Quote:
Originally Posted by spence
This article speaks to exactly what is concerning me and what most of the GOP seems happy to ignore.
"But put it this way: If a president of the United States were to sketch out a secret, detailed plan to break up the Atlantic alliance, that plan would bear a striking resemblance to Trump’s behavior."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/10/o...ol-left-region
His behavior and remarks at the G-7 were just simply pathetic. |
It wasn't the Western Alliance, as your author, Leonhardt, states, that won two World Wars. Russia was also a big factor in one win. And the defeated Germany and Italy were off-and-on part of the Alliance as well as a big factor in the "great things" created by the West. The Alliance fought against itself in real, destructive ways, unlike the hypothetical accusation Leonhardt makes against Trump. Yet that didn't destroy the Alliance.
And the highest standard of living was not created by the Alliance, as your author avers, but by the freedom of individual initiative and creativity that is a hallmark of Western Civilization.
He says it's impossible to understand what or how Trump thinks, yet he imposes his own idea on Trump's behavior as being that which would break up the alliance. Nice trick to come to an unwarranted opinion.
He calls Trump's dissatisfaction with the intricacies of the Alliance as an "outward hostility", thus framing it in terms of war, an attack to "destroy" the Alliance. That is not only ridiculous on its face, but he ignores that Trump has shown "outward" friendship to allies. So Leonhardt's lack of balance added to his hyperbole is more akin to a lie than to disingenuousness.
Your author rushes to the judgment that Trump wants to "
discard" the allies and replace them with Russia. And that Trump would meddle in the domestic politics of other countries in order to install new governments. Yet this is the sort of meddling that the US and other Western Allies have done for decades, and as Obama tried to do in an Israeli election. Was the Alliance being discarded in those numerous instances of the past. If anything, Trump doesn't appear to be doing that, not even to NK where he talks of keeping Kim in power and helping to provide him with the kind of assistance that would bring NK into the Western sphere and provide those people with a decent standard of living. Is your author suggesting that Trump wants to replace our allies with NK?
Leonhardt gets into Trump's lies as evidence that he wants to destroy the Alliance--the alliance has been laced with a plenitude of lies within itself and within each allied country against their own people. Trump's supposed lies are like a teardrop compared to the lies within the alliance which have always flowed like diarrhetic BS.
He gets into Trump's character as if it is actually worlds apart different than the characters of past and present alliance leaders. There have been several doozies of them in the past (and present), so get off the snobby high horse of better-than-thou and get real. Their, and Trump's, character is not a threat to the Alliance.
According to Leonhardt, Trump "bathes" Putin and Kim Jong Un in praise (Oh really?--like little rocket man, or we have more and better nukes that work, opens US oil exploration and arms East Europe which threaten Russia's oil profits and military power, and punishing Russia's allies Syria and Iran). But Leonhardt takes no notice of Trump praising Western allies--again, a lack of balance which exposes his agenda of making Trump a destroyer rather than a dealer who disagrees about some things.
And Leonhardt's negative notion that Trump often accuses others of committing his own sins--COME ON!!! This trick is part and parcel the Progressive technique of divide and conquer. This is an age-old sleight of hand that has been practiced by humans forever, and by all of our Western Allies. This is supposed to destroy the Alliance??? This guy is full of something stinkier than chit. His article can do more to divide us than most anything that Trump does.
Then there is this gem from your author--the only explanation for "all of Trump's behavior is that he wants to destroy the Western Alliance." This is not mere delusion. It is out and out propaganda meant to destroy Trump. One might say that "the only explanation for writing this ridiculous article is that the author wants to destroy Trump."
Leonhardt is so into the anti-Trump bubble that he totally ignores the rise of populist, anti-establishment, anti-Progressive, sentiments in Europe which are resulting in larger and larger protests against what Progressivism is and has been doing to their culture and against their freedom.. There is a large and growing disgust with the EU policies that is far more destructive to the Alliance within Europe than anything that Trump does or says. European media minimizes or ignores the trending swerve to the political right. The Progressive Left has this self promoting myopia which thinks that if you pretend or proclaim that something that IS happening is not really happening if you say that it isn't.
He ends with a syrupy platitude: "They [Trumps actions and words] are a referendum on American ideals that are older than any of us." Yet it is those American ideals that are being or have been destroyed by the likes of Leonhardt and the Progressive Alliance.
The "great thing" which Western Civilization brought into political and philosophical consciousness was the essential role of the individual as the bedrock of its foundation. That was the new thing which diverted society from its entrenched collective and top down nature into the realm of individual freedom, responsibility, and creativity. And after centuries of struggle arrived at the American Revolution which enshrined individual rights against the power of the State.
Ever since then, the unique Constitution which protected those rights has been under attack by those who wish to impose the more academic and refined Marxist version of an Authoritarian State.
The Progressive Alliance, nurtured by thinkers like Leonhardt, is what is destroying the West. Not Donald J. Trump.
But he, and those of us here and in the Alliance, may set that Progressive project back awhile.