☕️ CLOWN CARS ☙ Monday, August 18, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

European clown car joins “bilateral” Trump-Zelensky talks; Trump flips narrative from dictator to crime-fighter; Dems roll out promising new midterm hopefuls (spoiler: they all look alike); more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! In today’s roundup: European clown car pulls up to the Oval Office for “bilateral” Trump-Zelensky talks; the real dynamics in Trump’s proxy war negotiation with the dainty EU officials; media whiplash after narrative pivot from Trump is a Dictator to Let’s All Agree About Crime; Democrats begin rolling out brand-new nominees for midterm races and I’ll give you one guess what they look like; and a quick C&C primer on the politics of candidate picking.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

Warning: the next segment contains vicious mockery of dainty European leaders. If you are easily offended, please skip ahead.

🚀🚀🚀

Not that long ago, Elon Musk said something like, “we’re living in the version of the simulation where the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.” He may be onto something. Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Zelensky Brings Backup to the White House as Trump Aligns More Closely With Putin.” It’s clown car diplomacy! In this case, “backup” resembles a gayly painted Volkswagen Bug stuffed with a dozen pathetic EU officials terrified of getting left behind.

Following his Friday summit with President Putin, President Trump invited one particular green-sweatshirted official to the Oval Office today, to talk turkey about ending the Ukraine war for good. He invited one. That kicked off a desperate scrum of embarrassing position-scrambling as Europe’s “leaders” frantically tumbled over each other like emotional support puppies to insist on also coming, since after all, it’s their war too.

“European officials,” the Times explained, “said on Saturday that Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky he was free to bring guests to the meeting.” As many as he wants, apparently.

So far, Zelensky’s “tepid teapot entourage of the willing” now includes French President Emmanuel  Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich  Merz, UK Prime Minister Sir  Keir  Starmer, Italy’s Giorgia  Meloni, Finland’s president Mr. Something or Other, EU President Ursula von der Blahblah, and NATO Secretary‑General Mark  Rutte, the so-called “Trump whisperer”. (I did not make that up.)

There could even be more in the car. To paraphrase day-drinking Nancy Pelosi, we’ll have to hold the meeting to find out who’s coming.

🚀 This kind of unprecedented “international support” is hard to square with reality. Supposedly, Ukraine is a sovereign state. It’s not part of the EU. It’s not in NATO. Yet the Europeans are treating the war-torn country as some sort of protectorate or captive territory, and they are treating Zelensky like he’s a gullible fifth-grader and not actually a resolute wartime leader frequently compared to Winston Churchill.

“European officials,” the Times awkwardly informed readers, “want to ensure that Mr. Trump does not try to strong-arm Mr. Zelensky.”

I wonder whether the Ukrainians realized that, when they elected Zelensky to represent them, the presidency was an all-inclusive package deal with France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, NATO, and the rest? It makes Ukraine look less like a sovereign democracy and more like a timeshare property: yes, they “own” the condo, but they must also sit through endless meetings with the management company and every co-owner who wants a say about re-tiling the kitchen.

🚀 The article described a palpable terror of letting Zelensky negotiate on his own. “One senior European diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of angering Mr. Trump, described a sense of panic among European allies.” In a nod to the unsightly historicity of this particular rung on the peace-negotiating ladder, the Times added, “The diplomat had not seen a meeting like the one set for Monday come together so quickly since just before the Iraq War.”

To be fair, the croissant-nibblers have to protect their investment.

Though I think very little of this generation of European leaders, I’m tempted to be sympathetic. This is deeply humiliating for them. These aren’t mid-level envoys sent to smile for the cameras. These are Europe’s top leaders —men and women with entire governments to run— who canceled their own domestic agendas, ditched prior commitments, and sprang onto planes just to make sure they weren’t absent when Trump sat down with Zelensky. That isn’t “unity.” That’s priority — they just broadcast to the entire world that nothing on their own calendars matters more than attending when Trump calls.

Worse, they weren’t even invited.

It’s particularly hilarious because all of them insisted on coming. Why not just just send one or two top representatives for the group? The obvious and only answer is: they don’t trust each other.

🚀 Kiev’s phrase of the day is “security guarantees.” That’s the new demand. A security guarantee is basically a promise: “If someone attacks you, we’ll come help.” Think of it as a military version of co-signing a loan. Ukraine is asking the U.S. to co-sign its safety in order to agree to stop the war.

But that’s a trap, and Trump knows it.

If the U.S. promised to defend Ukraine, then Ukraine would suddenly hold the trigger: it could pick a fight (by “testing” borders, launching operations into contested territory, etc.), then invoke the guarantee when Russia inevitably retaliates. That means U.S. boots on the ground, dragged in on Ukraine’s timetable, not ours.

That would be much better for Ukraine, and much worse for us, than where we started. Right now, U.S. support is discretionary: we send weapons, cash, and intel when it suits us. A “guarantee” converts that into an obligation. Thus, we could end up worse off than if we had just admitted Ukraine to NATO, because at least NATO comes with a council and rules.

A special “security guarantee” puts Zelensky in the driver’s seat.

Security guarantees sound noble, cautious, and risk-averse — a middle ground between doing nothing and fully admitting Ukraine into NATO. But history suggests otherwise. In the 1950’s, the Vietnam War began with the same “security” promises: advisers, training, money, and weapons. Washington underwrote Saigon’s survival. Within a decade, those “guarantees” had metastasized into half a million U.S. troops slogging through the jungle. And still the guarantees couldn’t save South Vietnam.

It’s the same trap with Ukraine. A guarantee strong enough to matter is a tar baby that will ultimately swallow the guarantor. Kiev would hold the tripwire, knowing America couldn’t back down without humiliation. In Vietnam, the guarantee escalated until the guarantors (us) owned the war. In Ukraine, the risk is the same: NATO membership in all but name would ensure the U.S. is dragged in on Ukraine’s timetable.

In fact, “security guarantees” are so obviously a bad deal for America that it’s likely those demands are really a poison pill intended to scuttle any peace deal. Everybody knows the U.S. can’t sign them without tying itself to Ukraine’s trigger finger. That is why the demand is a fig leaf for more fighting: it really keeps the war going, makes Trump the villain if he refuses, and lets Zelensky pretend he was willing to compromise all along.

Trump will have to find a third way. Fortunately, that’s his specialty. We’ll see what the negotiations of Trump vs. all of Europe bring later today.

🚀 One critical component of the dynamic of this “bilateral negotiation” (really omnilateral clown-car) was completely ignored by corporate media. Unlike earlier on the Proxy War timeline, Trump now holds the tariff card.

Trump’s tariff card is crucial to the negotiations.

The Tariffs Dashboard gives Trump an immediate pressure valve he can crank up or down unilaterally — without Congress, EU consensus, NATO votes, or U.N. resolutions. Every one of the leaders crowding into the Oval today knows Trump could slap new duties on their industries tomorrow. Their domestic economies are already fragile; they simply cannot afford a sudden Trump tariff tantrum.

Each of the EU countries attending has a different industrial vulnerability. For instance, Germany is exposed on automobiles and machinery. France is weak on food, wine, and luxury goods. The UK’s Achilles’ heel lies in finance and trade channels. And so on.

Zelensky might not be susceptible to tariffs, but of course, he’s dependent on everything else.

So Trump can effortlessly transform their “united front” into a Prisoner’s Dilemma, peeling them off one by one and pitting them against each other. It is difficult to imagine what leverage the Europeans possibly hold. Europe’s “leverage” is a broken-down VW bus in a desert mirage. They can’t threaten Ukraine, because that’s the very cause they’re trying to protect. They can’t threaten a tariff fight, because they already caved once, bigly.

All they have left is optics, butt-kissing, and whining, none of which seems likely to make much difference.

🔥🔥🔥

TAW. Last week, corporate media was shrieking “dictator!” and “military coup in D.C.!”— running frothy op-eds about Trump rolling tanks into the capital and throwing pop-up parties for sandwich-hurling resisters. Now, suddenly, their tone is cooling. This morning, the Times ran a story headlined, “Trump Wants to Fight Democrats on Crime. They’re Treading Cautiously.”

I guess the polling isn’t going very well. “Democrats are treading cautiously,” the Times explained, “as they seek to forcefully oppose the federal incursion into the nation’s capital without getting caught up in a debate over public safety on Mr. Trump’s terms.”

Bronx Representative Ritchie Torres, a gay Afro-Latino, told the Times, “We as Democrats should be careful not to cede the issue of public safety to Donald Trump and Republicans.” He added, almost wistfully, without a hint of irony or self-awareness: “We should own the issue of public safety, because it matters to voters.”

Ritchie wants to “own the issue” —not because it is right— because it could help Democrats win. But it’s possible voters can still remember which party marched under ‘Defund the Police’ and ‘ACAB’ banners just a few summers back. Now they want to own public safety? Good luck!

Until about ten minutes ago, the narrative was that Trump was exaggerating DC crime statistics. But apparently, even Democrat residents of DC aren’t buying what the Times was selling. “There is also recognition,” the article continued, “that concerns about public safety continue to resonate not just with Mr. Trump’s supporters, but with their own.”

“We have to be careful not to lean too heavily on statistics, because people form their judgments about public safety based on their own lived experiences,” Representative Torres added.

Lived experiences means that people can see it for themselves. Fake “crime stats” aren’t swaying them.

Trump saw all this coming from miles off. Safety isn’t even an 80/20 issue. “I think crime is maybe 100 to nothing, so I think we may get very well some Democratic support,” President Trump said on Wednesday.

As usual, they are starting to get the idea too late. “The best argument against this notion that Democrats ruin cities is to run the city effectively,” said Steven Bacio, the co-founder of GrowSF, a moderate political advocacy group.

It only took eight years of spiraling crime, boarded-up storefronts, homeless campgrounds, and a defund movement for Democrats to land on the shocking insight that the best way to prove they can govern is: to govern. Revolutionary!

TAW.

🔥🔥🔥

The real battle for control of Congress is just beginning. This morning, Orlando’s News-6 ran a story headlined, “Where Trump is popular, Democrats look to a new crop of candidates to help win back the House.” Hint: they’re running white guys.

Democrats have hatched a plan to take back the House: run non-diverse candidates who don’t call themselves Democrats. In North Carolina, they found a farmer whose launch video featured chickens, tractors— and zero references to his own party. In Michigan, they’re betting on a centrist Kalamazoo politician with deep local roots who seems safe enough to survive Trump’s tax backlash.

It’s labeled as a high-risk, high-reward strategy — but mostly it’s a confession that the Democratic brand is so toxic, their only hope is to smear the label and hope voters fall for the folksy costumes.

Or at least, that’s what the story would have us believe.

The article pointed out that, “Heading into next year’s midterms, Democrats believe momentum is on their side. Historically, a president’s party loses ground in the midterms.” That’s true, but not ironclad. Both Clinton and Bush picked up seats in their mid-term elections, for example.

And Republicans have a structural advantage. Only three Republicans are up for election in House districts where Kamala Harris won last year, while 13 Democrats are running in districts where Trump won. Even with their folksy chicken farmers and tractor ads, they’re sitting in a hole.

But it is possible that, despite all their apparent woes —leaderless, rudderless, and underfunded— the Democrats have been holding back some super-secret political plan. There’s some evidence they’ve been cagey. For instance, they have still not released the much-ballyhooed “post-mortem” on the 2024 elections.

However, we’re now getting to “fish or cut bait” season, as they would say down on the farm.

The primaries are scheduled for early next year. So candidates must start declaring anytime now through November. The Democrats’ plan, whatever it is, will be unleashed soon. Based on the News-6 story, so far the plan sounds like a Clintonesque triangulation.

🔥 Jamie Ager (NC-11) is a good old boy who emphasizes being “neighborly,” helping poor people, and feeding folks after Hurricane Helene. He calls Democrats “too academic, politically correct, and scripted.” His ads specifically did not mention trans policies or immigration. He’s running as a generic good neighbor, not as a culture warrior.

Those omissions are deliberate. In a district Trump carried by double digits, transsexuals and illegal immigrants are Democrat kryptonite.

Sean McCann (MI) is well buttoned-up, and all about community values, Medicaid funding, and local trust. It’s the same deal: he talks about healthcare and tax cuts, not about DEI or illegal immigration. Again, he’s carefully steering away from national hot buttons.

And all the candidates the News-6 story gushed about are white men.

But the line that most caught my interest was this: “Grayson Barnette, a Democratic strategist who helped recruit Jamie Ager, said in some districts it’s a risk to run a candidate who hasn’t held elected office before.”

DEI has hollowed out the Democrat bench. And that’s a problem. Let’s talk Politics 101.

🔥 Someday I need to write a book about everything I’ve learned about politics during the pandemic. There’s a lot of basic stuff that most of us armchair warriors fail to understand. One of the most vexing things is the way the parties select candidates.

If you’re like me, you’ve suffered through countless examples where the party backed some awful RINO incumbent instead of picking a much better-looking conservative option, or backed some shifty scoundrel instead of ditching them for a new option more in line with America First.

Tea Partiers know exactly what I’m talking about.

But here’s the thing. It’s not that the GOP loves RINOs. It’s a simple math equation. For better or worse, there’s an iron law of politics, and it begins with two core qualifications for any party-backed candidate: (1) the ability to win, and (2) the ability to raise money.

If you think of a political party as a business, it makes much more sense. Resources are limited. Thus, the organization tends to be risk-averse. Waste not, want not. Normally, it’s considered madness to back a candidate for national office who hasn’t at least already won something like dog-catcher or tax appraiser.

That’s why the Democrat operative called Jamie Ager’s freshman run for Congress “a risk.” There’s no evidence he can plow the whole political field.

It actually makes sense. Local races are where all the skeletons are dug out of the closet. It’s where candidates prove they can survive the race without saying something moronic and losing at the last minute. The last thing a party needs is to heavily invest in an inexperienced candidate who flames out right when it’s too late to replace them.

For us in the motivated but unskilled cheap seats, this means we shouldn’t expect the GOP to be enthusiastic about a MAGA favorite, not if that person has never actually won an election before. It also means that, if we want more MAGA people in office, we need to keep feeding the pipeline at the local level first.

Remember local, local, local?

🔥 The second “golden criterion” is the proven ability to raise money. If a candidate can’t consistently fundraise, then at some point, they will always become a financial burden on the party. You can only afford so many of those before it starts to hurt.

The best candidates fund themselves— and bring in even more for the party. Those are your rainmakers.

So if you combine all that, so long as a candidate is a Republican and will vote with the party, then ideological purity falls behind their proven capability of winning and their fund-raising ability.

You can love it or hate it. It changes nothing. That’s an unbreakable rule. Whenever parties break that rule, they usually learn another hard, expensive lesson.

This Iron Law is what makes the Democrats’ triangulation strategy so very difficult for them. They’ve long purged moderates and non-diverse people from their ranks, substituting trans candidates with nose rings and purple hair. Now they have to scrape up some “risky” farmland candidates who’ve never run for elected office before— and thus have no track record of winning or raising money.

Will it work? The next few months will shed light on how competitive the midterms are likely to be. The media won’t tell you, but don’t worry. I’ll cover it carefully.

Have a magnificent Monday! Wheel on back here tomorrow morning for lots more essential news and commentary.

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