FYI :
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Peacefan Netherlands <peacefan.netherlands@gmail.com>
Date: 18 July 2018 at 12:47
Subject: Trump still has my support, here's why.
To: {whitehouse, CIA, NSA}, {CNN}, {Dutch political parties}, {Dutch media outlets}
Hi all.
despite Trump's behavior over the past 2 weeks,
i do still support him.
even with several US media outlets (CNN, MSNBC, even Fox News after Helsinki) calling Trump's fitness for office in question, which is useful because it offsets Trump's often loud rhetoric and prompts him, enables him and forces him, to rectify it / clarify it / spin-it-around-a-bit the following days,
i don't see Trump doing stuff that actually undermines NATO.
in fact, NATO member states are forced by Trump to re-evaluate how much they let the US lead NATO, and that's a very good thing.
we also deserved that kick in the butt over defense spending, and we deserved that trade war, here in the EU.
Trump, in my view, didn't overdo it, if you take in all of his remarks (after the recent NATO meeting for instance, he said NATO was doing better than ever given how the EU has re-affirmed their increases in defense spending).
This all falls under political showmanship, and i think the EU leaders and other world leaders know it well.
The ones that don't understand it, are the US media, from CNN and MSNBC to even Fox News. Or maybe they do understand it, but choose to play their own role. That could be, and it would be a valid strategy by them.
i don't think Trump's diplomatic overtures to Russia and North-Korea are going to result in *big* wins, merely small wins like co-existing in Syria and perhaps getting an Russian OK for Iran to leave Syria, stuff like that,
but the demonizing of Russia and Putin that some channels like CNN are doing, is definitely not going to help the geopolitical situations at all.
i do think that the good-cop-bad-cop routine with Trump as the 1 good cop in the US government and the rest playing at least strict-cop,
will produce more positive results than a purely hard-line approach (which would be for instance : more sanctions on Russia to stop them from trying election interference in the future) that is sometimes seen promoted on CNN by some of the commentators they air.
ultimately, stopping election interference should be a defensive game, not an offensively-played one. an offensive strategy (sanctions, counter-hacking, threat of military force, increase military drills in places the offending side doesn't like) will only muddle the waters and constantly threaten to escalate something that doesn't need to escalate at all (by playing it defensively).
that means for instance that you build digital election machines that can't be hacked at all
and have their source-codes published to prove this in peer-reviews.
that also means you regulate social media to the extent of preventing user data sharing on a large scale, ban unsolicited private messages, etc, etc. remember : state actors can pose as any company or individual to try to acquire user data and post automated messages to other users.
i emplore CNN in particular to push for this solution rather than the hardline approach against Russia.
i doubt Trump himself has much appetite to regulate social media to harden it against election fraud / interference.
neither perhaps will the rest of the US political scene.
after all, they may believe this is something that can give them an edge if left unregulated.
in the absence of regulation of social media, US mass media could put on repeat warnings to take everything one reads on the internet with not just a grain of salt but a whole bag of salt, especially if it invokes big emotions.
if it invokes big emotions, the best thing a citizen can do is to block the entire account it's posted from, because it's probably manipulation based on at least exaggeration and context falsification and at worst based on (near-)complete lies.
the best place to get your election advice as a citizen these days, is from established mass media outlets and trustworthy election-choice-help (web-)apps.. they are the only ones held accountable for providing truth-based advice, and frankly the only ones with a commercial interest to keep doing that.
there's no shame in making the public aware of both of these facts, at all.
too much is played offensively these days. more sanctions against governments that are out of line, more drone strikes whenever terrorists strike... offensive strategies certainly serve a good purpose from time to time,
but
as a general rule : if you can defend using defensive measures only, then DO NOT RESORT TO OFFENSIVE STRATEGIES/TOOLS TO *TRY* TO PREVENT *REPEATS* OF WHAT YOU DONT WANT HAPPENING.
