re: #12 retired cynic

We are totally cloud covered. Hard to even see a white blob. Still no internet, so I am going to call it a night, but wanted to leave you with an article: Making China Great Again, Evan Osnos in The New Yorker:

Very good analysis. This paragraph in particular shows some people Beijing understand the Trumps better than most journalists in the USA (cough - Maggie Haberman - cough)

After the summit, the Pangoal Institution, a Beijing think tank, published an analysis of the Trump Administration, describing it as a den of warring “cliques,” the most influential of which was the “Trump family clan.” The Trump clan appears to “directly influence final decisions” on business and diplomacy in a way that “has rarely been seen in the political history of the United States,” the analyst wrote. He summed it up using an obscure phrase from feudal China: jiatianxia—“to treat the state as your possession.”

That’s exactly how Trump & Co. think of themselves — the owners of the USA. In China, the emperors had the same deep-seated belief until, suddenly, they weren’t in power anymore. I await the day when the same reality smacks Donnie Smallhands in the face.