“I do pity other countries trying to negotiate with this administration”: Daniel Drezner, professor of international law at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

Professor Drezner was commenting on a speech given by Kiron Skinner (the US State Department’s policy planning director) in a supposedly private seminar given by the New America think tank (probably a right-wing group.)  Ms. Skinner seems to think that there is a clash of civilizations between China and the US– consistent with the current administration’s thinking about clashes between the US and such alien civilizations as those in countries like Mexico and the United Kingdom.  In other words, it is a white nationalist point of view.  What makes it particularly surreal, however, is the fact that Skinner is “African-American”.

What she said that was most disturbing was how she defined her job: to turn the president’s “hunches and instincts into hypotheses”.

I have this recurring feeling that I’m in one of those dreams where I can’t move or speak, no matter how much I try.  Meanwhile, disasters are unfolding before my eyes and I am powerless to stop them.  But it’s not a dream.  This is really happening and the Republican Party is treating it like it’s a weenie roast.

(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)