Furthermore Paul

Trump's daughter Ivanka is hypersensitive about Trump's strange undemocratic behaviour - his plain dangerous support base - and his bizarre sugar-Daddy attitude to her.

This all makes any Ivanka bid for elected office a minefield for her.

The Guardian reported June 2022 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/11/ivanka-trump-donald-trump-week-in-patriarchy

"The writing has been on the wall for a while now, but it seems Ivanka Trump finally did it: she turned against her daddy. On Thursday we learned that the former White House adviser told the congressional panel investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, that she doesn’t believe her father’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

In a video deposition that was shown during the first hearing of the panel, Ivanka states that she accepted the explanations of the then attorney general, Bill Barr, to Donald Trump that there wasn’t any evidence of voter fraud, and he’d lost the election fair and square."

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And then there's Trump's attitude that he has a "special" relationship with her - all playing out as political control if she sought office. See http://soapboxie.com/us-politics/Donald-Trumps-Strangely-Sexual-Relationship-With-His-Daughter-Ivanka

"President Donald Trump has treated his daughter, Ivanka, like one of his many girlfriends since she was barely a teenage girl.

Referring often to her body and looks, Trump also took a number of uncomfortable pictures of Ivanka and himself while she was growing up.

Trump shows no cognizance that these pictures might be inappropriate or creepy to normal people."

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That's the Donald that so many OLOers believe has ruined American democracy. Its trusting Donald that ruined 2016 to 2020.

Things have improved under Biden.

"Things have improved under Biden."
He takes you to the brink of a nuclear war escalating a conflict and you call that an improvement?

- Funniest thing I've heard today.

Dear Maverick,

Trump praised Putin's illegal and immoral invasion
of Ukraine and the shameful propaganda that sought to
justify it. He then continued this ass-kissing.
Trump admires strongman bully tactics.

Heaven help Australia if this man becomes US President
and we need help with China or anyone else.

Hi Foxy

Trump was unusually anti-China when he was in office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#China

Although Trump likes Dictators (as the whole world knows) so Dictator Xi may be able to bribe and boost Trump's weak ego, like Putin did.

Also Putin might instruct new President Trump "2.0" to be nice to China.

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Given all this, it is increasingly risky for Australia to rely on US nuclear and conventional miltary protection, given Biden is aging, Trump can't be trusted and DeSantis remains an unknown quantity.

Soon to be Ambassador Rudd and others in the Australian Embassy, Washington, need to fill in the blanks about DeSantis quickly regarding DeSantis lack of known policies towards Australia and to longterm alliances generally http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_DeSantis

Meanwhile way before 2040 Australia needs to develop its own nuclear deterrent, like Israel did. Israel can help in this, for a price naturally.

Cheers Mavs

Thanks Maverick.

As usual you make a lot of sense.

I'll second that Foxy,

Mavs is spot on with his summation of the state of affairs in Washington as regards American political leaders. We are in a rather precarious situation, those on offer are a mediocre bunch to say the least, or of an unknown talent as in the case of DeSantis, and that puts us, and the rest of the world, in a very dangerous position.

Post war Republican Presidents have tended to be hawkish in their approach to world affairs, whereas Democratic Presidents, I wont say dovish, but tend to be a little bit more circumspect than their counterparts from the Republican Party. The American political system to function as required, I wont say best, relies on having a "boofhead" as leader. And they certainly have had some....Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush jr, Trump, Biden, the boofyest of the boofheads list.