenal at our regional allies), and force a regime change without even caring to stick around and rebuild once we got trump in irons. Those nations don't owe trump a thing. So they dare not risk it.

But China and Russia could. Any escalation with either nation would stir up a larger global conflict that would well trigger World War III (with a possible risk of a limited nuclear exchange). At best the United States would hit whichever nation gives trump sanctuary with severe sanctions. China would simply treat it like another tariff war, and respond accordingly. The U.S. would arguably suffer from the supply chain cutoffs, and a prolonged standoff may cripple our diplomatic standing across Asia. It would be a question if China is willing to stick their nation's global standing on protecting a man who openly insulted them and who started those tariff wars in the first place.

Russia is currently struggling with heavy sanctions due to their invasion of Ukraine, and would suffer a lot more if the U.S. hits them at every remaining economic soft point we haven't touched yet. NATO and EU nations could arguably join in with more sanctions, and one possibility would be for several NATO nations affected by trump's betrayals - especially France, if the stories about trump holding onto intel files on their President Macron are accurate - could provide more direct military support to Ukraine, hurting Putin's chances to hold onto contested regions. But that's as far as we'd go to force trump out of hiding. Any direct fight with American forces would pretty much lead to nuclear war.

In the meantime, while Putin and his Russian media cohorts have enjoyed using trump to embarrass and destabilize the U.S., if trump does go running to them for safety it would finally confirm the accusations of trump being Putin's puppet all along. It would be embarrassing to Putin to have trump fleeing like a broken asset to his doorstep, and he'd be stuck with someone who is no longer useful to him. The only reason to hide him would be to make sure trump didn't expose any of Putin's ongoing subterfuge in the U.S. and NATO.

There is an honest question if trump would even risk fleeing in the first place: It would expose him as a coward to his followers to where the spell he has over some of them would crack. It would hurt trump's ability to role-play himself as a victim, and would arguably expose whatever is left of his financial empire - which may be crumbling right now as I type this - to judicial actions like asset forfeiture (make him broke enough that he has no way to buy his protection overseas).

But for all of trump's bluster and bravado, trump is still a coward at heart. This is a guy who happily dodged the draft with "bone spurs" and then went golfing. This is a guy who sets up his underlings to fight each other for his amusement but then get someone else to do the firing for him when those underlings are no longer useful. This is a guy who hid in the White House basement when protestors showed up outside, and then had the National Guard disperse the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets so he could pose at a nearby church for a photo op once it was safe to do so. If you think it was bravery that got trump demanding to his protection detail to take him to the Capitol riots on January 6, he was likely going to watch safely from the Secret Service vehicle and pose on the edge of the skirmish for another photo op when the smoke cleared.

Confronted with the possibility of the worst photo op of all - getting dragged before the cameras outside of Mar-A-Lago in handcuffs on whichever felony charge reaches him first - trump would arguably flee for his life and lie about it from the safety of a foreign shore.

All he really needs is a private jet fueled nearby and a thirty-minute head start. trump will take it, because his cowardice will get the better of him.

Update 8/18: According to reports, the FBI returned the passports to trump's people... but they did so before trump even railed about it happening, which comes across as a blatant attempt by trump to make himself the victim (again) over something that wasn't even an issue. Still, we're looking at the possibility of trump being a flight risk if the investigations reveal his actions.

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