I listened to a Republican Congresswoman from Utah this morning on C-Span. She was asked by a caller why the Republicans kept in lockstep supporting anything that Donald Trump said or even hinted at. Her response was interesting. She implied that she may or may not agree with everything he said or did (note I said “implied”, not “said”), but that he was elected to be a “disrupter” and “disruption is always uncomfortable”, but that the important things were his goals, and not his individual actions or statements. “Ignore the process”, she said, concentrate on the results.

I think that is just another way of saying “The ends justify the means”. Now, when I (and probably you) went to school, we learned that the philosophy behind the phrase “the end justifies the means” was morally repugnant. Maybe we learned that Machiavelli first said it (false) or Marx or Lenin (false and false), but whoever said it, it wasn’t said by us. We believe in having a fair and just process; we don’t believe in ignoring the process. We never thought we would elect a president who thought that the ends justify the means. It was, to put it simply, anti-American. But, maybe here we are.

Following this segment on C-Span, there was another conversation with a Democratic Congresswoman from Wisconsin. She was asked a similar question, but phrased differently. It had to do with whether or not all Republican members of Congress were voting for bills consistently with their opinions of the particular bills. Her response (which I have heard before, of course) is that virtually no part of the MAGA agenda would pass the House of Representatives if Republican members of Congress voted their conscience. They vote (and speak) the way they do in public, she said, simply because otherwise they would be “primaried” out of office by opponents running on Elon Musk’s money, and would be replaced by others who would also vote the MAGA line.

This is, of course, another way of saying the same thing. Or maybe two ways – the individual members vote the way they do to stay in office (the ends justify the means), or the MAGA world will drive them out of office if they don’t vote the full MAGA line (the ends justify the means).

But then you have to ask: what are the ends that are so important that they justify any and all means? Other than saying he will “make America great again”, what is Trump really promising? And in responding to this question, you cannot help but asking the question as to whether his “make America great again” slogan is really the “ends” we should be focusing on, or whether the aggrandizement of the Trump family fortune is the “end” and the slogan “make America great again” is only one of the “means” to get there. This is a serious question, after all, because look: (1) even if Trump succeeds with his goal of making America great again, he knows that the next president or the one after that could unravel everything he is doing, because nothing regarding a nation-state is permanent, while (2) building up his family fortune could support his family for generations and generations, and he would get all of the posthumous credit.

Trump is now ending his trip to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, proclaiming it a great success. Perhaps it is a success; I think it’s a bit early to know. (You know the old riddle: when the Chinese sage was asked what he thought about the effect of Napoleon’s defeat on Europe of the 21st century, he responded “it’s just too soon to tell”).

We do know that it is important to the Trump family to maintain good relations with all three countries. After all, in each country, there is a Trump development (hotel or golf course) under development and Trump cannot afford to have any of those ventures go south. In addition, sovereign funds or royal family members have apparently invested over $3.5 billion in son-in-law Jared Kushner’s funds. As a spillover effect, it is important to Trump that each of these countries maintain good relations with the United States.

It is also very important for the United States to do whatever can be done to allow Boeing to be viable. Boeing, after all, is crucial to our national defense, to our commercial aviation business, and to our workforce and the economy of those places where it has major installations. So, the acquisition of a large number of new jets by the Qatari airline is important. What we do not know is whether or not Qatar would have bought these planes from Boeing without Trump’s intervention. We don’t know the terms of the deal – the delivery schedule or what could enable Qatar to change its mind as time goes on. What we do know is that, in typical Trump fashion, in making the deal public, he both overstated the number of planes to be acquired and, even more, the value of the overall contract. We do know that Boeing has had a lot of problems in the delivery of safe planes.

Trump also has announced that Saudi Arabia is going to invest $600 billion in America. This would also be good news, to the extent that it does not also mean that there will be large businesses in America that will be beholden to Saudi control, or that the Saudis will be investing in industries, like defense or information industries, that will provide them with sensitive information that might jeopardize our security.

As to Abu Dhabi, it appears that the world’s largest installation of AI data banks will be built in the Arabian desert. There is clearly much more room there than remains in the historic battle grounds of Loudoun County Virginia, but what does this mean, again, for the security of AI data, something that the future world will be so dependent on? Does it make sense, regarding the security of our own nation and economy, to have essential AI data being stored in another country, much less in another country in the volatile Middle East? How does that comport with Trump’s America First mantra?

All of these pronouncements may help our economy, and any of them may cause serious future promises. They all may come to fruition, or they all may be aborted. But do they add to our security, or do they tie us into connections with places with quite unsavory pasts and very unpredictable futures.

Did you notice that I didn’t even mention the $400 million jet, otherwise known as either the Flying Bribe I or The Albatross for Captain Gullible?