I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about these first weeks of the Trump administration and I must admit that I am dumbfounded. Where are the better angels of American nature?
The idea of a disbanded USAID flies in the face of every principle of not only US soft power, and influence, but optics.. Although there have been numerous instances of fraud and abuse, closing the agency is not the solution. Moreover, the firings of inspectors general aggravates the potential for skullduggery.
USAID should be reformed, not closed. Foreign aid is an essential component in the exercise of our power and influence in the world. The abandonment of it will lead to Russia or China stepping into the void. Vacuums only work in Hoovers.
It is not certain that the State Department can do a better job; seems like Marco Rubio has enough on his plate, like diplomacy, world peace, embassies, and foreign policy.
After World War II, the Marshall plan bankrolled the recovery of a devastated Europe, the tattered remnants of 12 years of bloodletting and destruction unparalleled in the world history.
Countries like France, Greece and Turkey were in ruins and Germany, nothing but bombed out cities and starving people.
This post war time was “a big beautiful,” opportunity, for Stalin to step in and expand the Soviet Union, an entity at the time that struck fear in the heart of every anti-communist. It was a time of national hysteria. A time when Winston Churchill came to America as a guest of Truman and made his famous 1947 remarks in Fulton Missouri: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended on the continent.”
Churchill knew that Europe needed help to recover from the bitter economic devastation of World War, just as he knew Britain needed help to fight Hitler.
Various plans of people like Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR’s treasury secretary, understandably wanted to deindustrialize Germany and morph it into a strictly agricultural society of small farmers, incapable of ever waging war again. He looked at the interregnum between World War I and II and determined that Germany would repeat its militaristic past, if allowed to reindustrialize. This plan, very controversial, was scrapped. Good thing it was.
Harry Truman and Dean Acheson understood that foreign aid to Europe would be essential for American security as well as a counterbalance to the malign forces of Soviet Communism. It would help contain communism, the theory of the earlier great statesman George Kennan.
Foreign aid in 1945 was a peacetime extension of the Rooseveltian “great arsenal of democracy” that kept Britain in the war against Hitler. The post war world order of pax Americana kept great powers away from war for 70 years.
Imagine if Lend Lease and aid to Great Britain in 1940 had been cancelled when England fought alone? Imagine had Donald Trump been president in 1940? Or that other populist America Firster, Charles Lindbergh? If Donald Trump had been president in 1945?
Now, having said that, I think Donald Trump will not destroy the Union. I do not think he will send out black shirted secret police in jackboots to knock on doors in the middle of the night to drag away political opponents. I do not think he will shut down newspapers and arrest journalists. He may sue them. He’s very good at suing people, and it will take resources to combat him, but there are powerful forces growing against Trumpism; the courts will challenge his illegalities, despite the upside-down flags of ideologues like Justice Alito.
The Democrats are in disarray after a disastrous election. Now they have to consider why that happened. Was it the message? Was it disinformation? Was it social media? Was it that people get their information from unverified sources? Was it that people felt left behind? Was it $9.00 for eggs? Was it the decline of local journalism? Was it a poor Democratic candidate? Was it incumbency fatigue? Was it Why We Need Better Angels.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about these first weeks of the Trump administration and I must admit that I am dumbfounded. Where are the better angels of American nature?
The idea of a disbanded USAID flies in the face of every principle of not only US soft power, and influence, but optics.. Although there have been numerous instances of fraud and abuse, closing the agency is not the solution. Moreover, the firings of inspectors general aggravates the potential for skullduggery.
USAID should be reformed, not closed. Foreign aid is an essential component in the exercise of our power and influence in the world. The abandonment of it will lead to Russia or China stepping into the void. Vacuums only work in Hoovers.
It is not certain that the State Department can do a better job; seems like Marco Rubio has enough on his plate, like diplomacy, world peace, embassies, and foreign policy.
After World War II, the Marshall plan bankrolled the recovery of a devastated Europe, the tattered remnants of 12 years of bloodletting and destruction unparalleled in the world history.
Countries like France, Greece and Turkey were in ruins and Germany, nothing but bombed out cities and starving people.
This post war time was “a big beautiful,” opportunity, for Stalin to step in and expand the Soviet Union, an entity at the time that struck fear in the heart of every anti-communist. It was a time of national hysteria. A time when Winston Churchill came to America as a guest of Truman and made his famous 1947 remarks in Fulton Missouri: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended on the continent.”
Churchill knew that Europe needed help to recover from the bitter economic devastation of World War, just as he knew Britain needed help to fight Hitler.
Various plans of people like Henry Morgenthau, Jr., FDR’s treasury secretary, understandably wanted to deindustrialize Germany and morph it into a strictly agricultural society of small farmers, incapable of ever waging war again. He looked at the interregnum between World War I and II and determined that Germany would repeat its militaristic past, if allowed to reindustrialize. This plan, very controversial, was scrapped. Good thing it was.
Harry Truman and Dean Acheson understood that foreign aid to Europe would be essential for American security as well as a counterbalance to the malign forces of Soviet Communism. It would help contain communism, the theory of the earlier great statesman George Kennan.
Foreign aid in 1945 was a peacetime extension of the Rooseveltian “great arsenal of democracy” that kept Britain in the war against Hitler. The post war world order of pax Americana kept great powers away from war for 70 years.
Imagine if Lend Lease and aid to Great Britain in 1940 had been cancelled when England fought alone? Imagine had Donald Trump been president in 1940? Or that other populist America Firster, Charles Lindbergh? If Donald Trump had been president in 1945?
Now, having said that, I think Donald Trump will not destroy the Union. I do not think he will send out black shirted secret police in jackboots to knock on doors in the middle of the night to drag away political opponents. I do not think he will shut down newspapers and arrest journalists. He may sue them. He’s very good at suing people, and it will take resources to combat him, but there are powerful forces growing against Trumpism; the courts will challenge his illegalities, despite the upside-down flags of ideologues like Justice Alito.
The Democrats are in disarray after a disastrous election. Now they have to consider why that happened. Was it the message? Was it disinformation? Was it social media? Was it that people get their information from unverified sources? Was it that people felt left behind? Was it $9.00 for eggs? Was it the decline of local journalism? Was it a poor Democratic candidate? Was it incumbency fatigue? Was it DEI? Did Biden stay too long? Biden did get some things right. But people do not like feeble leaders. Biden gave that impression at the end.
Was it that they lied to us about him? Take your pick. Maybe all of the above. The list is not exhaustive.
Let’s see what Trump does. He has hit the ground running. I suspect this term will shape up just like the first term anyway. Largely Incompetent. People forget. Memories are short. Trump does understand mass psychology. Reptilian self-interest, the appeal to fear. That people do not give a fig about others, only themselves. And yes, there are people like that, but there are many who are not.
Those with better angels.
