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More on Trump
Jul. 22nd, 2016 09:13 amThe weird cognitive dissonance thing of last night's Donald Trump convention speech was agreeing with many of Trump's criticisms of President Obama, and finding the criticisms to come from such an incomprehensible place.
By my lights, the nuclear deal with Iran was a terrible move by President Obama, selling out meaningful pressure on the regime for non-meaningful changes and non-enforceable promises of change. Selling out the security of American allies in the region like Saudi Arabia and Israel at a time when those important allies were fighting to serve American interests in the Middle East of stability, energy security, and promotion of democracy. Trump is right, I think, that this was a significant mistake by Obama, and one that potentially endangers the US and its interests, both business interests and moral interests.
But I would never describe the deal as a 'humiliation'. What does that even mean? What kind of personal investment in America's reputation for foreign policy success would you have to have for the deal to represent a humiliation?
The sort of people Trump is speaking to feel this humiliation, though. I know because I've spoken to some of them, who use this language, and because I've learned that I have no way of moving the needle and moving them off of this language of humiliation. When they perceive the world as laughing at America, they perceive the world as laughing at their personal failure. They want the world to admire America, but more, they want the world to fear America. Not as an end toward some policy goal, but as an end unto itself. I will never understand this.
I will never understand the rhetoric surrounding Obama's 'apology tour' of Hiroshima. Even if we believe that bombing Hiroshima was the 'right' moral choice and needs no apology (Which I think it might have been, though the moral calculus surrounding the choice boggles my ability to make confident moral choices), surely we can recognize that sometimes saying things we don't believe in deference to political allies is a part of diplomacy? Surely, even if we might think that acting softly is the wrong political move at a particular moment, we recognize that it is sometimes necessary and therefore not a personal humiliation?
I will never understand the rhetoric, on both sides of the aisle, about loving America and hating America. It seems disconnected from any recognition of what America means. Consequently it seems to have very little to do with my own love of America. (Which is underpinned by a lot of the stuff in Ted Cruz's speech, frankly. Sometimes Ted Cruz is a frustrating figure, but he is undeniably brilliant and his principles are radiant.)
I am not humiliated by America and I do not see how I could possibly be humiliated by America. I am fortunate to live in a country that lets me rise and fall by the merits of my own moral choices, a country where I need not tie my personal self-worth to that of my nation-state.
And I worry about a politics motivated by humiliation, because it seems destined to act against our real national interest, again and again and again.
By my lights, the nuclear deal with Iran was a terrible move by President Obama, selling out meaningful pressure on the regime for non-meaningful changes and non-enforceable promises of change. Selling out the security of American allies in the region like Saudi Arabia and Israel at a time when those important allies were fighting to serve American interests in the Middle East of stability, energy security, and promotion of democracy. Trump is right, I think, that this was a significant mistake by Obama, and one that potentially endangers the US and its interests, both business interests and moral interests.
But I would never describe the deal as a 'humiliation'. What does that even mean? What kind of personal investment in America's reputation for foreign policy success would you have to have for the deal to represent a humiliation?
The sort of people Trump is speaking to feel this humiliation, though. I know because I've spoken to some of them, who use this language, and because I've learned that I have no way of moving the needle and moving them off of this language of humiliation. When they perceive the world as laughing at America, they perceive the world as laughing at their personal failure. They want the world to admire America, but more, they want the world to fear America. Not as an end toward some policy goal, but as an end unto itself. I will never understand this.
I will never understand the rhetoric surrounding Obama's 'apology tour' of Hiroshima. Even if we believe that bombing Hiroshima was the 'right' moral choice and needs no apology (Which I think it might have been, though the moral calculus surrounding the choice boggles my ability to make confident moral choices), surely we can recognize that sometimes saying things we don't believe in deference to political allies is a part of diplomacy? Surely, even if we might think that acting softly is the wrong political move at a particular moment, we recognize that it is sometimes necessary and therefore not a personal humiliation?
I will never understand the rhetoric, on both sides of the aisle, about loving America and hating America. It seems disconnected from any recognition of what America means. Consequently it seems to have very little to do with my own love of America. (Which is underpinned by a lot of the stuff in Ted Cruz's speech, frankly. Sometimes Ted Cruz is a frustrating figure, but he is undeniably brilliant and his principles are radiant.)
I am not humiliated by America and I do not see how I could possibly be humiliated by America. I am fortunate to live in a country that lets me rise and fall by the merits of my own moral choices, a country where I need not tie my personal self-worth to that of my nation-state.
And I worry about a politics motivated by humiliation, because it seems destined to act against our real national interest, again and again and again.