Should Americans empathize with Khashoggi?

Yes. And I can’t help wondering if this is further even than Trump meant to go with his poisonous “enemies of the people” talk.

(Nobody seems to love the media more than he does, going way back. I think what his “enemies” whining means is that they’re not loving him back. And, to be as fair as I can stand to be, they did love him, but probably not for himself, and now he feels jilted.)

The Saudis seem to have had some reason to think they could count on his friendship’s giving them cover here. Indifference to murder is a worse crime, if you ask me, than blatant tariffs and other schemes, which can be reversed. Death cannot.

Not any more, Kashoggi is dead.

But don’t kid yourself. If Saudi Arabia can get away with killing journalists – you can be sure that Trump is watching closely – and I think we can see Trump and his acolytes starting to do the same in the USA.

Face it, Trump is making the US into a third-world kleptocracy that is not hesitant to use violence to reach its goals.

He is certainly stoking violence among us. All he has to do is keep telling one side to fear violence from the other, and he’s got it going both ways. Can’t get much more insidious than that. (But if there’s a way, he’ll find it. Like swamp water, he seeks the lowest level.)

It’s an important issue. But in a way, it has been an issue since Trump has been in office.

Free press, is an integral part of a healthy democracy. Maybe the most important part. Trump has NO interest in our country being a democracy.

Honestly. When it comes to almost any situation, I’d rather the US stay out of it, until Trump is gone. I have zero confidence in anything he is involved with ending well…