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George Packer: Donald Trump goes Rogue
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/25/donald-trump-goes-rogue. . . In four days, between Quebec and Singapore, Trump showed that the liberal order is hateful to him, and that he wants out. Its rules are too confining, its web of connectionsfrom trade treaties to security alliancesunfair. And he seems to find his democratic counterparts distasteful, even pathetic. They speak in high-minded rhetoric rather than in Twitter insults, theyre emasculated by parliaments and by the press, and maybe theyre not very funny. Trump prefers the company of dictators who can flatter and be flattered. Part of his unhappiness in Quebec was due to the absence of President Vladimir Putin; before leaving for the summit, Trump had demanded that Russia be unconditionally restored to the G-7, from which it was suspended over the dismemberment of Ukraine. He finds nothing special about democratic values, and nothing objectionable about murderous rulers. What, you think our country is so innocent? he once asked.
Kim Jong Un is Trumps kind of world leader. Instead of condemning Kims brutal consolidation of power, Trump admires and identifies with it, as if Kim were the underestimated scion of a family real-estate business whos quickly learned the ropes. When you take over a countrya tough country, with tough peopleand you take it over from your father, Trump told Fox News, if you can do that at twenty-seven years old, I mean, thats one in ten thousand that could do that. So hes a very smart guy.
. . .
Trump imagines that America unbound, shaking hands or giving the finger, depending upon short-term interests and Presidential whims, will flourish among the other rogues. After his meeting with Kim, he flew home aglow with wonder at his own dealmaking prowess, assuring Americans that they could now sleep in peace. In fact, Trump had secured nothing except the same vague commitment to dismantling North Koreas nuclear program which the regime has offered and routinely betrayed in the past. Meanwhile, he gave up something realjoint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which he called provocative, the language of totalitarian and aggressive North Korea. Without allies and treaties, without universal values, American foreign policy largely depends on what goes on inside Trumps head. Kim, like Putin, already seems to have got there.
Power politics is not a system that plays to American strengths. For all our lapses, we thrived for seventy years by standing for something. It wasnt boilerplate at all, and we are present at the destruction. When the next global economic crisis or major war or terrorist attack happens, America will be alone.
Kim Jong Un is Trumps kind of world leader. Instead of condemning Kims brutal consolidation of power, Trump admires and identifies with it, as if Kim were the underestimated scion of a family real-estate business whos quickly learned the ropes. When you take over a countrya tough country, with tough peopleand you take it over from your father, Trump told Fox News, if you can do that at twenty-seven years old, I mean, thats one in ten thousand that could do that. So hes a very smart guy.
. . .
Trump imagines that America unbound, shaking hands or giving the finger, depending upon short-term interests and Presidential whims, will flourish among the other rogues. After his meeting with Kim, he flew home aglow with wonder at his own dealmaking prowess, assuring Americans that they could now sleep in peace. In fact, Trump had secured nothing except the same vague commitment to dismantling North Koreas nuclear program which the regime has offered and routinely betrayed in the past. Meanwhile, he gave up something realjoint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which he called provocative, the language of totalitarian and aggressive North Korea. Without allies and treaties, without universal values, American foreign policy largely depends on what goes on inside Trumps head. Kim, like Putin, already seems to have got there.
Power politics is not a system that plays to American strengths. For all our lapses, we thrived for seventy years by standing for something. It wasnt boilerplate at all, and we are present at the destruction. When the next global economic crisis or major war or terrorist attack happens, America will be alone.
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George Packer: Donald Trump goes Rogue (Original Post)
MBS
Jun 2018
OP
enough
(13,272 posts)1. Wait, for seventy years "we thrived by standing for something"?
Like the war in Vietnam, Cambodia, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, death squads in Central and South America, mass incarceration at home? What, exactly?