Recently, John Brennan made the crazy statement that it was going to take years for Biden to repair the damage that Trump has done to the Middle East. See here. What could he possibly mean? The peace treaties? It’s true that he was assuming that Trump would attack Iran in the last few weeks of his presidency, but he was also referring to other things. Exactly what other things he was referring to, though, he never explained.
Then in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Fareed Zakaria gave a more explicit statement of what Brennan might have meant. Zakaria excoriates Trump’s America First policy, insisting that the idealism and globalism of past presidents is what is needed.
Against this, let me point out a few things.
1. All the emphasis on “idealism” has made people hate us, not like us. We are never thanked. Even our own elites hate us. In every international situation we are deemed to be helping the wrong people, and then we are blamed. We are made into the bad guy. In addition, we are told we have an empire, even though we get nothing in taxes from the foreigners in this “empire.” That doesn’t matter. We are still told that we have an empire, and of course having an empire is evil.
2. When the elites in a country prefer the poor people from other countries to the ones in their own country, that is bad news for their poor. Who else is going to help them other than their own elites? No one else is going to help America’s poor, if America’s own elites won’t do so. Will Canada’s elites help our poor? Britain’s? Germany’s? China’s? Mexico’s? None of these countries’ elites have the slightest reason to help our poor.
3. All this international emphasis means we have to mostly pay for international organizations like the UN (which hates us) that other countries should be helping to pay for.
4. It was quite refreshing to read about some recent international conflicts and to know that the U.S. was not part of the situation. Let others deal with things and get the blame.
5. The claim that we have neglected our allies or alienated them or whatever is just cherry picking. Obama favored Morsi, and eschewed our old ally Mubarak. Then he was annoyed when Morsi was not liked by the Egyptian people. He also insulted the British, as I recall.
6. Trump’s foreign policy meant no wars and bringing soldiers home. Many of us on the right have figured out that these wars are endless and do us no good. Accordingly, they are just a way to kill off patriotic Americans.
Trump’s America First policy has been a refreshing change. Let's stick with it.
Excellent points! The problem, though, is Point 2. Our elites consider anyone not at their level as “poor,” and they hate us and romanticize far off foreign “poor.” Our elites are our literal enemies, quite willing to sell us out to Iranian mullahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, China, MS-13 even. They are wholly invested in Rich Person’s Leftism and possessed by Baizuo, the cranky postmodern ideologies that “justify” their parasitism.
Posted by: Charles N. Steele | 11/30/2020 at 05:29 AM