What Trump said.
Trump's real message.
"One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, [Voice of supplication] 'Well, sir, if we don't pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?'
I said, [Decisive. Firm] 'You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?'
He said, 'Yes, let’s say that happened.'
[Impatient] 'No, I would not protect you. [Faux anger] In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.'”
I remember learning about coded messages when my parents tried to teach me to play the card game bridge. Bidding "one club" likely meant that you had a biddable hand but did not want clubs to be the suit. Your bid was really a question. If your partner responded two spades -- a skip over one spade -- it didn't mean your partner wanted a contract at two spades, it meant that the partner wanted to end up at a far higher contract than two spades. One must look past the obvious meaning to find the real one.
On its surface Trump's speech in South Carolina was just another moment of Trump showing off and entertaining a rally crowd. No need to overthink this. The story fit the Trump narrative. He was the disciplinarian. The leader of some "big country" in Europe was a fearful supplicant, calling him "sir." It tells the story that Trump demands and gets respect. As Trump tells it, Democrats want to be buddies with everyone so America gets taken advantage of. Not Trump. Not America.
This is the Trump that made the words "You're fired!" a trademark. The audience cheered this. Some in the audience may have been flashing back to memories of the 1930s and 1940s, but in the present moment the story was about a strong leader who protects American taxpayers.
Like bidding in bridge, there was a lot more communicated.
First, it was a message to NATO that Trump sees it as a transaction. It is not a united front because aggression against one nation is an attack on democracy itself. NATO is a deal and deal terms get examined constantly to evaluate our interests in the moment. We might find conditions or loopholes in the contract that void it. What's in it for us?
There is a message to Putin. Invasion by Russia isn't anathema to Trump. Indeed, it might serve U.S. interests. Historic Russia is not contained in its current boundaries. Poland is a Slavic country whose territory from time to time has been part of Russia, as has Ukraine. Putin mentioned Poland multiple times in his interview with Tucker Carlson, and Putin made the extraordinary and false claim that Poland's aggression started World War II. Germany and the Soviet Union had acted out of necessity when they invaded Poland, he said. If Putin were to claim that Poland attacked Russia, then under the contract the U.S. has no obligation.
There is a message to the world. NATO is no longer a resilient bipartisan American guarantee. It is now a partisan promise. NATO will last in name until Trump is elected or until Republicans in Congress defund it. NATO isn't a marriage; it is a domestic partnership where each party keeps separate bank accounts, asks for separate checks when they dine out, and where each person dates other people. Trump is openly flirting with a rival. The marriage is over. Europe needs to make other plans.
Democrats find parallels between this moment and the fascism of the 1930s. It is alarming to them. Not so much to Republican voters, who see Trump as a corrective to globalism in diplomacy and trade. Trump represents a muscular America and an America that respects self-interested muscularity in other countries -- Russia, Hungary, China, North Korea. The catastrophe of World War II was a long time ago. Carl Sandberg wrote The Grass in 1918, after The Great War:
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.Shovel them under and let me work—I am the grass; I cover all.And pile them high at GettysburgAnd pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.Shovel them under and let me work.Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:What place is this?Where are we now?I am the grass.Let me work.
It took longer than two years and ten years, but a great many Americans have forgotten the lessons of muscular nationalism.
11 comments:
People used to refute those who made comparisons between Trump and Hitler by invoking Godwin’s Law, as if that somehow negated the parallels. This is what Mike Godwin, the author of Godwin’s Law, has to say about it: “When people draw parallels between Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy and Hitler’s progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren’t joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/20/godwins-law-trump-hitler-comparisons/
From about 1550 to 1945, European countries were in major wars with each other about every 50 years. They haven't been at war with each other very much since World War Two; the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the Russia versus Ukraine war, and Soviet suppression of eastern European satellite nations are not really comparable to the Thirty Years War, Napoleon's wars, the Franco-Prussian War, World War One, and World War Two. The European Union and NATO deserve much of the credit for keeping the peace in Europe since World War Two. The United States deserves a lot of the credit as well. Donald Trump's ideas about "America First" are dangerous; "Penny wise and pound foolish" does not begin to describe how dangerous.
Europe has not been pulling its military weight in NATO. They have been taking a free ride on our defense budget for decades.
Trump is not wrong to point this out. That he does it in his characteristically sarcastic New York way does not invalidate the point.
Europe is starting to get the point. It’s no coincidence that Sweden and Finland just scrambled to get into NATO.
Now we need to see the European countries up their defense budgets, and not just to the 2% specified for NATO members. They should be matching the percentage that we in the USA spend on defense.
I can’t wait to see how the politics of that go over in Europe. Or maybe they can choose the alternative and start learning Russian.
The US spends trillions on defense. It should have been defending itself from the domestic terrorists in the GOPee.
“ Europe has not been pulling its military weight in NATO. …”
That was me. It got posted anonymously by mistake.
It will come as no surprise to anyone but Trump’s chumps that his claims about NATO are a crock:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/fact-check-trump-nato/index.html
Nor does it take a diplomat or expert in foreign affairs to recognize that we need a leader capable of cultivating allies, not one who threatens to sic Russia on them.
The problem w Trump is bigger than bolstering and faux bravado. It’s more than likely he doesn’t even know what the NATO acronym stands for.
The USA currently spends around 3.5% of its GDP on defense. Why should our allies, who are a lot closer to Russia than we are, be spending a lower percentage than that on their own defense? Since they are the ones who will be attacked by Russia first, shouldn’t they be spending at least as much on defense as we do, if not more?
That CNN article is a prime example of obfuscation via a cloud of irrelevant details.
Let Germany be Germany. Walk away. The German right is rising. Our oil cannot save the E U. nor Germany. They must confront Russia or take it down or form a new alliance of self interest, NATO be damned.
And there has been " No Free Ride" by our European Allies, even though they have been spending somewhat less than we do on bloated Militaries. If we cut off our NATO Allies, we damn well better cut off the Israeli Zionist butchers at the same time
Trump seems to think of NATO as a club like Mar-a-Lago where it’s no pay no play, but that’s not how military alliances work. NATO members don’t pay to belong and don’t owe the organization anything other than contributions to a largely administrative fund. Of course, Trump considers CNN “fake news,” so for those who agree with him, here’s another source that makes clear how NATO works – something no presidential candidate should have to be told:
https://apnews.com/article/nato-trump-delinquent-defense-allies-c1f7de696ff6ca06e4088f49b93122e1
Post a Comment