The self righteous indignation from the media and professional diplomatic quarters at the phone call of President Elect Trump to the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is improper.
Yes, our official policy has been a "One-China" policy where Taiwan isn't officially recognized, but anybody who does two seconds worth of research can see that is only on paper and probably needs to be revisited.
Taiwan is our 9th largest trading partner and we sell them billions of dollars' worth of weapons. We furthermore unofficially but actually spread our own military network as a defense for Taiwan. Taiwan itself is a major investor in mainland China and there is much official or unofficial business between them. This "no official ties" stuff is paper thin for both the relationship of America and Mainland China with Taiwan. The protests from Beijing are something we can live with to better secure the ties with Taiwan, a democratic ally in an area dominated by an ever increasingly belligerent mainland China.
Make no mistake: Donald Trump will speak to China, regardless of any discussions with Taiwan and he will let them know that while he wants diplomatic relations with them, but he is not going to let the United States be bullied or pushed around.
And really, all this Taiwan hand-wringing does is once again prove we pay no attention to our friends anymore.
While Sec. Hillary Clinton was accusing Vladimir Putin of tampering and hacking - claims she never came close to substantiating - while threatening to shoot down Russian planes with a no-fly zone in Syria, Donald Trump said he wants to sit down with Putin and work things out.
While the current administration made a deal with Iran that was so bad that they had to - as Obama administration official Ben Rhodes admitted to the New York Times - hid it from the American public and then compounded that by making a ransom payment they tried to deny making, Donald Trump has said he wants to get rid of that terrible agreement and make a better one that puts America's interests first.
While the current administration puts out a press release touting the so-called mixed legacy of Fidel Castro, a murderous, authoritarian dictator who imprisoned and executed gays, Afro-Cubans and political dissidents of all stripes, President-elect Trump called Castro out for the monster he truly was and warned Cuba that if they don't change their ways, the United States has no reason to do anything that is to their benefit.
Under the watch of the last two administrations, we spent trillions of dollars and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people - both American and those in the middle east - to fight wars that were not in the American interest while creating more enemies abroad. In addition to leaving Iraq a mess we turned Libya into a chaotic war zone with migrants struggling for their lives.
This is exactly why the American people elected Donald Trump in the first place. They want a President who isn't going to pretend to not have relations with a country when we clearly do, he isn't going to make terrible deals with foreign governments and deny them, who isn't going to spend trillions of dollars and waste hundreds of thousands of lives in unnecessary wars, and who most certainly isn't going to let the United States be anybody's doormat.
Peace through strength. No more politics as usual.
America first.
It is about time somebody stood for that in this country and our friends again and I, for one, am proud as can be that we finally have a leader at the top of our government, Donald Trump, who feels the same way.