{"id":36272,"date":"2025-04-17T12:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T17:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=36272"},"modified":"2025-04-18T15:14:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T20:14:04","slug":"the-joke-unmaking-american-greatness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=36272","title":{"rendered":"Unmaking America great &#8211; My take and a Chinese take"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=36261\">Last post<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/?p=36284\">Next post<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>HERE&#8217;S MY VIEW OF TRUMP AS AN AMERICAN. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I used this vinyl cutout at the recent Hands off protest in Duluth. I made it for my Wizard of Oz tableau in snow shown below. It was pretty beaten up when I took it sans the distressed US Flag to our Civic center. It was only painted on one side because originally I designed it to face the street and its flag had been beaten off by the wind. I&#8217;d love to mass produce it. Send me an email of encouragement at: <a href=\"mailto:harrywelty@charter.net\">harrywelty@charter.net<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54458517169_551ddb7d44_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here it is in its original setting. I&#8217;ve made almost ten anti-Trump snow sculptures since he rolled down the Trump Tower escalator:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54287750410_f18e58c9a9_c.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\nI just googled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=Welty+Trump+snow+sculptures&#038;oq=Welty+Trump+snow+sculptures&#038;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTExNDQzajBqN6gCALACAA&#038;sourceid=chrome&#038;ie=UTF-8\">Welty Trump snow sculptures<\/a> where you can see a few of them. I&#8217;m still working on becoming Trump&#8217;s worst nightmare in northern Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/duluthreader.com\/articles\/2025\/01\/30\/130525-wizardry\">Here&#8217;s a commentary I wrote about it<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>AND THE CHINESE VIEW OF TRUMP<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chinese business views Trump as their secret weapon for helping China overtake America as the world&#8217;s economic leader. In their view its supremacy is overdue by 2000 years when China&#8217;s wealth surpassed the greatness of Rome.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/16\/opinion\/trump-tariffs-china-ecommerce.html\">The NYTimes Story<\/a> requires a subscription.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a short sample:<\/p>\n<p><em>Opinion: &#8220;many share a sense that, however painful they may be in the short term, the tariffs will eventually spur China to assume its rightful place as the world\u2019s leader and the beacon of a new phase of globalization that\u2019s no longer centered on America.<\/p>\n<p>On Taobao, a Chinese domestic e-commerce platform, you can buy a ceramic statue of Mr. Trump to bring good luck to your business. The original is called Xi Tian Dong Fo Tu Lan Pu: Trump, the all-knowing Buddha of the West, or Western Heaven.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And I found &#8221; Xi Tian Dong Fo Tu Lan Pu&#8221; in a Wikipedia entry. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trump_Buddha\">from Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/6\/66\/Trump_Buddha_statue.webp\/282px-Trump_Buddha_statue.webp.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Love him or hate him Trump has become a good luck symbol for Chinese business even now with the uncertainty of who will be worst hurt by Trumps dim witted tariffs that have caused 5 trillion dollars worth of US investments to disappear. Many Chinese business are putting this sculpture up in their offices the way Chinese lunchrooms in the US have Hello Kitty&#8217;s waving at their customers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last post Next post HERE&#8217;S MY VIEW OF TRUMP AS AN AMERICAN. I used this vinyl cutout at the recent Hands off protest in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,127],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36272"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36286,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36272\/revisions\/36286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}