In the Nineteen Century, France sent gunships to Viet Nam. The royal court debated frantically how to deal with the situation. The mandarins wanted to negotiate with France, but the generals led by Nguyen Tri Phuong fiercely objected. They disliked foreigners and they were patriotic. Unlike the Japanese and the Siamese who chose to talk to the Westerners, General Nguyen and his colleagues were heroic, willing to fight to the death. General Nguyen threatened to commit suicide if the king capitulated to the French’s demands.
How could the king ignore his entreaty, a patriot and his most loyal subject? The general got his wish.
In a battle in Hanoi, the general was captured by the French. Heroic to the end, he refused medical treatment by the French and starved himself to death.
His misunderstanding of the military capability of the two countries, and the situation in general, led to not only his demise but Viet Nam for 67 years ceased to exist and was chopped into three little pieces with strange names: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina. This traumatic history has taught a lesson, a relevant and very important lesson for our time: heroism sometimes is selfish and disastrous.
MAGA is no doubt patriotic. That they may just want the country for themselves does not make them less patriotic. They have been angry seeing that the country has been “exploited” by foreigners, “hollowed out” by China in the words of one of its more fierce loyalists. They have loudly asserted that the U.S. has been cheated by its trading counterparts, especially China. The president, prompted by their advice, declared that the U.S. and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years. Using this self-serving “information”, MAGA has worked hard to push for the imposition of tariffs. They raised the banner “Make America Great Again” (that in hindsight did not make much sense as mentioned below). They have heroically led the charge against foreigners and foreign countries. And the president was persuaded and declared the tariffs war on the world, with China of course receiving the hammer, 125%. That means the common men, the consumers of everyday products will pay double for any item coming from China. If you ever happen to turn a product upside down to look at the bottom, from a teacup to a computer, more often than not you see the three words “Made in China”.
The numbers tell a different story, strikingly different.
During the last three decades, the United States has surged ahead of all major competitors. In 2008, the U.S. economy was about the same size as the Eurozone. By 2023, it was nearly twice that size. U.S. average wages were about 20 percent greater than the average of the advanced industrial world in 1990. They are now around 40 percent higher. The average Japanese person was 50 percent richer than an American in 1995 in terms of GDP per capita. Today, an American is about 150 percent richer than a Japanese person. In fact, the poorest American state, Mississippi, has a higher per capita GDP than Britain or France or Japan, (Source: the Fareed Zakaria GPS).
Now, MAGA, like General Nguyen, does not comprehend the situation clearly, misunderstand the balance of forces and underestimates its trading counterparts. With only 14.7% of its total export goes to the U.S., China can afford to go toe to toe with the U.S. and did raise its tariff against American goods also to 125%.
Thank Heavens that we do not lose a country but only a new iPhone, or a good vacations. And who actually will lose them? Us, humble common men yearning all year long for either one of them. We pay for MAGA’s ego and dark intentions.
The country does not need another department, but a small office located somewhere in the West Wing and employing some of the DOGE’s geniuses and their computers to evaluate, each quarter, the president’s appointees to determine their ability to understand the world as it is, not the world they dream it to be.
If they kept making mistakes, the next one would probably cost us not just an iPhone, or a computer, or a good vacation.

JOHN P. LE PHONG
(This article appears on thelephongjournal.com, Facebook, and X).

 

Napoleon purportedly said that if you want a thing done well, do it yourself. That manifests a hands-on type of leader. But t    hat also means underlings could very well do a bad job and sabotage the good plan of the boss.

But bosses, no matter how good they are, cannot do all the jobs themselves. A boss such as the president of the United States needs staff to carry out policies and execute his orders. Their competence is therefore crucial to the success of his policies.

During President Trump’s first term, there were enough mature and experienced politicians or professionals in his cabinet to prevent the disaster of abolishing Obama Care, despite MAGA’s fanatical campaign to kill it for no reason other than its quasi-religious mission to eliminate an important achievement of a black president.
In the first few months of his second term, the president has declared his intention to achieve many strategic goals that makes even a seasoned politician dizzy: wooing Russia, abandoning Ukraine, distancing from NATO and the EU, taking the Panama Canal back, buying Greenland, assimilating Canada, dealing with Iran and its nuclear problem, taking over the Gaza Strip, bombing the Houthis, raising punishing tariffs, and a new but unsurprising goal of getting around the 22nd Amendment to serve a third term. All that requires the help of tremendously experienced and nuanced supporting staff.

Unfortunately, none of them is in his cabinets or among his second-tier executives because the president seems more comfortable with young inexperienced and un-nuanced people he wants (and they want) to work for him. The Signal chat fiasco, the blunders of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, the idea of sending a delegation headed by the vice president’s wife to Greenland purportedly for cultural exchange, the barring of the Associated Press from the White House etc. are early signs of such incompetence. A few dismissive words such as labeling the press woke, or there was no secret revealed, or the president has full confidence in his subordinates etc. could calm the water regarding these matters.

But the imposition of high tariffs is a different matter. Tariffs, especially exorbitant tariffs, are confrontational against the wide world. It also directly affects, negatively, common Americans. We pay the price. They involve complicated factors and require the ability to navigate the complexity, control the elements, and reach the desired goals, which are still undefined and murky. Not to hurt common American citizens should have been one of the goals. But clearly, it is what is happening.

Who are the advocates of using tariffs as a weapon? MAGA and its public face Peter Navarro, who has been dead set on bringing down China. Mr. Navarro came up with the tariff ideology when China was still a little shop owner who tried to steal things from the colossal American Factory. He was mad because no one listened to him about punishing China for its misdemeanors. Now back in power again after serving a stint in prison for contempt of Congress, he supports 104% tariff against China.

Not only tariffs hurst common Americans (the president, admits that much), but the world we live in now is totally different, which is no longer a one-way street. No longer the U.S. says “jump” and the rest of the world will obediently say “how high”. Powerful forces are at play and powerful nations are no longer fawningly submissive.

In this high-stake world game for dominance, the American team is manned by amateurs.

In WWII, the arrogance of the leadership led to millions of deaths and the total destruction of societies, and the common men bore the brunt of the catastrophe.

No one, including Elon Musk and Fareed Zakaria among the best minds of our time, understands why MAGA wants to raise tariffs. And now with its amateurish team handling the tariff war, we don’t go to bed and have nightmares. We lie in bed sleepless.

JOHN P. LE PHONG
(This article appears on Facebook, X, and thelephongjournal.com).

Stoking racism and the Americans’ fear of immigrants diluting the traditional culture of America, MAGA has won political battles and in 2024 the cultural war. Paraphrasing the words of former House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, they have broken the Democratic Party.

After the debate between the two candidates, Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, the Democrats were overjoyed because they believed he had lost the debate. Later, Mr. Trump seemed to be rambling in many political rallies. They were sure that they had a better chance of winning the election. Before they could get over their giddiness, Mr. Trump defeated the Vice President. Shocked and bewildered, they have since watched the Republicans hegemonize American politics without any meaningful resistance. Still, it was politically fair and square for the Republicans in a Democracy. But gradually something sinister emerges.

Racism is always an explosive emotional issue in any region of the Earth.  The U.S. has done a better job to keep a lid on it. But the energy has always been there and MAGA saw it and successfully maneuvered to exploit that energy, first to galvanize people who are avert to foreign culture to form a solid base against alien elements, then using the base to gain and solidify power. Using MAGA’s favorite terminology, it has weaponized that base to beat the Democrats and to control the Republican Party and its members including elected officials.

Absolute power is a nemesis of Democracy, and no American political party or citizen has sought absolute power, until now as it is clear that MAGA is seeking it. Why the Democrats, the Knight Templars of Democracy, did not see it? Their complacent belief that the American political climate and soil were not well-suited for an un-democratic regime such as dictatorship, aristocracy, or oligarchy is partially responsible for their being caught off guard. But credit must be given to MAGA for hatching a plan, a long-term plan of working from the ground up (an American version of Lenin’s workers and Mao’s and Ho’s peasants) that has been executed one step at a time until it gathers sufficient force for an all-out onslaught against Democracy. That time is now when it has all branches of government under its absolute control. It does not need professionals to be heads of departments or attorneys general to run a government. It only needs loyal and faithful cadres who don’t have to be experienced (the Signal Chat fiasco comes to mind) but pledge allegiance to MAGA, learn how to repeat MAGA’s lines, and take orders without question.

There is little doubt that MAGA wants to gut Democracy, or at least Democracy for all. There is currently no significant obstacle against it doing so openly and speedily: Republicans are uniformly in line and Democrats have been rendered impotent.

Only a few weeks after taking over Washington, MAGA adopted one of the most heinous schemes in the history of dictatorial regimes, Mao Zedong’s Communist Chinese Red Guards. Battalions of young Chinese Communists (not unlike DOGE cadres) were given power to roam the country, create chaos, terrorize Chinese of all ranks, and turn the Chinese society into a nightmare.

MAGA has copied that strategy to a certain extent to threaten judges with impeachment, terminating or reducing necessity services in departments and agencies, planning to lay off tens of thousands of employees (DHHS). Thousands of newly hired federal employees were let go at the whim of DOGE. That was hailed by MAGA as efficiency but think of those young new hired who were full of hope and dreams when they were hired, dreams of buying a new car, getting an apartment of their own, or even getting married. Those dreams evaporated because a twenty-something decided that they must be fired.

The President prides himself on being a consummate deal maker who plays big games. So, he does not get into a game and expects to win by just having one bargain chip, let’s call it A. He is also bringing to the game B, C, D and so on. Hey Putin, Xie, Democracy lovers, and ordinary Americans, I got NATO, Europe, Ukraine, Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Taiwan, North Korea, the Houthis, exorbitant tariffs, immigrants (not just illegal), and something new, Third Presidential Term. You don’t know if I will play them all or what chip I will play with. You don’t know what I want. Truth be told, I don’t exactly know what I want. But with so many chips I have in my vest’s pockets, I am sure I will win at least something.

What is the goal after dismantling Democracy, doesn’t seem to be well-defined at this point. Why eliminate or weaken the Education Department? Does it, together with its opposition to student loan forgiveness and high tariffs thus higher costs of living, aim at not just making sure the ordinary Americans know and stay in their place but also making America less attractive to foreigners? So, the immigration problems would be solved, humanely MAGA would claim, and saving billions of dollars from being spent on building the wall?

Regardless, the road starts getting rougher and life will be more difficult for most ordinary Americans – for no legitimate reason except MAGA’s dark ambition. That the cost of getting a new car will increase by some accounts by $15,000 is just an example. For billionaires, losing a few billion dollars here and there is just a tiny wave in a teacup. But for the probationary federal workers and most Americans, losing a job or paying such a high price for a necessity is a tsunami.

Politicians are sometimes expected to be emotional, impetuous, or even irrational. They fight to get their point across sometimes without reason, only passion, such as exhorting us to work 80 hours – or more – a week.

Historical events have proved the immense practical wisdom of the Founding Fathers to split the government into three branches so they can keep an eye on each other. The Supreme Court was intended as the reservoir of wisdom and reason created by the Constitution to protect and defend the Constitution itself. In the 2024 Supreme Court case, Trump v. United States, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion giving the executive branch more power by granting absolute immunity to a sitting or former president, for official acts while in office.

Whether the Supreme Court, especially the Chief Justice, has abstained from their constitutional duties is a question for better legal minds to ponder and debate. But, the Chief Justice, who mildly scolded the President for his suggestion that a judge be impeached for ruling against one of his executive orders, and the Court must forgive the President for assuming that Justices and Judges are his subordinates and the U.S. Attorney General for making statements as if she has authority to reprimand and discipline judges.

JOHN P. LE PHONG                                                                                                                                                          (This article can be found on Facebook, X, and the blog thelephongjournal.com)