Trump is the greatest threat to US national security
Laurence Summers is not impressed by Trump’s latest junket.
[T]he president’s behavior in and around the summit was unsettling to U.S. allies and confirmed the fears of those who believe that his conduct is currently the greatest threat to American national security.
The existence of the G-20 as an annual forum arose out of a common belief of major nations in a global community with common interests in peace, mutual security, prosperity and economic integration, and the containment of global threats, even as there was competition among nations in the security and economic realms. The idea that the United States should lead in the development of international community has been a central tenet of American foreign policy since the end of World War II. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the aspiration to international community has been an aspiration to global community.
Trump’s rhetoric has rejected the concept of global community and expressed a strong belief that the United States should seek better deals rather than stronger institutions and systems. It has become clear that Trump’s actions will match his rhetoric.
It’s a sleazy, self-centered, small-minded worldview as well as policy. “Deals” aren’t the answer to everything, and a deal-maker is not automatically equipped to understand every issue. The current president has a small parochial mind, along with a galloping case of narcissism, so he understands almost nothing about his job.
The president chose hours before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to cast doubt on judgments of the U.S. intelligence community regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. On the brink of the most important set of international meetings of his presidency so far, he put forward the absurd idea that a main G-20 discussion item involved Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, in the process making demonstrably false assertions about Podesta’s role.
It is rare for heads of government to step away from the table during major summits. When this is necessary, their place is normally taken by foreign ministers or other very senior government officials. There is no precedent for a head of government’s adult child taking a seat, as was the case when Ivanka Trump took her father’s place at the G-20 on Saturday. There is no precedent for good reason. It was insulting to the others present and sent a signal of disempowerment regarding senior government officials.
Along with a lot of other signals, none of them good. It sent a signal that knowledge and experience are considered entirely irrelevant and useless by the current administration, which in turn sends a signal that brute power is all there is. Ivanka Trump plunked herself down at that table because she could, because Daddy, and for no other reason. That’s just naked rude belligerent power, dressed up as a blonde princess.
The president’s pre-G-20 speech in Poland expressed the sentiment that the primary question of our time was the will of the West to survive. Such a sentiment is inevitably alienating to the vast majority of humanity that does not live in what the president considers to be the West. Manichaean rhetoric from presidents is rarely wise. George W. Bush’s reference to an “axis of evil” is generally regarded as a serious error, not because the regimes he referenced were not evil but because his rhetoric drew our adversaries together. Invoking the idea of “the West against the rest,” as President Trump did, is a graver misstep.
A corporate chief executive whose public behavior was as erratic as Trump’s would already have been replaced. The standard for democratically elected officials is appropriately different. But one cannot look at the past months and rule out the possibility of even more aberrant behavior in the future. The president’s Cabinet and his political allies in Congress should never forget that the oaths they swore were not to the defense of the president but to the defense of the Constitution.
The president’s Cabinet and his political allies in Congress are not going to lift a finger to stop him.
That shouldn’t surprise anyone. He ran on that premise. It isn’t just that knowledge and experience are irrelevant; it’s that he and his voters view knowledge and intelligence as inherently bad, things to avoid at all costs. The things they “know” are more important, and more sensible, than anything you can learn in school, in books, in articles, or by experience. They know by the gut that these things are bad.
And why? Because knowledge and intelligence tend to say “it’s not just about you; there is a whole wide world out there, and we are all in a sinking boat. You need to think broader”. This is not a message that anyone on the right (or libertarians, who are sort of in many camps at once) want to hear.
Iknklast, quite. I recently got down voted on a news site because I responded to another commentator who criticised the writer of an opinion piece. The commentator said (to paraphrase) that the writer could be ignored because what did he know, it was just his opinion. opinion was in all caps.
I pointed out that it was an expert opinion as he was a Professor who had initiated and carried out one of the longest running longitudinal studies of it’s type in the world (35 years).
Yes yes YES. It’s a theme I keep coming back to – look beyond yourself.
Failure to do that is what makes Trump such a hideous desert of empty.
Ivanka ‘sitting in’ for Daddy was indeed insulting.Trump and therefore the US, insulted my country, our PM and 18 other heads of government. Also, the ignorant barbarian will never understand the implications of his actions.
‘We’re all in a sinking boat. You need to think broader’.
He is doing. Who do think that orange bloke is who’s speeding away in the only lifeboat?
‘A corporate chief executive whose public behavior was as erratic as Trump’s would already have been replaced.’
Except; Trump’s behavior has been this erratic for decades. There is NOTHING about corporate ‘success’ that translates into the broad competence required of government executive.