Fox News Trumpists Change Tack on Kim Jong-un

From Esquire

Every tenet of Trumpism is the unassailable gospel of American life until Dear Leader abandons it out of random political convenience. Then the opposite is God's Own Truth. Take China, for instance, which was a mortal enemy on trade that was "raping our country"-until last week, when Trump tweeted about his desire to save Chinese jobs. Then there's North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Where the president once derided Kim as "Little Rocket Man" and "Short and Fat" and a "madman," in March tweeted that "there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un [sic] will do what is right for his people and for humanity." He said Kim was "very honorable."

Why the change of heart? According to Axios, Trump now sees the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula as potentially his "great man of history moment" and a problem he alone can fix. ("Just get me in the room with the guy," he apparently tells advisers.) But a strange quirk of today's conservatism is that its adherents seem to believe you can only deal with The Good Guys. Trump and his allies slammed the Iran Deal not just on the bogus claim we had no way to verify whether Iran was complying with the agreement-a claim undercut by Trump's own Secretary of Defense-but that the Iranian regime was a bad actor and a state sponsor of terrorism.

That's why, now that Trump wants to make a deal with Kim, the North Korean dictator is the kind of guy who is concerned with doing what's right for his people and the world, rather than what will best enable him to maintain his grip on power. Trump's allies in the media also now feel compelled to toe the line, even suggesting Kim might not be so bad deep down:

Ah, yes, that old adage: If you like the NBA and '80s music, there's no way you like murdering. It's unclear how, as Hegseth seems to believe, denuclearization will directly lead to Kim killing many fewer North Koreans. Even if a lift on sanctions eases the nation's economic stress and diplomatic isolation, iand link t's a long way to a world where Kim-a paranoid reactionary on his best day-sees no enemies in the country's elite ruling class or the general public.

This is, after all, a man who has overseen the execution of an estimated 300 senior North Korean officials in an effort to consolidate his power, and often in spectacularly macabre ways: Kim has been accused of feeding his uncle alive to a pack of ravenous dogs, executing five government officials with an anti-aircraft gun, and poisoning his half-brother with a nerve agent. But he likes Dennis Rodman!

The truest thing Hegseth said is that Kim is looking for a photo with the American president. Most observers believe one of his main goals is to establish his country as a legitimate nuclear power on the world stage, and a photo with the leader of the world's most powerful country could go a long way in that regard. The White House is helping things right along on that front, fashioning itself an intriguing little coin in anticipation of the proposed summit:

Wow! This makes the President of the United States and the leader of a relatively small dictatorship look like perfect equals. And that's not to mention that the coin refers to Kim as "Supreme Leader," granting him legitimacy as North Korea's principal, despite the fact that-contrary to all of the United States' expressed values on the international stage-he has crushed all attempts to establish democracy and human rights within his borders. Previous administrations at least pretended to value those things.

In the end, Hegseth probably should have stuck with what his own Dear Leader-whom he also apparently advises on policy-used to say about Kim back in, uh, September:

Believe it or not, acknowledging this reality does not preclude the United States from trying to make a deal with North Korea. Diplomacy often involves trying to work with countries that are not your allies to avoid armed conflict. Just don't tell the president that this is the exact thing his predecessor said about the Iran Deal:

There's evidence Trump's behavior has changed the calculus for the North Koreans, though how much he's in control of the situation now is in doubt. Nonetheless, there's an opportunity here for an Artful Dealmaker-you just don't have to pretend Kim Jong-un could just as easily have been in the stands at Oracle Arena last night.

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