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Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
From the G-File on The Dispatch Hey, I just participated in a panel at the University of Pennsylvania on conservatism and the future of the GOP. Nothing got settled, but I made some friendships on my journey. Anyway, I bring this up because I am now parked at the Biden Welcome Center in Delaware. This is the one named after Joe. The one dedicated to Hunter is a glass coffee table in a hotel suite, with rolled-up $100 bills and a pharmacopeia of intoxicants and antibiotics. 'Put down your purses and check out the Biden Welcome Center.' The real point being, I only have so much time to write this. There's a staff at the office I can't keep waiting, and there are quadrupeds at home that have very high expectations for me. (And speaking of which, I have been told by my editors to remind you all that the first round of Dispawtch bracket voting—official voting, not the pick 'em bracket—kicked off today at 5 p.m. ET.) I'm often told that I never have anything good to say about Trump. That's often true. The point of this observation is almost always to dismiss or diminish the negative things I say about Trump. I mean, it's not like the people who say it are starving for fawning or friendly coverage of Trump. There's plenty of that out there. Indeed, there are several TV networks and countless websites and podcasts dedicated to exactly that. No, what they want to do is argue that my valid criticisms are invalidated by the fact that I have 'Trump Derangement Syndrome.' As a matter of logic, this is basically a shoot-the-messenger fallacy. I have numerous problems with this argument, starting with the fact that I don't think I have it. I certainly haven't gone full Jen Rubin. But beyond that, a lot of the people who use the phrase 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' have a very narrow definition of the term. It's definitely true that Trump makes people crazy. But the quality of that craziness is not distributed entirely on the anti-Trump side. Sure, I listen to a lot of self-styled 'resistance' types and can understand why people think those types have lost their minds. But if (some of) the 'resistance' folks are nuts, so are many members of the 'counter-resistance.' I mean, knock yourself out mocking the MSNBC crowd, but if you can't acknowledge that, say, Peter Navarro or Rudy Giuliani is bonkers, then you have the pro-Trump version of TDS. 'Orange Man bad' thinking can be deranged (though there are plenty of solid arguments that the Orange Man is, in fact, bad). But 'Orange Man Good' is often just as delusional. Still, I will throw you a bone. I'll do it Spaghetti Western Style—i.e. I'll give you the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I'll do it while squinting against the dramatic lighting. It is unambiguously good that Donald Trump is bombing the stuffing out of the Houthis. Smashing pirates, brigands, and terrorists is, at a very fundamental level, what the government is there for. Indeed, were it not for the need to crush the Barbary Pirates, we wouldn't have a constitution in the first place. The Articles of Confederation were inadequate to the task of building and funding a competent navy. That was one of the main reasons the Founders convened to set up a new form of government. Regardless, it was outrageous that Joe Biden tolerated Houthi aggression throughout his presidency. And it is good and necessary that Trump is opening a can of whup-ass on them. Last night Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Laura Ingraham, one of his appointees to the Kennedy Center Board and a Fox host. Here's an excerpt: 'You're tougher with Canada than you are with our biggest adversaries. Why?' asked Ingraham. 'Only because it's meant to be our 51st state, and I mean that,' Trump said. 'Okay, but we need their territory. They have territorial advantage. We're not going to let them get close to China, right?' pressed the Fox host. 'Look, I deal with every country—directly or indirectly. One of the nastiest countries to deal with is Canada.' This is very bad. I take a backseat to very few people in having fun at Canada's expense. But Canada is an ally. The longest unarmed border in the world is our border with Canada. They are military and strategic allies. Starting with FDR and ending with Trump's revised trade agreement in his first term, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, Canada has organized its economy to be harmonized with the United States. The Trump administration has been pretending that Canada has been 'ripping us off.' But it has been abiding by the very trade agreement Trump bragged about replacing NAFTA with. The logical upshot of this is that Trump wrote a trade treaty that screwed America. (In case it matters to you, we have a very beneficial and preferential relationship with Canada when it comes to oil. We get more oil from Canada—at a discounted price, without fear of disruption—than the next five foreign sources combined. We get 15 times more oil from them than from Saudi Arabia. Now Canadians, in response to Trump's tariff threats, are trying to figure out how to muck up that arrangement and sell more oil elsewhere, which would be bad for us.) The administration has floated all sorts of arguments—some with a little merit, I guess—and some totally contrived to justify our bullying of our peaceful neighbor and ally. Should Canada spend more on defense? Sure. Should it do more to stop the negligible amount of fentanyl coming across the border? Maybe, sure. Reform its banking laws for more favorable treatment of American banks? I guess. But who really cares? I mean, it's a weird form of populism that says it should be a huge priority for another nation to boost the profits of our banks. But the point is that all of this stuff was pretextual garbage. Trump in his own words says that the real reason he's making these arguments (the better word would be 'claims') is that he wants to annex the whole of the country. Now, I'm actually all in favor of annexing Canada (and Greenland), if Canada wants to be annexed (ditto Greenland). But they don't, and will never, ever, want that. And what really bothers me about the way Trump talks about Canada is that it is remarkably similar to the way Putin talks about Ukraine. It's not a real country. It shouldn't exist. Canadians are really just Americans who, through an accident of history, got a country that doesn't really work and shouldn't really be a country. No, I don't think Trump is going to authorize the creation of 'little green men' as a military pretext to launch an invasion. But the main reason I don't think he'll do that is because he won't be able to pull it off. That's why this talk is merely bad. Now, let's talk, briefly, about the ugly. I'll stick with that word instead of 'evil,' but evil might turn out to be the better word. The Trump administration has objectively sided with Russia in the Russia-Ukraine war. The list of preemptive concessions to Russia is so staggeringly long I can't even cut-and-paste Jim Geraghty's excellent compilation without making this a 3,000-word 'news'letter. The significance of these concessions is multifaceted. But the relevant point here is just that the concessions prove Trump is not an honest broker between the two sides. He is coming to Russia's aid despite the fact the United States staked its honor and its word in support of Ukraine. That is dishonorable. It is unwise. You can argue that Biden and Congress—with ample Republican support—should not have put our credibility on Ukraine's side. You can argue that we shouldn't have rallied our allies to do likewise. I disagree profoundly. But the fact is we did. But Trump feels no obligation to maintain our honor or integrity on the world stage. But I've said all this before. The new ugliness, and perhaps the new profound evil if reports turn out to be true, is that we've decided to become accomplices to Russia's tactic of stealing and brainwashing Ukrainian children. The U.S. State Department, ostensibly under the leadership of Marco Rubio, has ceased funding a project that tracks these abducted children. I think that's appalling. But, again, that's not the really ugly thing. Members of Congress have 'reason to believe' that the DOGE crew that halted the funding didn't stop there. They're worried that the administration actually deleted the files relating to the approximately 30,000 abducted children. Think about that. Imagine if the U.S. were helping track Hamas' Israeli hostages, and then just decided to delete the files. Imagine how you would feel if you were the parents of one of those children. You're free to make the argument that spending money tracking stolen children was a waste of taxpayer resources. I'd disagree. But what on earth is the argument for effectively burning the records? Maybe some cold-hearted, stoney-eyed realist could make the case that we should have dangled this 'card' to Putin as an inducement to make concessions. I think that would be a moral horror. But okay. We screwed a lot of people at Yalta in the name of realism, too. But why do it for free? Now, we don't know yet whether the files have been deleted. Maybe they weren't. Maybe they were deleted by accident (which would be quite the indictment of the administration's competence). But if they were deleted on purpose, that would be an ugliness so vile and so profoundly ugly that one would need a better command of language to fully capture its evil.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Realism for a Condo Salesman
From the G-File on The Dispatch Hey, Donald Trump lashed out at the democratically elected Ukrainian president today, calling him 'a dictator.' Forget that this is a lie, just like Trump's insinuation that Ukraine 'started' the war with Russia—a claim that is the geopolitical equivalent of saying a rape victim started it by, well, being rapable. But I don't want to talk about the lie. You can defend Trump by telling me that it's sort of true because elections are overdue in Ukraine. They are! You know why? Because the entire country is mobilized for a war it didn't start and about a fifth of it is occupied by a country led by an actual dictator who targets children's hospitals and sanctions rape, child abductions, and mass slaughter by its troops. But if you don't have something better than that, don't even bother trying. No, what I want to know is, why does Trump care if Volodymyr Zelensky is a dictator? He doesn't care that Putin, Xi, or Kim are dictators. Heck, America is negotiating over Ukraine's survival in Saudi Arabia, which is not exactly a democracy. Let's back up. We were told that the Trump era represented a sharp break with the outdated ideas of the past. The neocons? Done. Zombie Reaganism? Dead, not just zombie dead, but head-shot dead. Idealism, multilateralism, defending the international liberal order gitchy-gooeyness in all of its forms? Over. Kaput. Hawkishness, forever wars, adventurism? That neocon trash went down the chute on Election Day. Pax Trumpiana—a new Golden Age—will have us whistling zippity-doo-dah out of our asses atop a shining city on a hill. America first for as far as the eye can see. How will Trump do it? Well, Trump is the greatest negotiator in history! Sure, people took him literally when he said that he'd end the Ukraine war in a day, or even before he took office. But when that didn't happen, they took him figuratively. That's how it always works with Trump apologists. Still, they believed he was going to put America first, by fixing the border, beating inflation, and ending the weaponization of the justice system (which must be reassuring to Danielle Sassoon as she lawyers up in anticipation of the 'investigation' Trump's Department of Justice is launching because she refused an unethical order). But let's stick with foreign policy for a moment. J.D. Vance in particular was supposed to be the one-man Brain Trust unpacking a shiny new realism for everyone to play with. He was supposed to be the guy who'd put meat on the bones of Trump's foreign policy by post-truth Truth posts. Last year, Vance gave a big speech at the Quincy Institute, the self-styled home of a smug realism that tends to always blame America first. (It was launched in part with money from both the Koch brothers and George Soros, so you know it's gonna get foreign policy just right. Note that I have long been a fan of the Kochs—just not on foreign policy, where they subscribed to a venerable form of cranky libertarian idealism.) Vance laid out a strong (but sort of odd) defense of Israel. But good for him—that can't have gone down well there. He also made a case for Very Serious Realism®. Everything America did with regard to foreign policy for 40 years was wrong. 'Somehow the foreign policy consensus of this town seems to almost always be wrong,' the new Talleyrand explained. Why? Because it was all based on moralistic sloganeering. In an interview with The Times, he told Ross Douthat that the first pillar of his new realism was that 'moralisms about 'This country is good,' 'This country is bad' are largely useless.' To be clear: this is not a new idea. Indeed, it's a standard line of realist thought, and it has some merit. That's why this idea, in moderation, was a major plank of conservative and neoconservative foreign policy throughout the Cold War. But unlike those fools and nincompoops, Vance really means it. So, when Trump came out of the gate refusing to rule out the use of force on a founding NATO ally to fork over Greenland, the thought was this was just bluster from the World's Greatest Negotiator®. Don't worry, we're gonna get to the Very Serious Foreign Policy For Grown-Ups we were promised. At least we're not doing any of that Bush-Cheney nation-building nonsense in the Middle East! Then Trump set free his inner condo salesman and floated the idea of seizing Gaza, displacing 2 million people, and creating a new Middle East Riviera. And everyone acted like Politburo members after Stalin farted. Act like you didn't notice and hope the stink dissipates before you're required to say it smells like fresh-baked cookies. The new secretary of defense went to Brussels and, on behalf of the Great Negotiator, pushed most of America's negotiation chips into the pot before the cards were dealt. No NATO membership for Ukraine. Russia will keep the land it stole. Because grown-ups. In fairness to Pete Hegseth, he did try to walk back the blunder the next day. But one could almost hear foreign policy experts saying, 'If this is newly sober Hegseth, maybe we should tap a keg for him.' The good news? J.D. Vance went to Europe to straighten everybody out. Vance's two speeches, one in Paris, the other in Munich, received rapturous reviews from American conservatives, including my friends over at National Review. Now, I mostly liked his speech in Paris on artificial intelligence, technology, and regulation. It was a good speech. He is exactly right about Europe's sclerosis-inducing obsession with regulation. But you know what? It was awfully … Reaganite. The funny thing is, Vance wasn't so much contradicting Trump's views on regulation, which are more right than wrong. But he was in some tension with his own. After all, Vance is the guy who likes industrial policy and supported Lina Kahn, Biden's decidedly European-style Federal Trade Commission chair. It's funny how Vance, a Peter Thiel protégé, is—now—a principled limited government guy for Big Tech, but not so much for steel, cars, washing machines, refrigerators, and of course, toasters. Look I get it. He'd respond that his protectionism is consistent with his laissez-faire approach to Big Tech. He's for lifting regulations at home, and imposing them at the border. Or something like that. But that doesn't change the fact that he thinks the government is smarter than the market and he knows how to pick winners and losers. But we can explore all that another time. The really important speech was in Munich. Now, you might have expected the champion of cold-eyed realism and scourge of neoconservative moralizing, idealism, and democracy fetishization in foreign policy to deliver a blistering speech full of hard truths about military might and realpolitik. But there was precious little of that. Instead, he lit into our European allies for their failure to live up to liberal ideals. He mocked Romania for canceling an election Russia had meddled in. He rightly torched the United Kingdom for its increasingly Orwellian attitude towards speech and religious liberty. Now, I agree with the substance of a lot of this stuff. But wait a second. The whole point of realism is to disregard the moral character of allies. And yet the great realist hope—and post-liberal hope—wagged his judgy finger at allies for being insufficiently liberal and democratic. 'Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters,' said one of the foremost apologists for Donald Trump's attempt to steal an election. 'There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don't.' That reference to 'firewalls' was in part a rebuke of Germany's policy of shunning neo-Nazi elements and movements. The Germans don't do this because they're 'woke,' they do it because Germany gave into a madness that led to carnage and genocide on an industrial scale. Perhaps the Germans have a better understanding of their demons and the dangers of Nazis than the 40-year-old vice president who, just a few years ago, mused that his current boss may be 'America's Hitler.' Vance met with leaders of the AfD, a hard right populist, anti-immigrant party that is not quite neo-Nazi but plays footsie with such groups. It's earned the support of Elon Musk as well. It is perfectly fine to argue that Germany has taken its heroic effort to learn from its horrific past too far. The recent 60 Minutes segment on Germany's policing of hate speech is a very strong piece of evidence for that view. Still, I am more with Bret Stephens on this. But again, huh? Why is Vance so keen on moralizing about a democratic ally's internal affairs but blasé about, I dunno, Russia's external barbarism and internal tyranny? Amoral cynicism for our enemies but Wilsonian moralizing for our friends is an interesting foreign policy, but 'realism' it ain't. Vance argues, fairly, that we should hold members of the free world to a higher standard than we apply to our enemies. Looking at the modest illiberal transgressions of our allies, he said, 'we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say 'ourselves,' because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.' Good to hear. But you know that 60 Minutes episode I mentioned earlier? The segment on Germany's excessive policing was indeed chilling. But so was Elon Musk's response to another segment on the same episode. The program ran a report critical of Musk's DOGE efforts. Whatever you think of the segment is irrelevant. But Musk's reaction is very relevant. '60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world!' Musk said on X. 'They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. They deserve a long prison sentence.' Musk was referring to the Kamala Harris interview the Trump campaign insists—with scant proof—was so deceptively edited it amounted to 'election interference.' Trump's Federal Communications Commission came down on CBS News for it, and Trump is suing 60 Minutes over it. Now, explain to me how Russia's multi-front and sweeping interference is a triviality that in no way justifies censorship or retribution that might chill speech, but run-of-the-mill liberal media bias justifies a 'long prison sentence.' If Vance feels comfortable hectoring allies about their hostility to free speech in the name of 'holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard' surely holding America to that standard shouldn't be hard. But let's get back to where we started. As he throws Ukraine under the bus in an effort to bail out Vladimir Putin—and that is clearly what he is trying to do—Trump has settled on a line of attack that should make realists squirm. Zelensky is a dictator! He hasn't held elections! 'In most democracies, elections take place even during wartime,' Trump's envoy to the conflict, Keith Kellogg, opined. 'I think it's important. I believe it's good for democracy.' As Noah Rothman quips, 'we're all neocons now!' Noah goes on to explain that these criticisms of Zelensky as undemocratic are tendentious at best. But, again, are we really supposed to believe Trump actually cares about Ukrainian democracy? Really? Believing that is as dumb as believing that most MAGA intellectuals are sincere nationalists. They talk a big game about the sacredness of national sovereignty, but it's sovereignty for me, not for thee. After all, Ukraine is a nation, and Trump is happy to let Russia carve it up. (Other similar examples are Denmark, Canada, Panama, Mexico…) Vance has made it clear that he thinks it's fine to wade into our allies' internal affairs, too. Now, I'm not saying all of the policies and opinions associated with these postures are wrong, I am saying they have nothing to do with anything like a consistent principle other than Trump's Veruca Salt-like 'I want it now!' attitude. This isn't brilliant realist foreign policy, because it's neither brilliant nor realist. It's Trumpism on a global stage: grab whatever argument works in the moment, even if it contradicts everything or anything you've said up till that point, in order to get what you want. If saying Ukraine started the war gets you what you want, say that. If whining about the lack of elections will get you five more minutes of fawning coverage on Fox, say that. Trump wants Putin at G7 summits. He wants to visit Moscow. He wants Putin's strongman musk to rub off on him in photo ops. There's no grand strategy behind it. My favorite illustration of this comes not from Trump or Vance, but from Hegseth. 'We see Poland as the model ally on the continent, willing to invest not just in their defense, but in our shared defense and the defense of the continent. . . .' Hegseth said in Warsaw. 'Words are cheap, but in deed and in actions. Poland leads by example, on a lot of things, including defense spending, building up Polish military readiness.' I largely agree with this. But you know why Poland is spending so much on defense? Because they worry they'll be next after Ukraine. Russia has invaded or declared war on Poland at least five times since the 17th century. It'd be more, but for long stretches of time Poland was already occupied by Russia. The Trump administration is somewhere between blasé and contemptuous about the reason Poland is a model NATO ally, because they want to pretend that the real reason is that Poland is doing what Trump wants. That's it. That's Trump's foreign policy: What I want for whatever reason I want it. The rest is pretext, spin, and trolling.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A New Word for Trump's Foreign Policy
From the G-File on The Dispatch Hey, Some people are excited about the release of the newest PlayStation or the latest Air Jordans. Me, I get kind of giddy when they roll out some new ideological faction. Of course, much like a new video game console or line of sneakers, what's new is usually pretty superficial and cosmetic. Still, it gives us something to talk about. Even more exciting: when they discover an old ideological faction hiding in plain sight. It's a little like when they find some new species of goat or jungle cat. It's been here all this time, but nobody snapped a picture until now. Or maybe it's like finding out that a network of Druids or Pythagoreans are a powerful and influential constituency and you never noticed. That's a bit how I felt reading this essay in the New York Times explaining Donald Trump's foreign policy. He's not an isolationist or non-interventionist, and he's obviously not a neoconservative or internationalist. He's a … sovereignist, writes historian Jennifer Mittelstadt. Sovereignist? What's that? I mean, my spellchecker doesn't even recognize it. Well, the gist is that sovereignists believe that the guiding principle of American foreign policy is we can do whatever we want—or whatever we can get away with. To that end, alliances are problematic because they constrain our freedom of action. But what should really be avoided are international institutions, multilateral compacts, treaties, bowling leagues, etc. In Mittelstadt's telling, the sovereignist movement was born in reaction to the effort to enlist America in the League of Nations. The 'irreconcilables,' were those senators who opposed joining the league no matter what. Mittelstadt doesn't get into the weeds, but the irreconcilables' biggest peeve (other than just disliking Woodrow Wilson) was with Article X of the League Covenant, which would require members of the league to defend each other if attacked. For the sovereignists, being on the hook to get into someone else's fight was an unacceptable violation of, well, American sovereignty. Since then, the sovereigntist movement has been the driving force behind opposition to U.S. membership in the U.N., various multilateral agreements—and even NATO. Now, I have quibbles with Mittelstadt's narrative and analysis. First, calling it a 'movement' makes it sound a bit more organized and coherent than it is. It's more like a longstanding sentiment or argument, than a cause with meetings and the like. Second, it's a little problematic to say the president is part of a movement that he's almost surely never heard of. But only a little. I mean, just because he's never declared 'I'm a narcissist' doesn't mean he isn't one. Last, Mittelstadt suggests that this is a decidedly conservative movement. I get why she does this — sovereigntism is and has been a more robust force on the right for the last century. Robert Taft was definitely a sovereigntist. So was Jesse Helms. Reagan definitely had a sovereigntist streak—hence his opposition to giving away the Panama Canal. Anti-U.N. sentiment has always been a significant force on the right. But if we're going to say this thing was born in 1919 with the 'Irreconcilables,' it's worth pointing out that some of them were Democrats and quite a few of the Republicans were progressives, like Hiram Johnson, William Borah, and Robert La Follette. Also, I could make the argument that, in his first term at least, FDR was the most consequential American sovereigntist of the 20th century. His decision to screw Europe, and much of the world, by torpedoing the London Economic Conference in 1933 as well as moving off the gold standard was grounded entirely in sovereigntist arguments (though most historians use the label 'nationalist'). I could go on quibbling, but the fact is, I think Mittelstadt's focus on sovereigntism is actually very smart and helpful. It's definitely a better label than 'isolationist.' I've written tons on how people misuse and abuse the term isolationism. The claim that isolationism is definitionally right-wing or conservative is ahistorical claptrap. Many so-called libertarian isolationists on national security are in fact globalists on economics. Some opposition to joining the League of Nations or the U.N. was isolationist, but more often it was sovereigntist. Which is why sovereigntist is a better word: It more accurately and fairly captures the views of people who get called isolationist. It also better describes the views of people who often get called 'neoconservatives.' The best illustration of this is John Bolton, arguably the most consistent and effective proponent of sovereigntism alive today. He's been swinging his cowbell in favor of a more assertive, but also more independent, America for decades. Which is ironic, given how so many of today's putative sovereigntists hate him and mislabel him a neocon (as you know, I think there's nothing wrong with being a neocon, but when Bolton's critics, on the left and right, use the term, it's almost always a pejorative – and inaccurate). Indeed, during the Iraq war, every conservative 'hawk' was labeled a neocon, when some of the most forceful and articulate hawks utterly rejected things like nation building and democracy promotion. In 2006, Rich Lowry wrote an essay titled 'The 'To Hell With Them' Hawks' whom he described as 'conservatives who are comfortable using force abroad, but have little patience for a deep entanglement with the Muslim world, which they consider unredeemable, or at least not worth the strenuous effort of trying to redeem.' This was often shorthanded, somewhat problematically at times, to 'the rubble doesn't make trouble' school. It's certainly the case that the sovereigntist label fits Trump better. It helps explain why Trump is much more keen on screwing with allies and withdrawing from multilateral entanglements far better than the word 'isolationist.' I mean, you can't really call the dude looking to annex Greenland, reclaim the Panama Canal, and absorb Canada a doctrinaire isolationist. And his absolutely wild idea of seizing Gaza, ethnically cleansing it of Palestinians, and creating a Middle East Riviera—'Mar-a-Gaza'—is not exactly the sort of 'come home America' foreign policy J.D. Vance has been teasing. I mean, the phrase 'Pax Trumpiana' is proliferating on Twitter, which is strange given that much of the MAGA movement has been crapping over the idea of America as the 'world's policeman' for a long time. So, you might ask, what's wrong with sovereigntism? And my short answer is nothing, in moderation. As you probably recall, I'm a the-poison-is-determined-by-the-dose guy. So I am entirely comfortable saying that I subscribe to, or have serious sympathy for, many sovereigntist arguments. America shouldn't join any club or contract that is not in America's interest. But in most cases, that's not a binary, yes/no calculation. It's a cost-benefit analysis. Do we gain more than we lose by joining this or that organization or compact? With NATO, for example, the benefits far outweigh the costs, in my opinion. That doesn't mean it's unreasonable to want to increase the benefits or decrease the costs at any specific juncture. This introduces another concept that we need to consider: hegemonism. One of the reasons FDR's decision to bail on an agreement to stabilize global currencies in 1933 has been criticized is that he rejected the expectation that America—the richest nation at the time (and now)—would and should replace the U.K. as the global economic hegemon. We can debate whether that was a wise decision, and there are good arguments on both sides, but it's worth noting that FDR, and America generally, ultimately decided that it was in America's interests to become the global economic hegemon after World War II. It turns out that our go-it-alone approach in the mid-1930s was one of the reasons the Nazis came to power, and the world was set on fire. America was right to recognize that it was better to lead the world than be dragged into yet another world war. The decision to lead the world, with like-minded allies, was good for the world and us. It's why the dollar is the world's reserve currency, which is good for America. We set the rules for global trade. We lead the free world. The hardcore sovereignists never made peace with that. But most sovereignists were also internationalists, too. There was a vast consensus, among Goldwaterites, Reaganites, Buckleyites, social conservatives, neoconservatives, Scoop Jackson Democrats, etc. believed—rightly —that being the global hegemon benefitted us more than it cost us. Even Pat Buchanan was all in for American leadership until the end of the cold war. NATO amplified our power in the world, while only minimally constraining our freedom of action. Our alliances didn't prevent us from doing what we wanted—right and wrong—in our backyard. And they helped contain the Soviet Union. I am in favor of a healthy balance between sovereigntism and alliance-supported hegemonism, because it's good for America. The hardcore sovereigntists don't like the second part, because it requires behaving like an adult and being a reliable friend. Trump thinks that makes us suckers. I think it makes us grown-ups.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
I'm a Sucker for America
From the G-File on The Dispatch Hey, I'm on Day 4 of my bout with the flu. My fever has come down to the point where I no longer find myself miming scenes from Punky Brewster, a bit like Martin Sheen doing martial arts in his Apocalypse Now hotel room. Anyway, one of the stories I glimpsed briefly through the fog came Monday, or as I called it at the time 'Falula.' A video of Anthony Mackie, the African American actor tapped to take over the role of Captain America, appeared on a panel in Italy to promote Captain America: Brave New World. 'To me Captain America represents a lot of different things and I don't think the term 'America' should be one of those representations,' Mackie said. 'It's about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.' Much like the influenza in my bloodstream, it went viral. By Tuesday, Mackie tried to clarify. 'Let me be clear about this, I'm a proud American and taking on the shield of a hero like CAP is the honor of a lifetime,' he wrote on Instagram. 'I have the utmost respect for those who serve and have served our country. CAP has universal characteristics that people all over the world can relate to.' I'll be honest. I don't think it's a great mea culpa. The issue wasn't that he insulted 'those who serve and have served our country.' The issue was he insulted America itself. We'll return to that in a moment. I'm happy to take Mackie at his word, that he didn't mean it to sound the way it did to some. I should also say that I'm also incredibly tired of these sorts of controversies. We went through this when Superman dropped 'fighting for the American way' from his motto. In 2021 it was 'Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow.' In 2006, it was 'truth, justice, and all that is good.' Now, I didn't like that stuff very much back then, and I still don't. But I will say that the case for Superman going full cosmopolitan—citizen of the world and all that—is much stronger than the case for Captain America. Superman isn't from here—Earth, I mean—and you could tell he was already trending globalist by 1987 in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (known in my corner of the world as Superman IV: Quest for My Money Back): The culture war fights over these things can be exhausting, even for people not sweating Theraflu. It's a bit like the war on Christmas or the Gulf of America: The point is just to make people angry as simplistically as possible. By the way, there are arguments other than 'Hollywood hates America' that explain why an actor promoting a movie in Italy might opine, clumsily, that you don't have to be an American to like Captain America. But, for obvious reasons (or at least once-obvious reasons), blaming capitalism is less fun for righties than blaming America-hating Hollywood libruls. Now, let me be clear: I am not saying that there isn't ample anti-Americanism, from subtle to strident, in Hollywood fare. There is. A lot of West Coast progressives are, or have been, quite hostile to America. And I don't just mean Oliver Stone or Jane Fonda, or the aforementioned Martin Sheen. I could give you a few paragraphs on my contempt for Adam McKay's contempt for America and capitalism, the two things that made it possible to translate his talent into fabulous wealth. But my tank is running low. Suffice it to say, I think a lot of prominent Hollywood types are uncomfortable talking about America in basic patriotic terms, never mind making a good case for America as an indispensable nation and force for good in the world. Some can: Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise come to mind. And some of the right-wingers in show business can go too far in the other direction, thinking that defending your country to foreigners means pointing out that without us you'd be speaking German. That's one reason I hate these fights. The loudest voices are more scared to concede a point to the other side than to take a reasonable, nuanced position. Saying America has fallen short of her ideals more than once doesn't make you an America-hater. And saying that Americans should be proud of America's ideals and her commitment to them, no matter how flawed, doesn't make you some jingoistic freedom fries gobbler or the closeted Nazi dad in American Beauty. The point is, Hollywood needs to get over its reflexive discomfort with basic patriotism. Saying this is a good country and a force for good in the world isn't the same as saying it's perfect or that it hasn't made mistakes. And saying it's better than a lot of authoritarian countries should come easily—if you're not worried about box office returns in China or Iran. But let's get back to America. Mackie says that the defining characteristics of the character he plays are 'honor, dignity and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.' Is it so hard to add 'patriotism' to that list? And is it too heavy a lift to concede that being patriotic isn't at odds with those other virtues? Indeed, should patriots, regardless of where they are on the ideological spectrum, think that honor, dignity, and integrity should define America's conduct whenever possible? Yesterday, I had a great conversation with Francis Dearnley from the Telegraph. He closed with a dire warning about the direction some fear America is going. Geopolitically, America's strength doesn't just come from our military might. It comes from the fact that our allies want to be with us for other reasons, starting with the fact we are a good country. They are our friends, and they look to America for moral, principled leadership. Lots of countries have superficial alliances—formal or informal transactional relationships with other powers. These are mercenary relationships. America has real friends who see America, for all of its flaws, as a nation that stands up for certain American ideals. They expect an America that conducts itself—or tries to—with honor and integrity. These friends organize their foreign policies around the idea that America is trustworthy and will honor her commitments. And we reap enormous benefits from that. I want America to be the preeminent global superpower not because I love being the strongest. I want America to be the preeminent global superpower because that's good for America and the world. And, more importantly, the alternative contenders for the job all suck. If China, Russia, Iran et al. were liberal democracies, I wouldn't care that much about who the toughest kid on the block was. But when all the other toughest kids are bullies, it's good that the toughest isn't a bully. Not so, say the America Firsters. We need to be a bully, too. Now, some of Donald Trump's defenders say that's a misreading. Trump is just delivering the long-needed tough love our friends need to get their acts together. And if that's all it turns out to be, that's fine. But whatever four-dimensional-chess theory you want to deploy to defend Donald Trump's rhetoric, it should account for the fact that a lot of his superfans don't see, or care about, any alleged subtext. Just text. They don't talk like this is all an effort to beef up the defenses of the free world. They talk like the free world doesn't matter—unless it pays up. They think it's great for America to bully allies and talk about using force for territorial expansion. They think, as podcaster Matt Walsh put it, 'the moral of the story is that we can and should simply force lesser countries to fall in line.' This week, Sen. Mike Lee tweeted, 'If you could snap your fingers and get us out of NATO today, would you?' He has taken to arguing that NATO is a 'raw deal' for America. 'NATO members must pay up now,' Lee declared. 'If they don't—and maybe even if they do—the U.S. should seriously consider leaving NATO.' This is embarrassing. The 'pay up' thing in particular is a sign of how Twitter rhetoric can break the blood-brain barrier. Pay up to whom? The issue isn't about paying dues or tribute to America, it's about NATO members spending more money on their own defense—which they've been doing. Even if Trump doesn't understand how NATO works, Lee does. But he mimics Trump's mafioso-protection-racket rhetoric all the same. There was a time when Mike Lee would have been appalled by Donald Trump because Donald Trump doesn't behave with honor, dignity, or integrity. And I've talked a lot about how the right has bent its definition of good character to fit Donald Trump. Apparently it's too much to ask that Trump conform to the preexisting definition. The NATO talk is just how this dynamic gets applied to foreign policy. The currency of life and politics for Trump is domination, intimidation, subservience, and transaction. Now we're told that's how America itself should interact with the world. To come back to Mackie, my problem with his statement and apology is that he still seemed incapable of understanding—and articulating— that there is no contradiction or inconsistency about a character defined by honor, dignity, and integrity being called Captain America. After all, in the comics and even in the Marvel movies, Captain America was never a 'love it or leave it,' or 'fight for it wrong or right' guy. He stood up for American ideals and American decency. When America was in the right, he fought for it. When America—or the American government—was wrong, he still fought for what is best about it. As Cap once put it: Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world – 'No, YOU move.' This gets to my whole thing about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. The patriot sides with what is right, the nationalist for 'the nation'— or its leader—right or wrong. America is not just an idea. But it is a nation formed around one. When it comes to foreign policy, my problem with Trump, Lee, and that whole crowd is that they're bending American idealism to what is really just nationalism, rather than trying to guide the nation in the direction of American ideals. And it seems to me that the patriotic thing to say in response is something like, 'No, YOU move.'
