Branding

Earlier today I enjoyed very much reading Sundance's enthusiasm and genuine surprise about the latest developments in Korea. Kim Jong-un made some astonishing statements about reunification. The Sundance group could see the general outlines a year ago but actual events overtook their most wild expectations.

Sundance asserts what we're seeing now is the process of Kim Jong-un rebranding. The entire nation must undergo rebranding. Says Sundance, China's Xi Jinping seeding ploughshares over missiles takes careful control. It takes time for business suits to replace military uniforms.

In the comments to Sundance's post readers imagined how the media will spin these tremendous events to deny Trump his success. All this happened because of Trump. No Trump, then no breakthrough. Trump had to initiate a very real economic war with China and win it. Then Chia would sacrifice N. Korea. (rebrand, reposition, rethink, whatever). Actually, Trump acknowledged China already engaged economic war and we're losing it badly due to poor trading agreements and intellectual property theft. Trump shifted the weights in the balance. He used the power given him to shift winners and losers.  Within the new global economic reality, that type (brand) of belligerent buffer that N. Korea is for China is no longer useful. It's detrimental to China. All that was due to one man. Trump. Whatever comes of this, nothing at all like it could have happened without Trump. He was the only non-politician willing to challenge China. And the storms Trump created, the wailing, the rending of clothes, the gnashing of teeth is incredible, from his own side. Literally surrounded by enemies and opponents and mere antagonists. After all that he cannot be given credit.

Asian reporting reflects this. Asian Review. They're writing about Nobel Prize for the principals.

U.S. President Donald Trump has brought something new to the North Korean problem: the understanding, lacked by his predecessors, that it can only be tackled as an element in the larger U.S.-China relationship. Playing bad cop and good cop simultaneously seems to have produced some results. It is reliably reported that the Chinese leadership ordered dramatic cuts in fuel, food and maintenance supplies to North Korea earlier this year and deployed troops near border areas to prepare for a collapse scenario.

Talk of Nobel Prize is amusing. That award lost its cachet a decade ago by being indulgently squandered to the point of confusing its recipient.

The woman with the oversized painting of the burning twin towers that she bought in Iran and  that she has hanging in her dining room knows this. [christiane amanpour, twitter]

South Korea’s Foreign Minister  tells me in Seoul that “clearly credit goes to President Trump” for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table. He’s been determined to come to grips with this from day one.

So how can media spin this omitting Trump? Readers offered several suggestions. Commenter alliwantissometruth wrote:

* President Trump Interferes with Foreign Countries Affairs
* Trump Butts In Between a Local Squabble
* Trump Makes Peace Between North & South Korea All About Him
* Trump Thinks America Should Have an Army but North Korea Shouldn’t
* President Trump Only Likes Certain Koreans. Racism at Play?
* Trump Won’t Allow North Korea to Defend Itself
* Trump Bullies North Korea
* Trump to Obtain North Korean Land for New Hotel-Resort?

That's funny. And perceptive. And predictive.

You know very well, Trump is a master at branding.

It seems very silly, sometimes puerile, while usually remarkably effective at sticking and often distressing for his targets, Low Energy Bush, Liddle Marco, Lyin Ted, Crooked Hillary, Hiawatha Warren, Slimeball Comey, Rocketman Kim, Failing NYT, Fake News CNN, hang on, I feel another laughing fit coming on ...

... but Trump brands people and media entities, and it really does work on their nerves. Not geopolitical situations.

I looked at Drudge Report headlining link referring to Trump branding that goes to LMT Online titled Trump rebrands diplomatic norms as global events spin on his axis.

The mental RR track alarms clang and the road barrier drops by the title that's dissected and Fisked as the page opens. Trump didn't rebrand any diplomatic norms, he dismissed them as useless, and events don't spin off Trump's axis, they're tugged by his gravitational field and they follow ineluctably. So we're off to a bad start. Watch as the LMT writer fulfills alliwantissometruth's comical prophesy.

President Donald Trump on Friday placed himself at the center of the remarkable summit between the leaders of North and South Korea, taking credit for bold and innovative diplomacy that may open a path to peace where other leaders failed. 

President Trump didn't place himself at the center of a remarkable summit. He created it! The writer mischaracterizes the simplest most basic fact. I have no idea what the rest of the article says. It might be be a positive assessment for all I know. I stopped reading and dropped down to comments because I want to see how people react to events more than I care to know what an error-stricken journalist wrote.

Facebook comments.

So it will only be people with Facebook accounts. And that eliminates a lot of people. I disable the browser Facebook blocker, refresh the page, and read them, expecting the worst of general commenters. But Drudge drives a specific type of commenter. So this could get weird.

* Trump is correct. Here are all these world leaders telling him how he's wrong when they haven't been able to accomplish anything for years. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different result it insanity. Sometimes you have take different approach. If Trump can get a majority of majority countries behind him like he did with North Korea change will happen.

* Easy to take credit when it’s you talking on a non-secure cell phone, from the heart, keeping your word, acting quickly with few if any coat holders, and are a transactional deal maker, “let’s both win, make money not war and I’ll respect you and your people as you do mine when you take responsibility and stop threatening others.”

* GOP lawmaker touts Nobel Peace Prize for Trump (link)
  ** He deserves it.
  ** Obama got one.... For being Black.

* Best president since Reagan by far. MAGA Keep it up!!
  ** Better than the great RR all the way back to TR now.

* God Bless President Trump. He's making America great again, unless you're a whiner liberal in denial.

* Wasn't it not long ago that the Democruds were whining about Trump calling out Kim and that it would cause WW III? Trump just pimp-slapped idiots like Bubba Clinton and his runt Maddy Halfbright. MAGA! Trump 2016-2024!

* Wow. Still not tired of #winning.

* Pres. Trump's foreign policy is quite simple. Be serious about not letting trouble even start. MAGA for our magnificent Pres. Trump.

* Donald Trump has turned out to be a great President. So many people in the MSM and in Hollywood have called him stupid. He has accomplished so much in so short a time. In short, he does this by leading through strength. World leaders know he is not afraid to attack. They know he puts America first. They know he means what he says; it's not empty rhetoric, like Trump's predecessors used to such worthless effect.

And so on. There's more.