I think I haven't been clear enough in explaining my position - apologies. I think we agree on most things in terms of material reality.
In short, this is my position:
- competency in governance has no bearing on political success in the USA (save only in disaster situations);
- as such, Trump is adept at navigating the US political system, despite being incompetent at actually governing; and
- in that context Trump demonstrates a cunning that the rest of the US political establishment does not.
In that context, to your points.
Agreed - he is incompetent at governing, and this is a good example of it. It's just that this particular situation the incompetence actually impacted on the day-to-day lives of people in a meaningful way, which impacted on his election. Think of all of the other shitshows that Trump did during his first term that didn't end up meaningfully impacting on his re-election chances.
Agreed again - but he played it in such a away that he fed his base red meat politically, and then pulled back early enough that they didn't actually feel that much pain in their day-to-day lives. It was incredibly stupid, but it was not damaging ultimately to him personally in a political way.
Not quite I think - China is playing chess, Trump is trying to flip the table, but he hasn't realised that China has bolted the table to the ground and not even full retard strength can flip it.