Ben Shapiro is harshing the buzz of some zealous Trump supporters this morning with a little bit of a reality check regarding the Trump-Kim summit:
Trump made a lot of promises about what Kim Jung Un will do. I haven't heard any of those promises from Kim, and they're not in the signed agreement. If those promises materialize, this was a masterstroke. If they don't, it was a full debacle. (/1)
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 12, 2018
I agree with Shapiro. There is still a high degree of potential for Trump to end up with egg on his face. Meaning that Kim could visit the White House in a few months to get his photo op and return home only to start testing ballistic missiles again and making threats of nuclear war. This is something I am sincerely worried about.
But on the flip side Kim could keep his word and begin the denuclearization process in the coming weeks. In that case this would be a masterstroke by Trump, as Shapiro puts it.
He continues to make his point at the seriousness of this:
Imagine the Nazi flag in place of the North Korean flag. Kim is the closest thing to Hitler on the planet today. We put our flag alongside his, and Trump praised him fulsomely. That better reap some dividends. (/2)
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 12, 2018
If we receive nothing but empty words and a photo op between the most powerful leader in the world and an evil tinpot dictator who murders his own family members, that's a true disgrace to the American flag. (/3)
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 12, 2018
It would be a disgrace. Trump is essentially asking us to ‘trust him’ and his administration in working with a country that has been pursuing nuclear weapons for twenty years and has the worst human rights record in the world.
Make no mistake: we sacrificed something in the past 36 hours. The reward had better be worth it. Pre-emptive triumphalism is an ugly look, and it's even uglier when you're not talking about deposing a dictator but strengthening one. (END)
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 12, 2018
In other words Shapiro is saying that Trump is all in at this point and that if the payoff doesn’t come to fruition it will be an epic failure on his part and that of his administration.
It’s a high risk, high reward scenario and we’re definitely still in the ‘high risk’ phase.
Shapiro summed it up with this tweet:
Pre-emptive celebration of a Great Victory by the president is sheer partisan hackery. Nothing has been accomplished...yet. Perhaps it will be. Celebrate then.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 12, 2018
I agree…mostly. I do think the victory celebrations should be tempered a great deal, primarily because this is not victory. It is only the beginning of the process.
I don’t want to take away from the fact that what just happened is historic and definitely a solid step in the right direction. It’s something that many thought would never happen.
But we should NEVER forget our history, especially when a similar moment to this happened just 80 years ago:
We all know how that turned out and we should be very wary of Kim Jong Un using this moment to make Trump look almost as foolish as Chamberlain.