Hate in a time of choleric

Joyce Carol Oates makes what seems in retrospect like a very obvious point, but not one that occurred to me at the time:

Meanwhile, Trump says he’ll just invade Spain if he feels like it:

“Spain has been terrible,” he continued. “In fact, I told [Treasury Secretary] Scott [Bessent] to cut off all dealings with Spain.” 

The president cited Spain’s refusal to increase their defense spending along with other NATO member countries, and the country’s refusal to allow the U.S. to use their bases as part of the operation in Iran. 

“We can use their base if they want. We can just fly in and use it. Nobody’s going tell us not to use it,” he said. 

“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he declared, before ripping into Starmer. 

“And by the way, I’m not happy with the U.K. either,” he said.

Trump condemned the U.K.’s move to give up the Chagos Islands, which is home to the Diego Garcia military base, to the East African country of Mauritius. 

“This is not Winston Churchill,” Trump said. 

An LGM reader reminds me of Churchill’s apparently apocryphal remark about the virtues of democracy:

 The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

There’s no evidence Churchill ever said this, although I doubt he would have quarreled much with the sentiment. (Churchill was many things, but a democrat wasn’t really one of them, except as a matter of absolute necessity).

In any event, the best argument against democracy, from now until the heat death of the universe, is and will remain Donald Trump.