Gov Will Keep Us Together

Some listeners may have been a tad dubious when Trump proclaimed that the theme of his inaugural speech would be unity. But give credit where credit is due: Our allies are ushering a period of extreme unity. It just doesn’t include us. WaPo (Gift Article): Trump is pushing Canada and Europe closer together. Sadly, unity is not the only thing our (former?) allies might be unifying around. FP: An Unreliable America Means More Countries Want the Bomb. “For the last eight decades, the United States has served as a security guarantor to many countries in both Europe and Asia. Trump insists that Washington has received the short end of the stick from these arrangements, since it was the U.S. nuclear arsenal that served as the ultimate deterrent in defense of the United States’ allies. The massive upside of U.S. security guarantees, however, including for Americans, has been the astonishing containment of nuclear proliferation elsewhere.” (Not what we had in mind when conservatives promised a focus on the nuclear family.)

+ In the great journalistic spirit of both-sidesism, let’s not ignore the unity when it comes to spirits. AP: Trump’s tariff wars forge rare bipartisan alliance in Kentucky as bourbon makers fear escalation.