Trump Is Just an Apprentice
Published in El País
(Spain) on 15 January 2019
by Guillermo Altares (link to original)
(Spain) on 15 January 2019
by Guillermo Altares (link to original)
Translated from
by Megan Smith.
Edited by Helaine Schweitzer.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s terms in office put the current president’s decisions into perspective.
Donald Trump is an unlikely president. For example, it is bizarre, to put it mildly, that the FBI is seriously investigating the possibility that the president of the United States of America is a Russian agent. Not even during the time of John Edgar Hoover and his greatest paranoid moments has there been such a dispute. Trump’s foreign policy is also unusual – contradictory and erratic, created predominantly through his morning tweets. Trump is undoubtedly a danger, not only because of his actions but also because you never know what he will do next or what his next crazy idea will be. However, the movie, currently showing in cinemas, helps put into perspective the disaster that the real estate mogul could cause with at least two years left in the White House.
The film is called “Vice” and tells the story of Dick Cheney, an ambitious Republican politician that served as vice president to George W. Bush between 2001 and 2009. It was during Bush’s two terms that two of the greatest disasters of this century occurred: the invasion of Iraq (in which Cheney was the driving force, architect and beneficiary) and the 2008 financial crisis. There is still a debate surrounding the president, who won by a handful of votes in Florida, where his brother was governor, and his role in the crisis. But there’s practically no debate (if we exclude his ally José María Aznar, of course, who has never apologized), concerning the catastrophes invoked by his policies following the 9/11 attacks, which led to the invasion of Iraq.
Bush, with Cheney’s invaluable input, established torture and kidnapping as government policy. Then, a dense network of lies, much worse than the most outrageous “fake news” on social media, was used to invade a sovereign country and manage the postwar situation so incompetently that it ended up detonating a civil war costing approximately 600,000 lives. And as a direct result of all that, there’s the Islamic State. Trump is more than capable of reaching that level of cataclysm in today’s world – a legacy left behind by Bush and Cheney, to do much worse, be more unjust and create more danger. But for now, he is still just a very advanced apprentice.
Donald Trump is an unlikely president. For example, it is bizarre, to put it mildly, that the FBI is seriously investigating the possibility that the president of the United States of America is a Russian agent. Not even during the time of John Edgar Hoover and his greatest paranoid moments has there been such a dispute. Trump’s foreign policy is also unusual – contradictory and erratic, created predominantly through his morning tweets. Trump is undoubtedly a danger, not only because of his actions but also because you never know what he will do next or what his next crazy idea will be. However, the movie, currently showing in cinemas, helps put into perspective the disaster that the real estate mogul could cause with at least two years left in the White House.
The film is called “Vice” and tells the story of Dick Cheney, an ambitious Republican politician that served as vice president to George W. Bush between 2001 and 2009. It was during Bush’s two terms that two of the greatest disasters of this century occurred: the invasion of Iraq (in which Cheney was the driving force, architect and beneficiary) and the 2008 financial crisis. There is still a debate surrounding the president, who won by a handful of votes in Florida, where his brother was governor, and his role in the crisis. But there’s practically no debate (if we exclude his ally José María Aznar, of course, who has never apologized), concerning the catastrophes invoked by his policies following the 9/11 attacks, which led to the invasion of Iraq.
Bush, with Cheney’s invaluable input, established torture and kidnapping as government policy. Then, a dense network of lies, much worse than the most outrageous “fake news” on social media, was used to invade a sovereign country and manage the postwar situation so incompetently that it ended up detonating a civil war costing approximately 600,000 lives. And as a direct result of all that, there’s the Islamic State. Trump is more than capable of reaching that level of cataclysm in today’s world – a legacy left behind by Bush and Cheney, to do much worse, be more unjust and create more danger. But for now, he is still just a very advanced apprentice.
Previous article![]( "The US and Britain Have Been Driven into Gridlock by Obstinate, Inadequate Leaders")
Next article![]( "How Trump Has Torn Apart the White House")
