I want to see the dossier the Russians have collected regarding the debauchery trump engaged in during his time in Russia! I'm sure there are photos, videos and recording!
That alone can explain the disgustingly submissive position trump always takes when he's with the KGB thug, Vlad!
56
Putin wants and needs "liberalism" to be dead. Fortunately, it's far from performing as he desires. He, like Trump, are white men who will sone be the put in the dust bin of history.
22
The decline of America in recent years is no mystery to me. It was largely precipitated by the election of two macho but not very bright presidents, George Bush and Donald Trump. Bush was generally described as being incurious which implies a lack of intellectual curiosity. Trump does something dumb on an almost daily basis and appears to be unread and oblivious about history and government. The Democrats have the present opportunity to alter the national course by choosing one of several young and intelligent presidential candidates but will probably choose an old white guy who dwells in the past.
270
With the assistance of the Russians and Citizens United, the Republicans have seized control of all three branches of government. If you are a woman, non-white, non-Christian, or old, sick, or poor, or live in a blue state, you might as well grow accustomed to being screwed at every turn. After watching the circular firing squad otherwise known as the Democratic Party this week, get used to Trump through 2024, and perhaps beyond.
15
WE NEED A VIRAL YOUTUBE VERSION OF THIS
Learned commentary speaks to the converted. A viral YouTube send-up of Trump would be more politically effective!
I hope the Democratic party can compose and effectively promote a woven-together set of clips of President Trump trashing norms, laws, and allies, embracing killers and despots, and flip-flopping all over foreign relations.
He is the Long Ranger, with Mitch McConnell as Tonto, riding around shooting up the world.... I can see the video in my mind's eye now....
27
Trump and Putin, leading us hand and hand, down the road to fascism!
42
I guess the writer forgot about Obama’s anticipated post-election ‘flexibility’.
3
The intellectual level of the American people has never been very refined .Let's just think about the cold war, Mc Carthysm, the dictatures of South America, the coup of the Shah in Iran (just coming back now, Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan, just to name a few . It is not really like there is a decline.It is just that the mystique of fast thinking has crystallized into harder clusters of stupidity.
31
Dick Cheney personally would have never been caught dead on the back of an M1A1 tank...
And I do believe it’s impossible to climb into one with malignant bone spurs.
44
I hardly fail to point out the similarities of present day USA to the last days of the Roman Empire at every opportunity I get here in the comments sections of the NYT.
Almost infallibly, I get accused of being a right wing hater for doing so.
Perhaps the liberal left should take a step back and make the momentous effort of pointing its nose in a different direction.
Nevermind how tempting it may be to watch that smirking face in the mirror.
4
America is down for the count.
Will it get back up, or give up on Western Style Democracy in favour of some new form of Fascism ?
The electors of the next presidential election will decide!
16
People who live in democracies that can hold snap elections when a government has blown all public confidence in itself look upon the US and see a brain-dead nation.
25
Fascism, despite Vladis protestations to the contrary, is never in style.
18
The Decline and Fall of American Legitimacy:
How a Con Artist Outconned America.
It will be a best seller abroad.
20
All because our vile politicians are allowed to take massive bribes as part of their "job".
24
"The road from that high-water mark of the American idea to Trump’s autocrat-coddling indecency ……. Edward Gibbon would have qualified as “decline and fall.” All Democratic candidates should be asked what they intend to do about it". If we ask Democrats: They would say, more illegal immigration, all benefits to illegals, change the society by bringing more immigrants and other means, impeach Trump, continue with all kinds of investigation until they find something against him, trying to control China and to get a fair trade deals is bad for America, increase tax, green new deal, end using fossil fuels, more abortion, more rights to LGBTQ, reduce standards in school, minimum wage, more regulations, whites are racists, no national pride, etc. These are the reasons why America and most of the Western democracies turned against liberal values. Trump is not the cause for decline here, but he may be the one saving America and Western Democracies through his common sense policies.
1
America was at war with itself, long before the war in Iraq and long before the demagogue surfaced.
After the election "W" America began to cheapen the labor supply. I wrote the following letter to the Wall Street
Journal in 2003.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB106038515998001900
In 2008 our economy collapsed. But the sucking sound continued. On life support from he FED, Wall Street and the CEO's carried on their debauched ways. Greed and dishonesty won the day. Trump won the election. It's pathetic, but logical.
War is often deflection. Seriously look at the conditions in Europe, which lead to WWI. Look at the Italian economy and the rise of Mussolini!
Remember Enron! Remember Credit Default Swaps and Country Wide Mortgage! Remember Bernie Madoff!
Be prescient about the cheapening of our dollar. Temporarily surviving because other nations are in worse shape.
Be prescient about our stock market.
"The U.S. stock market is currently $34 trillion, compared to the rest of the world's $44 trillion capitalization. The U.S. is 43% of world market value, but it houses only 17% of the world's stocks. The U.S. is 5000 companies as compared to 25,000 non-US stocks. U.S. companies are much bigger. Apr 2, 2018"
9
What caption would you put under Putin’s picture?
56
Trump is vying to become “worst President ever”. His ignorance is exceeded only by his boorishness. He praise our enemies and insults our allies.
How can this man who lost the popular vote by over three million votes be our President?
33
President George H.W. Bush said it all too well, and I paraphrase:
“Beginning in the 1960s we Americans threw out The Baby,
The Bathwater and the Bassinet as well. We stopped looking to the past for guidance on how to build for the future”.
With that went moral persuasion.
Trump is the embodiment of our current disdain for what it took to make America Great in the first place.
Our national foundations are still in place despite the unforgivable sins we have committed.
If we survive the remainder of the Trump Era, can we now learn
once again that complacency and incompetence must not
rule our nation?
6
Trump’s been money laundering for these corrupt Russians since the 1990’s when any legitimate bank would no longer loan Trump money after multiple bankruptcies “I don’t need banks, I’ve got all the Russian money I need!”
No wonder the morally bankrupt and corrupt Trump is smiling- he’s still got all the Russian money he needs - in a illegal off shore bank account.
Trump is disgraceful and a clear and present danger to our country.
38
The American decline of Democracy or whatever it's called has had about 30 years of Republican strategy to get us where we are today with some ignorant, obtuse Americans who don't see this coming. Why Americans prefer to hand over their freedom to a dictator type of government with Putin and Trump is spelled out in Dostoyevsky's chapter of "The Grand Inquisitor" and Orwell's prophetic "1984". But then you'd have to read and not watch Fox now Trump and Friends tell you what to think.
18
Mark Twain once said "Its easy to stop smoking. I've done it lots of times." Maybe Putin's quote that "Liberalism is obsolete" will also be remembered. It has many authors including, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, Kim Jung Il, Duarte, and as they say the list goes on and on. If the next election goes the way that Trump and his packed Supreme Court want it to go, we may soon be hearing the same quote from Trump himself. But like smoking, liberalism is not such an easy habit to quit. In the end, and I hope I live to see it, liberal democracy will once again take its just and rightful place on this planet.
22
We can keep making observations and writing articles. The fact is, the NYT participated in a money grab along with all other media while touting stories about the amoral and publicity seeking trump prior to the election. This didn't inform the public. It confused them. I remember finding it strange that every front page blared trump for months and months prior to the election. Now the media spends it's time shredding contenders for president. This is a coup. WAKE UP. Were are the articles about Steve Bannon and his self entitled demand that our government be dismantled by putting bloviating trump at the helm? Where are the articles about Ichan and the Kochs and other oligarchs who infest the WH? I don't want to hear another word about trump and his repulsive behavior. I want to be informed by trusted journalists about the greedy men and women who are destroying our country for personal profit. Thank you for listening.
62
Cohen and Burns should read John Mearsheimer’s book _The Great Delusion_ which describes how liberal hegemony as advanced by Madeline Albright, who called the US the “indispensable nation,” has inspired 30 years of American foreign-policy blunders, the worst being the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
10
Jim Stempel in his book, “The Nature of War”, best describes the situation we find our democracy; I paraphrase, “Anyone firm in the belief that democratic institutions can flourish unaided in undemocratic soil need only look at” Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (my references). “Democratic institutions are only as good as people who employ them;” and in the hands of Trump and the Senate Republicans “who have no respect for freedom’s goals, they will either wither and die, or be bent to destructive ends. Democratic institutions require democratic minds to understand, run and respect them,” something minds like Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Putin are not capable of.
8
The eclipse, perhaps demise, of liberalism is mostly because, once it was ‘unipolar’ it was expected to make life better for people everywhere. But the ball and chain of global capitalism not only does not permit it, but rapidly exacerbates inequality, and makes most people everywhere skeptical of the seemingly indissoluble marriage of capitalism run amok and liberalism. In some important sense Obama missed a great opportunity in the US after the financial crisis of 2008 by turning to Wall Streeters like Gaithner. Into the breach step in vile nationalists, among others I miss, like Modi, Putin, Xi, Orban, Duterte, Farage, Trump, Bolsanaro....Boris Johnson....who knows who else in the years to come. Cohen’s commentary is on an epiphenomenon. Indeed Gibbon would appreciate the full scope of the disaster.
6
Isn’t Trump’s behavior what evil sounds and feels like? His malevolent delight in cruelty, chaos and destruction? His embrace of ultra wealthy murderers and tyrants like Putin and MBS? How will he be stopped? He’s getting worse. Our Republic is fraying.
26
Once upon a time I wrote captions for pictures. I was thinking about this picture of Putin looking at Trump as Trump babbled and chuckled.
The caption here would have to include how stupid Putin thinks Trump is, how wonderful Trump thinks of himself, and how scary this is for the American people and the world.
I won’t waste my senior time putting a caption together. These days I just wonder if I will live long enough to see a reversal of the damage Donald Trump has created. These days my hope is for my grandchildren, that they will not have to suffer the ramifications of this dangerous man. These days I pray the next year and a half under the rule of this inhumane, stupid man goes without attack on Americans who innocently serve their country and those around the world who are innocent too.
23
Just this week, we learned that Tillerson and Mattis, before their departures, had been sidelined by Kushner and Bannon. Now, Tillerson and Mattis may not have been the strongest diplomats, but they are intelligent and sought stability. Kushner has conflits of interest and is wet-behind-the-ears, while Bannon is a far right ideologue who promotes bigotry. Donald Trump was certainly happy to empower the latter group. Small wonder that America’s global influence is now so negative and pathetic.
19
A thoughtful essay, as ever with Roger, but not addressed here is the arrogance and willful belligerence that president Bush Sr. presented in the wake of the Soviet downfall, in promulgating "a new world order," which was an euphemism for U.S. arrogance and hegemony with respect to other sovereign countries. His feckless son and Cheney continued this neocon fantasy with their Iraq invasion. And #45's infantile threats to Iran continues the GOP-led waltz to war, death, and diminution of what was once the American century. We are indeed in a very self-destructive political environment, brought on by GOP-led imperialism, vain ideologies, and now a country led by a narcissistic madman.
19
Setting aside the notion of American decline and its causes. Trump's performance at the G20 press conference today with Putin was sickening.
20
Redundant, I know, but let’s get rid of this guy.
18
To the Russia defenders on both the right and the left: You know that you would be freaking out if Clinton or any Democratic president would be as obsequious as Trump is with Putin.
America was always promoted by the right-wing as a shining example of democracy. Now, it's an example of the Russian model -- a corrupt petrostate run by oligarchs and a wannabe dictator with rigged elections.
Trump's 2016 slogan should have been "Making America Like Russia." For 2020, it's "Keeping America Like Russia."
16
Nixon-Cheney-Trump. Different faces. Same temperament.
14
With the fall of the USSR we had a golden opportunity to reimagine the world. But in our usual American way we instead expanded our military presence (NATO), built excessive amounts of ever-more expensive weaponry (every president), didn't pay attention to our intelligence services (every president up to Obama), initiated stupid, expensive and alienating wars (Afghanistan, Iraq), and elected one anti-intellectual Republican (Bush), and one utterly stupid buffoon (Trump). It's a wonder we continue to exist as a nation.
13
How low the U.S. has fallen was demonstrated just now in Trump's breakfast meeting with Salman. I never thought I would see the President of the United States grovel before a murderous, head chopping Bedouin, simply in order to increase weapons sales that are already the instrument of genocide in Yemen.
Trump represents a nation he has shamed immeasurably, by making it appear as a lawless, unprincipled, mercenary state.
23
I agree, and a socialist President will add to the decline. America needs to remember its core principle, liberty, and stop this slouch toward a socialist system. Nominating an avowed socialist by Democrats would be as foolish as what we Republicans did. Class resentment is bigotry and ugly. Fight it.
Excellent but far too intelligent. America is historically anti-intellectual. Most of those commenting here, indeed the vast majority who read the NYT, are not average Americans. For me, the election of the Orange Excrescence forced me to confront viscerally what I had long known intellectually—we are a cruel stupid, vicious people in many ways. Not exceptional. We have our own unique elements, but fundamentally we are as selfish, greedy, intolerant and narcissistic as anyone else.
I thank the election of 2016 for one thing: it confirmed my complete loss of faith or trust in humanity. And after over fifty years of atheism, was one of the things that brought about my conversion to Christianity’s oldest church, Greek Orthodoxy. I truly believe that there is a God, and I can love my enemies secure in that faith, hopeful they will see the error of their ways, trusting that Christ will hold us all to account for all eternity on Judgment Day.
That only emboldens my will to fight in my few remaining years for what is right, and just, and fair, and compassionate. Because I know in my heart my life is less than a nanosecond of eternity, and I would rather earn a good place there than enjoy the corrupt plutocratic pleasures earthly existence offers.
My great sadness is that God created us as good, and gave us the earth’s bounty. We seem to prefer evil, and destroying that earth. I fear my new grandson will have a far more unpleasant life than I have had, which pains me to my soul.
14
Trump’s stupid policies and constant whims only accelerated an inevitability.
Our nation will be a has-been by mid century, simply because the Federal government spent more than we took in for decades. This level of public debt will not be sustainable once the Dollar loses its place as the world’s currency. We will just be a larger version of 1950s Britain, austere and moping over past glory.
President Xi is waiting his turn, playing a long game, as is Putin. A default on our debt will cement our decline.
17
If this isn't treason, then I have no idea what the word means.
The president of the United States is winking and shuffling and making a complete fool of himself, and simultaneously flushing any shred of dignity - his own or the country's, it doesn't matter - down the proverbial toilet.
Do we still have a Congress? Are some on vacation and the rest in a coma? Elizabeth, Kamala, Mayor Pete, I appeal to you to bring dignity, class, and brains back to the United States. I know I am not the only American citizen who is thoroughly sickened by and ashamed of my country's current leaders.
28
The stupid, the greedy, the sociopathic will rule the world because the people who don't think they should are too frightened to take the kind of stand that would prevent that from happening.
15
Little Cohen,
Our great and beloved president, Donald John Trump, has saved us from ourselves.
With the West’ anemic birth rates and embracing of every conceivable form of human degeneracy. Our crippled America, and more broadly Western society, is truly teetering on the brink of disaster!
Long live President’s Trump, Putin, and Bolsonaro! God Almighty is deeply good! Come quickly Lord Jesus!
1
What Trump has shown is the hollowing out of American by the top 1 percent ( who are racist, misogynists, homophobic and all men) and how they subvert the laws of the land for their own selfish greed but then blame it on Obama or people from different countries, or the welfare queens or gays. This subversion of the laws of the land by America’s top 1 percent has been going on for years and years. I for one see a revolution afoot and hope a women elected can change this pattern.
10
Roger, it's not just Trump who savages. Did you listen to the 22 heirs-apparent savage good lectern matters? We are all, each and everyone of us of late part and parcel of the mess we savage.
Yes, the progressives have been trumped by Trump's errant commnets, but they aren't so bad at their reverse-Trump trumps, either.
1
Trump voters wanted to blow up the American government.
Wish granted.
20
He’s a stain on the character and Honor of this Country. The rules prevent me from further description.
Just saying.
17
Historically, our foreign policy has done well for us as a country, but has been far from perfect. But nothing has prepared us for an actual president committing treason in front of our own eyes. If we play our cards right, this will be the end, not only of the Trump fiasco, but of the criminal republican party.
5
Trump is a disgrace and so are the Republicans who fail to censure him for destroying our reputation abroad. I never thought I would hear an American president joke with a murderous Kremlin autocrat about interfering in our elections, praise Russia's state-run media while trashing our own free press as "fake news and savaging the last of our allies while trying to arrange another tryst with Kim Jong-un. The only presidential library he should be getting is a jail cell.
18
Guess you could say that Osama bin Laden is the most influential person in recent history. He is really the one who could say "mission accomplished."
7
What Putin and Trump want is plutocracy and kleptocracy.
And too many Americans see nothing wrong with that.
10
It is not so much, in my view, of whether “liberalism” is obsolete. Rather, it is the distorted understanding and practice of that which makes it the case. When one views liberalism as the indivisibility of freedom and human dignity, as mentioned in this column, the rule of law (in the formal sense and as also mentioned) risks becoming denyingly offensive to “liberalism.” Insofar as “liberalism” is “do-as-you-wish,” “follow-your-passion,” etc., communal instability, if not societal chaos, is, as outcome, predictable. Our problem of no-limit living increasingly preceded Trump ... who has taken political advantage of this to an extreme that focuses power centrally as corrective in himself, a self-declared “savior” of America. When “liberalism” denies discipline for the sake of justice (and not merely of rule-driven kind), it is inherently disastrous ... including providing vacuum that yields such like as Putin and Trump.
1
I seriously think that the only thing that can stop the literal fall of America, is if Russia falls first.
Maybe then, Americans can wake to the carnage that Trump in unleashing.
Domestic terrorism is ignored by Trump, with the theocrats being as dangerous as the racists.
5
The US gave itself the cancer of revanchism and nihilism that pushed Trump into the presidency all by its super-sanctimonious hyper-hypocritical self.
The pursuit of happiness is dead. Long live drudgery under theocracy.
3
Trump just doesn't get it. He's the one making the mockery of the WH, the American flag and the legacy of the USA. If it was up to me they'd burn down the WH and rebuild it once Trump is evicted. It's the only way to get the stench of corruption and hypocrisy out of there.
5
To suggest that the post-9/11 “inversion of force and diplomacy” that saw a disoriented United States lurch away from capturing Bin Laden, stabilizing Afghanistan & onto a catastrophic “road to war in Iraq” that “was distinctive for its intensity and indiscipline” is understatement.
Likewise, the expansion of NATO with “war games” & the massive infusion of military weaponry & forces to Russia’s western border was "needlessly provocative”. George Keenan, Burns, & other foreign policy professionals tried to warn the neo-lib & neo-con cheerleaders for war against this inversion of force and diplomacy. The cheerleaders for war ignored the advise of foreign policy professionals to our great detriment.
3
Democrat candidates should be asked about "decline and fall" and "what they intend to do about it". You have to be kidding. Democrat candidates are almost exclusively obsessed with inward-looking far left domestic issues like, LGBTQ rights, reparations, unlimited immigration, expanded abortion rights, free medical care; free, free, free. For them, the world beyond our borders might as well not even exist. Now there's "decline and fall" for you. Come on, Dems, quit blaming Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump.
2
Hey Vlad, hey Donald, what exactly is about the "liberal idea" that is obsolete and no longer useful? Is it one person, one vote that's obsolete? Is it personal Liberty that's obsolete? Equality? Rule of law? - yup, that's what I thought you meant.
7
I am not a student of history or politics, but a artist who has read NYT from early adulthood: all news seems circular (not to mention the recurrent focus on child-rearing issues to this 60-ish person) however, these sort of articles seem redundant: Roger Cohen's support of Williams Burn's book, wherein Burns was support of this or that until in hindsight he wasn't, is the very essence of history - things can always be evaluated differently after a pause. Hi-ho. China will or won't rise, US will or won't decline into absurdity, earth will or won't continue to support human life, NYT will likely continue until it doesn't.... But it's still interesting reading in the meantime!!
1
America government being unilingual system, vers most countries polylingual.
America see things in Black and White terms. Polylingual world Black and White is shades of grey without no Black and White end points.
Dick Cheney regrets not making a “hard stand against war altogether”? Why don't he and Liz take a stand, you know, now?
He didn't seem all that regretful at the time. His level of regret depends on how much Halliburton is raking in. Now that his daughter has joined the middle-school tweet set, that seems to be all they want to do for America. War profiteers gonna profit, and I'm certain the Cheneys have a special agreement with BinSalman.
In fact, I don't see ANY Bush administration member taking a hard stand against war right now, do you?
8
We should not forget that Washington (President, Congress,lobbyists etc.) are just a symptom of the electorate.
The erosion, as Cohen says, started way before Trump.
It is all the result of a mediocre (High School) education. Americans are mostly ignorant and that is reflected in how our government behaves.
There is an urgent need to provide young people in High School) with world civics classes, debate political systems (including capitalism,socialism, theocracies, etc.) health care systems and economics. Many other countries do, but they do not provide afternoon sports. Your choice.
8
Liberalism as it existed is now truly obsolete. It needs to be resurrected if the people want it, or left to die if it will not.
Democracy as America currently practices is both corrupt and obsolete. It does not work. Revolution is the job of 30 year olds. But ours don’t even bother to vote. Maybe after six more years of Trump some leader will arise. The 70 and 80 year olds who will be running for President in 2020 will just continue the slide.
Both liberalism and democracy need revolutionary overhaul. Just need a spark to start the war. Trump may well provide the spark
No reason North America cannot break apart into a dozen nations that, if anything would be more manageable and more aligned with the electorates beliefs.
Trump’s just sitting atop a trash heap celebrating his greatness. A fitting end
Of course NATO expansion right up to Russia’s borders was not necessary “to secure and stabilize the liberation of more than 100 million long subjugated people in Central Europe and the Baltic States.” It was France and Germany that attacked Russia three times during the 19th and 20th centuries, each time with massive Russian casualties and destruction, not the other way around, so Russia’s fear of the western powers is understandable.
Regarding NATO expansion eastward, US Secretary of State James Baker said to Gorbachev on 9 February, 1990 “We understand that not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” Baker indicated that the US approach to German reunification would “guarantee that Germany’s unification will not lead to NATO’s military organization spreading to the east.” Gorbachev replied that “it goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable.”
We are now paying the price for the reckless abandon with which the US broke their word. An ascendant Russia whose security interests were so cavalierly sacrificed will never trust America again.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/when-washington-assured-russia-nato-would-not-expand/
3
Why did so many of us think electing a President endorsed and aided by Russia was a good idea? Why does the GOP enable the most dysfunctional chaotic Administration in American History? Why is there a Fox Nation...a Nation of Trump supporting American followers ...within our Nation? Why has it been such a slow painful struggle to uphold what we all know is right and why is there such a struggle to uphold the Rule of Law? Can it really be that too many of us like things as they are and are not concerned about our Democracy and where we are heading as a Nation? Our Government is struggling to Govern itself!! Can it be possible that Trump is right...he could shoot someone and still not lose support?? When is enough enough for even the staunchest of his supporters?? What will it take?? Is it becoming...too late?? As it is...Allies that we have had for generations are questioning the Average American Voters Allegiance to the Worst President and Administration in American History! Is Melania right ? She doesn't Care ….Do You ?
5
Disagree entirely with Mr. Cohen and Mr. Burns on the so called nuclear arms "deal" with Iran (it was certainly not a treaty since it was not approved by the necessary vote in the Senate, which is indicative of its popularity). While temporarily convenient for the U.S., it did not leave "everyone better off" as suggested since our allies in the Middle East, and particularly Israel, have been seriously endangered. Iran incessantly preaches for the extermination of Israel, and has taken a variety of actions to make good on that threat including the funding and military support of radical religious terrorists such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The policy of the present U.S. administration to starve Iran of funds by severely limiting their ability to sell oil has sharply limited their ability to continue to spread terrorism in the region, as witness the complaints of their terrorist allies that they don't have enough funds to pay their troops. Iran has responded with an increasing series of military provocations against the U.S., but this has essentially brought into the present what inevitably would have happened in the future albeit at a much more dangerous level when Iran achieves nuclear breakout. Unfortunately, there are all too many politicians, particularly in the Democratic party, who are willing to settle for a policy of appeasement Munich style to achieve what they think is "peace in our time".
We haven't been told the whole story. Something fishy is going on in the background and it stinks. It's possible to glean that from clues dropped into this very newspaper. I have come to think of it as a giant international fraternity stunt. In the meantime, I take heart from this remark by the economist Simon Johnson in a book review in 2017: compared to America, "the rest of the world is consistently more messed up -- today and probably forever."
2
"Liberalism posited the indivisibility of freedom and human dignity, as well as the idea that the rule of law and democracy offered the best chance for human advancement, peace and prosperity. It's spread appeared inevitable and irreversible. It's guiding spirit was the United States." This 'democratic liberalism' has led to much good around the world and is still cherished by millions. It is what my ancestors fought to accomplish throughout our history, having someone who fought in every war from the French ad Indian War on, for just such 'human advancement'. If there is anything we have learned it is our freedom is never free! Nor, is it irreversible. We cannot believe how quickly Trump, has 'savaged our democracy' with attacks on freedom of religion, the press, assembly, and individual expression, which are all hallmarks of what we thought was truly the American values that we ALL treasured. Someone wrote, where one person isn't truly free, none of us are. Another said, when they come for another (possibly immigrants, Jewish, Blacks, etc.), it won't be too long before they will be coming for you, if you don't resist and defend your rights to freedom for all. Please Lord, we pray that Trump will be an aberration, that the Republican Party that neither vetted nor challenged his 'illiberal beliefs' will be overwhelmed in the next election with freedom loving people all across this land and the world. Justice must be served. The day of reckoning is at hand.
5
THE SECOND WORLD COLD WAR:
Once Putin declared in the "Financial Times" that "Liberal Democracy" is obsolete, and praised Populism and Nationalism, the "Second World Cold War" is envisioned and marked clearly: Liberal Democracy vs Populism (Putin's).
I think Populism was designed as a retaliation to the fall of Soviet Union, basically because Putin believes Gorbatchev is a western agent.
Spots of Populism's victory includes: US (Trump), Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, Philippine, Brazil, then on the run Britain (Nigel Farage and Boris Jhonson)/EU in the form of Brexit.
Breaking down the big blocs like UK and weakening the superpower US, are the principal targets. This article emphasizes one side of the Second World Cold War.
4
When we see this crap going on, is it any wonder that the Democratic debates drew the largest viewership in the history of Democratic debates? People are tired of a President that is running roughshod over American democracy, trashing our reputation in the world, and cuddling up (and possibly colluding) with dictators and criminal regimes. People are increasingly ready for a change (which is needed from the top-down).
12
America’s decline in the last 3 decades is directly related to the ascendancy of Republican dominance in our government. This is not the Republican Party of Eisenhower. It is, instead, a party of neocons who have never served, of anti science and antieducation, and, most of all, of Southern Democrats who became the core of the Republican Party in response the the Civil Rights and social welfare legislation of the 60’s. Trump is simply the corrupt, incompetent, indecent, and ignorant icon for for that party. America can emerge from its decline and reassert dominance in world affairs. But only when Trump and his iteration of the Republican Party are expelled from our political discourse. Liberalism and decency can not coexist with Trump Republicans. Americans have a clear choice to make in 2020.
471
@Stu: The Republican Party is largely composed of people who expected God to purge the Earth of their nemeses on January 1, 2000. The event has been postponed to Passover, 2032.
39
@Stu
No, Americans won't get it until it's too late.
The promise of "making America great again", a strong economy (so far) and a president flaunting patriotism in the guise of xenophobia has blinded them to the threat that Trump, the Republicans and Russia poses to this country.
43
@Stu I hope the choice in 2020 will be a clear one unlike the one in 2016. The choice then other than Trump was neocon Hillary Clinton.
10
The war with Iraq was a disaster that is still playing out. Among other things it was a huge distraction from what Putin and Russia was doing. It also allowed Russia to become a stronger player in the middle east. Now Trump's incompetency is just exacerbating the situation. His policies are moving us backward which, perhaps, is what Putin envisioned when he made the effort to swing the election. It worked in the UK which is now a mess.
9
We really have to cut down to the core of the current divide and we have to stop talking mostly about a handful of people keeping in mind that there are 7 billion currently inhabiting the planet.
On one side stand people with common sense, who base their opinions one the best possible evidence.
On the other side we have people in denial, who filter out any facts they don’t like or where they can’t they lie.
Human civilization has reached a tipping point or a cross road: we either go down the path of inevitable destruction or we find a way to harmonize our civilization with nature.
Currently the liars and deniers have the upper hand, because humans are shortsighted and victims of outdated biases and powerful instincts.
This basic conflict expresses itself in myriads of sub-conflicts, debates, decisions, policies, parties, philosophy and academia through out society and culture worldwide. And it was on display at the G20.
We can’t have a civilization without living in harmony with ourselves and nature. Only if enough people accept this basic truth will we have a chance to avoid a cataclysm of civilization.
As much as I enjoy Roger Cohen’s well measured essays, as much do I miss that explicit frame work.
6
The simple truth is that to begin the job of restoration of respect for any of our foreign policies is the swift and determined removal of this president and his administration. Apparently we must wait for the democratic process of election because the Senate whose members cannot agree to the removal even by the resignation Nixon was intelligent enough to make would never be the choice of the GOP. They are stupidly marching towards their 2020 defeat by clinging to this president. None of them is as intelligent and concerned as those who urged Nixon to leave. These are the traitors to our future. As this president frequently says, SO SAD... LOOK IN THE MIRROR this morning and see who you are. Poor excuses for human beings all.
8
Fine author , fine book.
1
The casual American attitude to diplomacy can be seen in the ongoing G-20 summit where Ivanka Tump is seen in photographs of every meeting that her father attends.
Why is America copying Saudi Arabia and treating Ivanka like a crown princess?
How did Americans become so comfortable with this pseudo-monarchy of the Trump regime?
25
@AM, Americans didn't. A majority of Americans are not comfortable AT ALL.
Republicans are setting America on a course to them-only rule. By gerrymandering, hacking, propaganda and voting restrictions, they are trying to make sure that Democrats won't win anywhere, even if they get a majority of votes. Everywhere. County, city, state and federal.
It's easy (thanks, media!) to keep staring at sweaty, desperate asylum seekers on the news, while evil men manipulate trump quietly.
People ask "What are the Democrats going to do about this?" As if the party of trump just gets to keep smashing America and daring the law to do anything.
Not only that, but American Christians support trump because they want their religion enshrined as theocracy, and trump might deliver something like that. So when a small minority of religious zealots and racists rig the voting system so they never lose, and the majority have no voice, what's that called?
Being horrified into a state of shock is NOT the same as being comfortable. We are about to enter a time when 25% get to tell 75% how it's gonna be from now on.
American Taliban ascendant under trump!
16
To suggest that 40+ years of incompetence by the State Department through multiple Democrat and Republican administrations was caused by President Trump is ludicrous. I suggest a better and less self serving and partisan view is found in Dr. Kissinger's "World Order."
1
@Captain Roger, the author specifically says that the problem pre-dates trump, and goes on to show mistakes by other presidents.
And then, in an article on American Pax, you refer us to.....Henry Kissinger?
2
The scariest thing about Putin's claim that "Liberal Democracy" is obsolete, is that the ignoramuses who blindly follow Trump will agree with Putin simply because they will confuse the terms "Liberal" and "Liberal Democracy".
13
It would clarify Putin's comment about the "liberal idea" being obsolete and having outlived its purpose if the media would stop calling him president Putin and instead referred to him by his correct title--dictator Putin.
With this correct honorific prefacing his name everything he says and does would be immediately put into the correct perspective.
6
We haven't heard much lately about Jon Huntsman, Trump's Ambassador to Russia. He is one tough and smart cookie; I can't imagine him being a pushover for Putin (or Trump). Does anyone know what the heck is going on? Has there been any reporting on the actual American Delegation?
3
@Margie, I took about 15 seconds to google this, and evidently Ambassador Huntsman is just biding his time waiting to leave, so he can run for governor of Utah. He'll get his pension and lots of Utah cred for being 'tough on Russia' by doing absolutely nothing.
"Hundreds of American diplomats have been expelled from the country amid growing tensions over Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. And during a now-infamous summit in Helsinki last year, Trump drew global outrage after appearing to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies on the question of election tampering.
As far as the 'actual American delegation', it doesn't matter. trump is meeting secretly with Putin today, and has said it's 'none of your business' what they talk about. He frequently says things his diplomats cannot fathom, so really, what does it matter what Huntsman does?
4
Bullies don’t “ believe “ in diplomacy. It’s too feminine, too nice, too fair, too time consuming. Bullies want to break everything, as long as someone else must cleanup the mess. Bullies demand unfettered Power, unquestioned Loyalty, and Public obedience, and obsequiousness. The only relationships bullies have are transactional, and they must always, always come out on top.
I don’t feel one iota of sympathy for anyone volunteering to serve this “ president “, nor for anyone that still supports Him. If you don’t know what he is by now, you are deluded and/or profiting. Shame on you, for enabling this great National Stain. I only wish I could be more specific about the characteristics of said stain.
Seriously.
14
Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney remodeled his oil production services company for government services. He raised a campaign war chest, found an electable name, and conveniently couldn't find anyone other than himself for V.P.
Get elected. Respond to attack. Roll-out the "1-percent chance" axim, secure Iraqi oil fields, spend a trillion tax dollars, and Halliburton, KBR, & other military contractors get billions. All for about a million lives lost and tens of millions suffering.
Now meet the new grifters. Same as the old grifters.
14
Funny- If there are 3 equal co-branches of government Why doesn't Chuck Or Nancy do anything in advance the negate Trump's message before he boards Air Force 1...?? Trump doesn't play by the rules of protocol why should they?
Why can't Chuck or Nancy say... "OH Great! Our President is going overseas again and will probably take a private meeting with Putin!"
1
Trump's total submission to Putin for political survival and business needs is not just fast forwarding the American decline but turning the whole liberal idea encapsulated by the US exceptionalism upside down to make it look discredited and much inferior in comparison to the false shine of brute authoritarianism.
4
Trump is a disaster, no question. But Mr. Burns is like so many "experts" these days, when the world is moving so fast, that we have few true experts on tomorrow. All we have are experts on yesterday, like Mr. Burns.
1
Another column on the decline of America which refuses to acknowledge the role the non-voting America public in building it over the past 40 years.
4
@David UK, much like Vermont which is fast becoming the the weekend bedroom state for rich and famous. Meanwhile the the disadvantaged that live here struggle.
3
Funny- If there are 3 equal co-branches of government Why doesn't Chuck Or Nancy do anything in advance the negate Trump's message before he boards Air Force 1...?? Trump doesn't play by the rules of protocol why should they?
Ignorance is the worst enemy of democracy as it's fully proved by Mr Trump.
5
The people who admire Trump's foreign policy are the 'intellectual' heirs (ha!) of the America Firsters and isolationists of the 1930's who saw no danger and didn't care about the rise of the dictators abroad. Had Trump then been in office we'd all now be speaking either German or Japanese.
4
Donald Trump,Sr is a mere symptom of the American cold civil war.
Trump's ignorant, immature, immoral,incompetent,inexperienced, intemperate and insecure nature and nurture attracted the votes of 63 million Americans. Including 58% of the white voting majority.
Trump didn't run a covert stealth subtle campaign. Nor did Hillary Clinton. Every American knew who both were and were not and voted accordingly. Trump can't be blamed on divine royal sanction selection nor an armed uniformed military coup.
McCain/ Palin won 57% of the white vote in 2008 and Romney/ Ryan won 59% of the white vote in 2012.
5
I'm simply voting for a democrat, any democrat. It's as simple as that. Trump will be perp walked out of our WH, the people's house and it will happen November 2020 if not sooner by impeachment.
6
At this point, it will be progress when an American President doesn’t laugh with Putin about election interference, doesn’t kick off the G20 by mocking Japan, Germany and India, and doesn’t wantonly alienate our allies.
4
What should be do about it? Well, make sure that Joe/anne Sixpack's lifestyle moves ahead with the 1% and doesn't have to be worried about losing a job and becoming homeless next month or being bankrupted by an illness. Seems simple enough.
2
William Burns was correct about NATO expansion. Russia has always been wary of powerful neighbors with aggressive intentions, whether it was the Ottoman Empire to the south prior to WW I, Napoleon and other European powers to the West, the Nazis during WW II, or the Cold War until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Expanding NATO meant the US and allies with ? intentions were actually on Russia’s borders even if the West was saying you have nothing to worry about us attacking you. No wonder Russia and Putin reacted with alarm.
Of course, recognizing Putin for the autocrat he is, perhaps we would have ended up with the same Russia we have now with or without NATO expansion. But, that was not a foregone conclusion. There was even consideration of including full Russian membership in NATO. Now we are back with a new Russian Empire.
2
Unless the History books are incorrect, the Berlin wall came down during the resurgence of the conservative movement in america. Was that Al gore saying " take down that wall Mr G." ???? It had NOTHING to do with " liberalism".. Liberal politicians like to claim credit for everything from the internet to world peace and mistakenly associate liberalism with democracy, all the while pushing a socialist agenda.
Why is it always an" honor" for trump to be with murderous dictators, but trashes our own public servants?
He shows more love and respect for these horrible authoritarian murdering leaders who repress their people than for any American that has actually spent their lives doing the challenging work of trying to make America great.
5
Because he is a wannabe of theirs. To be invited into their club is his honor.
3
The whole premise of this article is false. America is better off today than 30 years ago. Technology and medical invention has made life better for millions. If you want to go back in time go ahead and live with the tools and implements from the past. You won't like it.
11
@JoeGiul
The entire premise of this article is correct. America has lost the respect of the world, and the budgets of its cities, states, and individuals make technology and medical invention inaccessible to millions. If you want to go back in time when people were poor and powerless, and all power was in the hands of a king or queen, go ahead. You won't like it.
129
@JoeGiul: The US is the only country in the world that hasn't adopted the otherwise universal Metric System of measurements. It fell off the technical leading edge during the Reagan Administration. That man was as vapid as Trump, but better polished as an actor.
81
True up to a point. Think of the measles outbreaks now due to Vaccine Hesitancy, and the Trump Administration discarding scientific evidence in regards to Climate Change. Civilization has already lived through one Dark Age, and I hope we aren’t headed for a second one.
74
I have no illusions about Vladimir Putin.
I lived in Berlin behind that Wall and know what it was like, and there's nothing to grin about when he talks of abolishing "the liberal idea" and Mr. Trump listens with glee.
Just like there's no mistaking what Trump meant when he said he'd accept help from Russia or other foreign governments to win the election.
That's why he sees no need for diplomacy.
Few autocrats do.
It's much easier to rule by threat and military force.
Just like Russia.
And with Trump ceding the Western ideals of freedom for a permanent place in history as a second-rate power at the hand of Russia, it's hard to think of a more tragic end for Alexander Hamilton's description democracy, as a "grand experiment", gone wrong.
16
That America is on good terms with Russia and China would be a surprise to John F Kennedy who served near the height of the Cold War. Kennedy built a nuclear missile defense called Mutually Insured Destruction and fought proxy wars in Africa and Vietnam. Trump meets with leaders of these countries to negotiate tough, but mutually beneficial trade relations. American schoolchildren used to hide under their desks in fear of a nuclear attack. Under Trump, the only people crouched under their desk are Democrats in fear of a second Trump term.
@Rick Correction -- don't you mean Mutually Assured Destruction? Also, wasn't missile development initiated under Eisenhower?
4
Trump is the culmination of corruption by the Republican Party to use any means necessary—some legal, some not—to secure power and establish themselves in perpetuity as the majority party. The great partisan divide in this country is primarily on social issues like race, safety net programs, abortion, and gay rights whose grievances Republicans have nurtured for decades at the expense of the country. Republicans have successfully portrayed Democrats as the party of tax and spend and themselves as the party of job creation, but the last time we had no budget deficit was under a Democratic president and our latest Democratic president had to rescue the economy and restore jobs lost in the Great Recession caused by unnecessary Republican war and tax cuts. Yet half our population seems ignorant of these facts and just keeps on voting for Republicans to take away other people’s rights while they continue to enjoy all their own rights.
18
Burns fails to see the sense of betrayal by the West that many felt in Central and Eastern Europe. It made that geography more unstable opening the door to Putin's meddling. The West needed to bring that geography into to fold sooner. Western EU's snobbery does not help. UK and its endless complaints about "Polish plumbers" and the like feeds anger among people who are needed as friends.
3
Trump has taken his poorly considered inaugural words of “American carnage” and projected it onto the world stage. His chaotic ‘leadership of the free world’ is doing no one but the strong men and would be strongmen favors.
4
Trump’s latest “Let them eat cake” moment.
He’s laughing at all of us, including his base.
Dems need to quit offending mass swaths of voters and put a winnable ticket together.
We’ll see.
Not much at stake, just the future of our democracy.
2
So if the Democrats run a candidate who is “offensive” people will vote instead for the other choice, the one destroying our democracy and the liberal world order we created and nurtured over 70 years so humanity can be overrun by a kleptocratic, authoritarian elite? Talk about voting against ones interests!
3
The ideas being discussed are parts of complicated realities, and I find myself
agreeing though frustrated, because
fluent, insightful truths are contradictory.
No wonder our demagogic POTUS resolves
cognitive dissonances, and retains his forty three percent popularity.
Despite erratic egocentric behaviors, which his fans seemingly don't convincingly deny,
he's presiding out of back pocket and top of orange toupee, and he'll probably be reelected again by our quaint
Electoral College appendix.
2
"He notes the failure to perceive early enough how Russian “humiliation and wounded pride” would, under Putin, spur a Russian resurgence."
Putin is there because the U.S. (GHW Bush and Clinton) didn't do squat for the Russians after their economy collapsed along with the Soviet state.
4
Seems to me America IS the world's policeman. But make no mistake American industrial military complex companies like Halliburton do pretty well in this role. Ask Cheney, he can tell you. The question isn't do we do this stuff? Trump thinks the rest of the world will let us quietly back away and they will pick up the slack. But does the M-I complex want us to stop doing this? No, they don't. Why should Japanese or French companies make lots of money doing this at taxpayer expense? That would be 'unfair'. So expect it to continue. And Trump's modus diplomaticus is about power. He lets the ruthless dictators of the world take him into their dressing room and give him a taste of his own medicine. Trump seems to welcome it. Putin, I am sure, chuckles in Russian "He lets me do it. When you are a dictator, that's what you do." Trump needs no translation. He understands the concept quite well.
5
Even if he had the inclination for diplomacy and compromise, which he most assuredly does not, Donald Trump proves every day with his second grade vocabulary, total lack of knowledge about even recent history, and intemperate and ill-informed decision making, that he will always be out of his depth anywhere except within the confines of Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago.
Without a phalanx of lawyers behind him, Trump couldn’t negotiate himself out of a car rental, let alone broker trade deals and peace agreements. At home he is the tool of right wing billionaires bent on exploiting all the natural resources and human capital this country possesses, while internationally he is the tool of autocrats like Putin, MBS, hoping to do the same on a worldwide scale.
Putin announces that “liberalism” is obsolete” and Donald Trump smiles and wags his finger. Be very, very afraid.
20
To watch Trump sit with Putin and joke about election interference and "getting rid of journalists" was shocking, even for Trump. What is more shocking is the total silence from Republicans. People are profoundly naive to think that our democracy will survive forever.
13
Diplomacy trampled is broadly echoed, and sometimes worse, through Trump's administrative spectrum. What cornerstone remains unturned?
Many Humpty Dumpty's, newly fallen or pushed from America's walls, need reassembly pronto.
1
I have always wondered why, in the Biblical accounts of Armageddon, there's no mention of America coming to the aid of Israel. The final battle is led by Russia with assistance from some African, middle eastern and Chinese troops.
This column provides the hint of an answer. America is too weak, too poor or just indifferent to the perils of her old friend. And Trump, from the grave, will surely take the credit he so desires.
1
For America diplomacy is dead. Its death is the knell signalling the decline and fall of America's leadership and dominance.
"For Burns, the erosion of American power and influence long predates Trump." Not only has America been in decline for a long time, the decline itself exposes who we have become as a people.
Trump did not vulgarize American discourse, attitudes or thinking, he legitimated the vulgarity that was hiding just below the surface of American society. He welcomed into the light white racism long relegated to the shadows. The ideals which Americans cherished have proved to be opium to dampen the anger of people who have been repeatedly deceived and taken advantage of by self-serving, profiteering elected representatives. American values, pursuit of justice and belief in law and order, have proved to apply only to the common people; the wealthy and powerful live by their own rules. Trump has merely exposed the sham.
Mitch McConnell is the high priest of the Republican Party which, in decades-long dark rituals, has sacrificed America's heart and soul for 30 pieces of silver. The Supreme Court has made living and breathing Americans subservient to the whims and desires of corporate "people." For these reasons Donald Trump is the president America deserves.
America is the land of the greedy, the home of the depraved. We do not belong on the world stage so long as Trump represents who we really are. We need to cleanse our society before we can lead others.
13
So glad I got out during the Bush era. It has been in decline ever since on so many levels.
4
America’s place within the geopolitical landscape has been pre-eminent because of its role as the economic engine of the world. Globalization changed that as US companies outsourced its manufacturing to further enrich the stockholders with fatter profits while simultaneously denying US workers the manufacturing jobs which would have preserved greater income equality at home.
Everything today now seems labeled “Made in China” , even though the products come from US-owned companies. It is only a matter of time when Chinese companies will gain the expertise to actually lay claim to ownership, and not just serve as the labor force for US manufactured goods. Chinese efforts to compete with Boeing is a good example. This is why China, not Russia, represents the greatest threat to the US going forward. They send their students to study at US universities, and we gladly accept their tuition dollars while they learn what is necessary to competitively beat us bloody in the marketplace.
They shall replace us as the economic engine of the world and we shall be a diminished country as a result.
Donald Trump is right to confront China, but the unchecked greed and corruption he and his corporate cronies represent are the very reason we are in the mess we find ourselves today.
4
Interesting, but more interesting in my humble opinion is how professional diplomats deal with your government. How do Brits, Canucks, French and Germans deal with Trump?
The French ambassador to your country compared you government to the court of Louis XIV. Who in your country understands what that means?
Who is going to explain that to Americans?
I can’t, it’s actually quite complicated but very important.
10
Decline? When Jimmy Carter was president America was so weak that Iran took the American embassy hostage and held our diplomats until Carter left office. Unemployment was 10 percent, and 20 percent for African Americans. Under Trump it’s 3.6 percent, and 6 percent for African Americans. With Carter, the stock market hit a 10 year low, under Trump its at an all-time high. The American economy is the envy of the world. The opposite of decline, America is great again.
America has most certainly declined, to the point we take children from their parents and keep them in concrete cages with no blankets or toothbrushes. No amount of money can change excuse that.
4
Every generation has enjoyed successes and made mistakes across the political, economical and security spectrum. The biggest failure of the last 50 years was the inability of Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump in 2016, notwithstanding some meddling in the elections by the Russians. The world and America's standing in it would probably look very different from the chaotic uncertainty Trump's incompetence is creating every day.
7
@W
The truly big failure was the Democratic Party nominating Hillary Clinton in the first place. As miserable as the Trump presidency is, it is not clear that a HC presidency would have been very much better. Trump cozies up to Putin and Russia. Which is not appealing for sure but probably better than war with Russia.
Blame Trump and his appalling ignorance and corruption for the mess that the U.S. is in but also blame the DNC, the NYT, and the rest of the Democratic establishment.
Many countries are making trade agreements among them selves, the US is left outside most. Trust and dependability of US character is faltering, why make a deal with something undependable? More interesting is that countries are scrambling to find a means of exchange that does not include the US dollar. No one American, today, has lived when the US dollar was not the "global currency." THe advantages of being anywhere on he planet the US dollar is respected are huge, but to American is as water is to a fish. The era of the supreme US dollar is rapidly coming to an end. As the confidence in our traditional aspirational values are tossed aside, so will and is the confidence others have in our dollar. Our debt dependent "prosperity," tax cuts coupled with decline of investment and research, threats to not pay interest on Treasury bonds- all espoused by our present leaders are taking a toll. The loss in confidence and respect is us is being matched by the declining confidence of our currency.
12
I fear the the pundits that look out from our country and see that the death of the dream of a world in which western European and USA ideas of "liberalism" would prevail after the fall of the Soviet Unon failed to recognize the economic and psychological trauma that the recession of 2008 caused to the most financially vulnerable in the USA and abroad.
The response of the two most economically powerful nations in Europe, England and Germany, was austerity instead of increased government spending. The consequences were devastating to England and the EU and birthed Brexit and popularism in Europe.
Here McConnell beat down every attempt at increased spending and we now have Trump.
The damage took place over years and will take years of wise government programs to make ordinary people feel financially secure enough to look outward instead of retreating inward.
13
Cohen suggests that the fall of the USSR was a "heady moment." Heady for whom? Not the average US (not "American") citizen, but for the state department, which is to say the US ruling class. "Liberalism posited the
indivisibility of freedom and human dignity". Freedom is not
the autonomy of individual choices, which is a fictive ideal, but the efficacy of individual action in relation to circumstance. "Dignity" is also a relation, not an ideal fundamental essence embedded in human nature. The global hegemony of US liberalism is supposed to mean that "the rule of law and democracy offered the best chance for human advancement, peace and prosperity." Apparently this was because it was an ideology wielded by the US rather than a Western inheritance of the Enlightenment. One must also ask if we really have peace and prosperity. In fact, the US is involved in continual imperial wars across the globe, and democracy in the literal sense of people's power has never really existed. To the extent the people do have influence, it is obviously at present sliding toward fascism. The hegemony of liberalism is here a US global hegemony, which in fact is fading. The "spread [of US liberalism] appeared inevitable and irreversible. Its guiding spirit was the United States." According to Wikipedia, "hubris" is quality of extreme or foolish pride or dangerous overconfidence.
3
It would be an excellent contribution for Mr. Cohen and /or Mr. Burns who was often quoted for this column, to consider a way for democrats to use diplomacy to assist in solving the immigration situation at the border.
Trump cut off aid to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Most republicans claim that aid would be diverted for undemocratic uses by autocrats.i suspect that experts like William Burns could craft ways to find a solution far cheaper and more effective than Trump’s racist and counterproductive border policies.
8
E pluribus unum is and should be our motto.
Yet, the world is both getting smaller and larger at the same time. As communications and transportation systems shrink our world and begin to erase borders, nationalist and ethnic movements rise from the very soil. These are more complex than the implication that nativism is a bad thing. In some ways, group identity reinforces our humanity.
I travel for work. I landed in Rwanda earlier this year and checked into my hotel in the very early hours of the morning. I had been traveling for a couple of days and was both jet-lagged and exhausted. As the porter helped deliver my bag to my room, he stopped before leaving me. He was probably in his early twenties. He took a moment to reflect on the name of the hotel, Ubumwe. He explained that it meant “unity” in Kinyarwanda. For him, it was important to work for a company that stressed the unity of all Rwandans, not Hutus nor Tutsis. Rwandans.
I did not really begin to understand until I had a chance to visit the memorial to the Rwandan genocide. (It will break your heart—over and over and over.) My porter was born after that horror, but it informed his life in a profound way. I met many young people who’s given names were virtues or expressed gratitude: Patience, Innocent, Charity, Deogratias, Dieudonne, etc.
Rwandans, in a way, fit the square peg in the round hole. Through catastrophe they found their common humanity in their national identity. Let’s hope we can find ours too.
14
Thank you for your warning about the future. Every day, I wonder how our democracy became so fragile and how such a president with such dangerous ideas can turn our country into such shambles.
13
Burns' "savaging of American diplomacy" has hit me this morning as the most apt description of the last four years of our lives. I feel this savagery personally, with a daily dread of what will he say or tweet next, how low will he go, how much longer can the GOP glorify Trump as our savior. I must stay engaged, but by doing so, I'm making myself stressed, sick, scared and more withdrawn. I feel my own seven-decade foundation becoming more fragile.
I just want to make it to November 2020 in one piece, with a fighting chance that my vote will be counted correctly by American election officials, instead of Russian GRU officials.
31
Maybe we need to admit that America has been entangled in the 'Cold Civil War' since 1865. We have had occasional points in history where larger events covered it up, like WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and that other cold war. Trump has been largely popular by overtly appealing to the side that never really lost.
18
Russia's "humiliation and wounded pride" is not the prime mover today. They deserve to be proud of themselves for their sacrifices in WW2, for saving us all.
But the sudden renunciation of their history and radical liberal moral tradition that lead up to the dismemberment of the USSR was- like the present aberrant situation here in the US- another big grab by global plutocracy, seeded by corporate wealth and organized crime world-wide.
Power today is not diplomacy. Why whisper truth to power, our truth today is framed and presented by power.
It is the same struggle everywhere.
2
This nation's decline is, I believe, now inexorable. Ironically, our decline is hastened by our once-rational devotion to freedom of expression, now captive to those who cynically use that freedom to spew propaganda and outright lies around the clock, and we say there is nothing to be done about it. The difference today is that far too many of our citizens are now incapable, or in many cases simply unwilling, to recognize truth when lies play to pre-existing biases and allow for blame to be placed on others. And in my view this all comes down to global over-population exacerbated by climate change, which is stoking an increasingly pervasive zero-sum mentality. War is zero-sum in the ultimate, whereas diplomacy is entirely non-zero. Transactional, zero-sum thinkers such as Trump adopt a bellicose approach and abhor diplomacy. And in a world that, more than ever, demands non-zero cooperation to address our most pressing challenges the current zero-sum mentality can only lead to our end.
14
Another thoughtful and insightful essay from Roger Cohen. And the sentence for me that triggered a visceral response of fear referred to Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Now, a few years' back, as recent as the Obama Administration, I being perhaps too complacent, even naive, would have never predicted that our democracy was so fragile and so vulnerable as to fall victim to such an unfit, unstable, and corrupt "president." What compounds this present ominous political paradigm is that we do not have a safety net to protect us from Mr. Trump's destructive psyche. Where is our Congress, more specifically McConnell's Senate? Look at our Cabinet, to wit, Attorney General Barr. Alas, can we even trust our Supreme Court? It seems as if we have gotten caught in the very web we were complicit in spinning. Roger is presenting us with a warning that we need to heed. We still have voices; we still have freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly. Let us use them now. Not tomorrow or the next day.
594
@Kathy Lollock, I agree with you and your assessment. However, much of the media, including the major networks appear to treat trump as entertainment rather than the hardcore news that these complex issues require. No analysis and no stances taken on any of the major issues facing America and the world. You did mention freedom of assembly; it is time for a march on Washington to let trump and the republican senate understand the majority of Americans demand change now to sustain democracy itself. America is broken without ethics, honour and accountability. This systematic demolition of government, oversight and graft to big business and the .1% cannot continue. But, America has written plenty expressing outrage. It has brought no effective change and it is time to step up the pressure on each member of Congress, the president and his family through loud and vocal demonstrations.Past events, such as Vietnam war marches eventually led to the end of the war.
104
The vector of our civilization became crystal clear as I struggled against it’s force to raise my children. Recoiling from the doctrines of the sixties, our current culture emerged over the last sixty years. We hardly should be surprised. We have been worshiping very different gods. Expedience over toil and principal at every turn.
To smash today’s idols is daunting, the question is whether the electorate is sufficiently “Woke” to vote to.
I fear we have not yet reached a state of, “Fear and Trembling.”
19
@Kathy Lollock
Revolution was the remedy applied by our founders. Are we ready for that? Perhaps secession (blue from red) is a better first step.
22
The "rot" from without is compounded from the "rot" from within. America's decline is not simply Trump's rejection of our allies and embrace of the world's autocrats. He and his party have driven domestic politics to the extremes. States like California and New York embrace "progressive" policies while counterparts like Georgia and Alabama move further and further to the right.
America is on a cataclysmic course. Our domestic society is in advanced decay. Simple human decency has been tossed aside as our society embraces and encourages the same narcissism in each of us that our President each and every day exhibits.
No society can be at such war with itself, as well as at such odds with the outside world, and survive, much less thrive.
I'm aging and my horizon is much reduced. But I envy not the young who will find themselves living in an ever more hostile society and world.
494
@John
While the Democrats have been far from perfect over the decades I would like you to provide specifics when you write that they "started many of these problems going back to 1960s with Johnson and even earlier with FDR."
31
@George Much of your statements are spot on. However, you got the wrong party. It was the Democrats that started many of these problems going back to 1960s with Johnson and even earlier with FDR. Societies do not decay in a mere twenty years. It takes longer: the start was much earlier and much of the initial momentum was provided by those on the left.
6
@George
"Simple human decency has been tossed aside as our society embraces and encourages the same narcissism in each of us that our President each and every day exhibits." Well said. Thank you.
We are doomed because our media encourages that. Media profits from making those that disagree, into enemies. Only my idea is the correct way. Only my cause is just. Not only do I disagree with you, but because we disagree, you are a horrible person and must be my enemy.
Society cannot exist this way. The failure to learn and understand history, which seems apparent these days from the top down, will be our doom.
20
I would love to hear Roger Cohen address the question of how the west mishandled the end of the old Soviet Union. Seems to me we spent too much time congratulating ourselves when we needed a new Marshall Plan for Russia. We let Russia fall to despotism, like we did Germany after WW1 and the red states in the US after the Great Recession.
399
You overestimate your power to rein Russia. It was always a great power and would hav eliked to return to that status. Russia crumbled from inside, robbed by its oligarch. Look at China: got out of self-inflicted economic disasters thanks to trade, and is squandering the fruits.
8
@DF Paul
Your examples, Germany post WW I, Russia post USSR breakup, red states post Great Recession, are brilliantly matched. Understanding what each of these illustrations of neglect wrought in the minds and hearts of those left crushed and humiliated means understanding the visceral appeal of Hitler, Putin, and Trump to those devoted to their respective reigns.
31
@DF Paul
I agree.
4
Following the analysis of this essay, what did Trump do this past week? He made claims that war with Iran would be quick and nearly painless. No boots on the ground will be required.
This is exactly the kind of decision that any State Dept. professional would fear but yet expect from Trump. He just went and did it. No big deal. Be over in no time.
This is what we have in the White House. This is our commander in chief. That's just his style they say. It's just posturing. It's just strategy to get a better deal.
No it's not. It's the end of American leadership, American diplomacy and with these two losses, the end of American power and influence in the world. We are now a joke and the entire rest of the world knows it.
774
@Bruce Rozenblit
I need not remind you that what Trump said is exactly what Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld said about Iraq and probably (though I don't remember) Afghanistan. (And what did the generals tell Johnson about Vietnam?)
96
@Bruce Rozenblit
Mission Accomplished!!
22
It is particularly tragic that we have failed at just the time when coordinated action is required to save our grandchildren from the worst effects of climate change. What a way to go.
18
The problem with America's foreign policy has the same causes as the problems with its economy. Our government has been hijacked by a barely out of sight ruling elite who see the world in terms of financial gain. The United States is rapidly becoming a criminal oligarchy with Russia as the model for "improvement."
Those who doubt such a claim need only to look to Donald Trump for evidence. It's no accident that Trump has been wildly popular with the Republican donor class, who now view him as the perfect lead for their ongoing distraction drama featuring alien threats to identity, religion, and class status. Diplomacy in Trumpworld is a matter of maximizing profits. It's much more easily done when costs are borne by the state and the public is divided into feuding factions arguing about who should be swimming in the Rio Grande River.
730
I disagree. Diplomacy in America has been replaced by ego-meniacle publicly.
10
@Eric Caine
You are 100% right - but, to tar only Trump with as an oligarch is much too narrow.
This entire country's leadership structure, including the Democratic candidates for President, is completely beholding and compromised by their subjugation to the money elite.
We need devolution of power away from the oligarchs and their parasitic, deathless corporations to be replace with power back to individuals and communities.
If not devolution, revolution.
35
@Eric Caine -- Hasn't it always been about life, liberty and the pursuit of wealth -- with the pursuit of wealth tipping the balance in its favor most of the time? Trump is just too crass to be subtle about it.
20
Apple is moving MacBook pro production from Texas to China. GM is closing plants and secondary suppliers in several states farmers are losing income due to tariffs. Trump is destroying the economy that he brags about. But Obama built today’s economy with federal stimulus and strategic negotiations. Trump doesn’t understand how to build economic stability. He only knows how to abuse it and break it apart. Trump is a big big loser and he’s losing our economic gains of the past 10 years.
23
There is reason to hope. A reversal could be quite sudden. A Democratic president will move quickly to repair the damage in our international relations. What Trump is doing now doesn't really represent the United States, and both our adversaries and our allies know it. Nor does it even represent the debased Republican Party. If Trump is defeated next year, he will pass out of the consciousness of Republicans in the Senate and House as if he never existed. Once he's a loser, they'll rarely mention his name. The next Republican candidate for president is unlikely to be anything like Trump, who, let's face it, is sui generis.
4
“Don’t meddle in the election, President.” (Wink. Wink.)
One look at Trump's tax returns would explain his pathetically disgraceful and traitorous behavior with the leader of our most formidable sworn enemy as well as those of North Korea and Saudi Arabia. These three vicious loan sharks own Trump’s ill-gotten gains and losses as he is beholden to them and countless others around the world. Impeachment may be a good place to start but not to end this criminal circus. We may only be able to vote once and that opportunity is still more than a year away.
In the meantime, protest with all of your hearts, all of your lungs, all of your feet and all of your pride to save our democracy from destruction at the hands of its ‘leaders.’
Thank you, Mr. Cohen, for another excellent article. Keep up the great work!
14
" a State Department in which officers are bludgeoned into timidity or censor themselves, or are simply ignored."
Add, those qualified individuals that have left the Department, those qualified individuals who have chosen not to enter service at this time, all the positions that have been filled by whoever they could get and the number of unstaffed position that have yet to be filled. To drain that much experience and choke off the supply of career minded foreign service cadre is the quiet slaughter of American diplomacy.
9
Donald Trump is the poster child of American decline. All bluster and braggadocio to cover for the lack of moral purpose. We no longer have the will to lead and there is no discernible vision for the future. America has turned in on itself just 20 years after its penultimate day in the sun. The Unipolar Moment was actually America's swan song. "Didn't We Almost Have It All" should be our national anthem. Hubris got the better of us and Trump is just one last desperate attempt to shout off the coming of the night.
12
Ideas of white supremacy comes in Russian flavors as well. The international coalition of desperate white supremacists extend beyond national boundaries. The ideas of closed borders and walls to prevent and punish immigrants of color, and extreme legal measures to incarcerate, remove or exclude immigrants of color will only preserve fragile white supremacy temporarily.
Defining your family, community and nation along a single line of skin color is destructive, divisive and unsustainable. The existence of one race of humans is true, not multiple socially constructed racial categories used to maintain an artificial racial hierarchy necessary for whiteness to exist.
5
It's no coincidence that the decline of "liberalism" (though I dislike that term) coincided with the full implementation of "trickle down" economics launched by Reagan and carried forth ever since up to the present. The sucking of wealth from the working and middle class, while they were pushed to work harder and longer, with less compensation, benefits, and even retirement security, over the past 30+ years led to the various "populist revolts around the globe, including the placing of a staunch anti-worker like Trump into the White House. People were SO angry and frustrated, and had come to believe (and still do!) that the various systems were rigged against them that they voted for someone who said he would break it.
Sadly, maddeningly, most of our leaders - in both parties - seem still unaware of the reasons for the rise of "populism". Even worse, this populism has been hijacked by those who have no interest in the restoration of economic fairness, but only to advance their own agenda, like Trump and Putin.
The only silver lining is that we are seeing a resurrection of awareness in the Democratic candidates, led of course by Sanders and Warren, and joined by Harris, Ryan, Gabbard, GIllebrand, and even DeBlasio, while the rest are at least leaning in that direction. The "radical" agenda pushed by Bernie 3 years ago is now almost mainstream. If one of them can beat Trump, and the Senate turns Blue we may see "liberalism" return, along with America's leadership.
2
It is absolutely astounding how rapid has been the degradation of our society, as well as our position in the world, since Trump's nasty, narcissistic circus came to town. We're in for some hard times---God help us.
13
Why talk when you can bludgeon?
This is the internal state of mind of our "President" and his party. They lack the ability to articulate purpose or policy, and replace that hallmark of intelligence with belligerence and (think Mitch McConnell) the passive aggression of willful inaction.
4
The end of the Cold War was a deceptive victory. What actually happened is that the extended conflict grievously damaged both major participants, but only one of them immediately and visibly collapsed. To defeat Soviet Communism the US felt impelled to create a national security state that smothered individual freedoms and democratic control. The loss was subtle and institutional, not military, but decisive just the same.
Trump is the festering boil that finally burst. Despite the handwringing of the diplomatic class, his incompetence and buffoonery are likely the situation's sole saving grace. He has fully exposed the absurdities lying hidden beneath the surface. His utter nincompoopery probably assures that the military and its industrial parasites will decline an invitation to participate in a de facto authoritarian coup.
This in turn means that the 2020 election may actually offer a meaningful exercise in self-government. But we are running out of chances to get the story right. Reelecting Trump would surely be the effective end of our noble democratic experiment.
7
The Republicans are right when they claim that Reagan destroyed one of the two great superpowers that existed when he was elected. They're just wrong about which one.
14
Solely on the whim of one man, there has been a complete reorientation of American foreign policy without any debate that has resulted, in the eyes of the world, in a clear decline in American prestige, power and moral standing. Vladimir Putin has much to smile about. Feckless Republicans in the Senate, except for a vote on Russian sanctions, have violated their oath to defend the Constitution from foreign enemies.
20
So which Democratic challenger will address the gross inequalities in US society? Who will take ordinary citizens with them as they confront labor market changes? Who will stand up to Wall St, Murdoch and the ignorance of stupid white men? OK, so Burns and others warned us. The question is: Who will lead us?
3
Anyone who grew up, became an adult, and even an older adult during a period when the Red Menace, AKA the Soviet Union and later Russia, finds it mind boggling that Donald Trump can embrace Vladimir Putin. Joking with that man is the final straw, except for the fact that I know that Donald Trump, will come up with even worse.
American insanity, embrace dictators and plan to destroy the one country, Iran, that has the potential to be a far better country than Saudi Arabia or North Korea, will surely bring us down barring a miracle, the election of a sane person in 2020 and a Senate and House showing signs of restored potential.
At 87 I am counting on being around to see what happens in 2020. Imagine experiencing the election of Elizabeth Warren as my President. Now in my So-Called 14th Life, her election would make my So-Called 15th a pinnacle of joy.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
16
Trump is the poster boy for the defeat of elitist enlightenment by the triumph of populist ignorance. He is the perfect storm, battering the fragile structure of an American Democracy being dismantled by the Republican Party and their oligarch overlords in a quest for domination.
Putin and the Donald are secure and smug enough to joke openly about their unholy alliance to infect democratic elections through internet based influence campaigns, whose targets and victims are unwitting voters, marching blindly to the tune of those who would betray them. Decline indeed.
12
Why not hold the remaining Democratic primaries in Moscow and have all the candidates appeal for Putin's support. If Putin is savy enough to play along and anoint Pete Buttigieg as his preferred candidate as he did for trump in 2016, and if in fact Buttigieg were to go on and win after Putin's endorsement (interference machine), would Republicans accept the results, or will they yell TREASON?
More than sadly, there are too many leaders that are being elected, or seize power, or are granted power, that are actually, very blatantly evil people. I mean, the Saudi Prince, these two, Kim Jong Un, Bashar Al Assad, too many in Africa, Xi Jinping, and dozens more around the world. When you want unlimited power, and money, the only way to do this is to keep the people down, by arrest, assault, verbal assault and attack, being jailed, tortured, and murdered. Reporters, and those running in opposition, or vocally opposing them are on the front lines of defense. All in any society or country, must acknowledge brutality, hate, and murder for what it is, as if they don't, they are accomplishing what these men want, silence, and acquiescing to their position of power.
4
I disagree. To paraphrase Ellis, a character from "No Country For Old Men": Trump can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on him. That's vanity.
America is becoming more diverse by the minute. The racism and ignorance of white, Republican, America is dying off by the minute. Trump can't stop either trend.
If anything, the malfeasance of Trump is reminding rational citizens of the loss of true American greatness, not a slogan for rallying the worst of us. The era of Trump will be the catalyst for a new beginning for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
2
Roger Cohen, thy name is appeaser.
The US's hubris of diplomacy and psychotic warmongering since the fall of the Berlin Wall go hand in hand.
Further, much of where the West stand today in the 'decline' of 'liberalism' lies with lazy, smug bureaucrats in Europe. These elitist technocrats have relentlessly been wasting time pursuing the chimera of a united Europe. All this while they haplessly allow hordes of sullen, discontent illegal immigrant to invade their homeland with no respect for Western values.
A few more missteps that Cohen won't discuss:
1. After the Berlin Wall collapsed, the US should have aggressively cashed in its peace dividends by disentangling from overseas military installations and vastly reducing the scope of the military at home.
2. The former Soviet bloc should have been more quickly integrated in to the Western sphere.
3. The 1st and 2nd Iraqi Wars were missed opportunities to partition Iraq and creating a Kurdish homeland, even if it meant civil war in Turkey.
4. The US invasion of Afghanistan should have never been initiated. It needs to be put to an end now. Trying to bring any semblance of civilization to this backwards 'country' is pointless.
5. The outsourcing of the US economy with no reciprocity by China should have been checked decades ago.
Underlying all this, post-Berlin Wall collapse, America should have entered "splendid isolation" with the US as an island of sanity while the rest of the dysfunctional world settled its affairs.
1
The ever ghastly trump seems to save his most appalling behavior for his overseas trips. I'm not sure what the motivation is behind this behavior. Is it to go abroad and show his base what a tough guy he is?
trump is a laughingstock over here. A dimestore joke with nuclear codes. He seeks to bring everything down to his adolescent level.
15
We could be doing much better with what we have. The democracy has been subverted by right wing money and right wing judges and politicans who are for sale.
2
“a State Department in which officers are bludgeoned into timidity, or censor themselves, or are simply ignored.”
Though many journalists continue, with increasingly necessary courage, to question and fight back against the transformation of our government, institutions, and one of our two main political parties into submissive tools of an ignorant authoritarian president, it is becoming progressively apparent that our “free press” is also falling victim to that same never ending bludgeoning.
What passes for “mainstream” journalism now is barely recognizable. Readers can almost feel journalists’ underlying fear of potentially relentless Twitter attacks if they write more than weak slaps on the wrist for abhorrent and often illegal actions taken by this administration. Journalists are humans too. Who could fathom the kind of verbal violence that those who oppose this administration face?
We may chose a strong Democratic candidate for the 2020 election, but the odds that that candidate will survive the tsunami of attacks from this president and his right wing media is unlikely, as much of the “mainstream media” (“the last bastion of democracy” as my history teachers used to say) is itself close to drowning in the onslaught.
1
After the Franco-Prussian War, WWI and the Cold War the victors tried to grind the losers faces in the dusr, but after WWII the victors propped up and assisted the losers, insuring a long period of peace.
Will we ever learn?
The US has always coddled dictators. Installing them, even. Obama tacitly supported the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Egypt by a military dictator. But no president has actively fawned over dictators, torturers, and murderers in the way Trump does.
1
America is not on the decline.
America has declined. In the past 3 horrible years.
7
Thank you for your piece, "Trump Fast-Forwards American Decline", Roger Cohen. Gibbon's "The Rise and the Fall of the Roman Empire" was published in 1776, the year after America declared her independence from England. Edward Gibbon is probably spinning in his grave today as he "ESP"s the American Empire falling like Rome did.
Empires rose and fell in recorded history. Historians wrote of empires that grew till entropy wiped them out. Studying the past helps us understand the present as history repeats itself in different ways.
Egypt, Greece, Rome, France, Britain, Russia, The Third Reich, empires ended in armageddons that have bloodied our soil on earth.
Now it's the American Empire's turn to fall. We are doomed to repeat history with our democracy crashing like other empires of ages past. America First? Nope. And we wonder about the British Empire and "will there always be an England"?
2
A building is kept standing by its foundation. Trump is propped up by his base. His base is fueled by the misinformation which they hear from Fox News & Co. My question is this: the pundits of Fox News are not ignorant people. What is fueling their continued support for a president who is obviously undermining America's interests and eroding the very foundation which our county rests on? What is their motive? Ratings? More money? Having access to the White House? Or are they themselves on Putin's payroll? As bizarre at it sounds what could possibly be their motivation? What more can the Fox pundits want to attain in life that they would be the mouthpiece for Trump who is so obviously a tool for Putin? Without Fox News & Co Trump's foundation will quickly crumble.
4
In describing the decline of a liberalism that "posited the indivisibility of freedom and human dignity, as well as the idea that the rule of law and democracy offered the best chance for human advancement, peace and prosperity," Mr. Cohen leaves out one major cause: the Republican party, post-Ronald Reagan. Its illiberalism was always evident in its mendacious pro-plutocracy economic ideas such as "supply-side," and in its dog whistles to white supremacy. Now plutocracy bestrides the American economy, and billionaires such as Koch and Mercer and Gates and Zuckerberg and Page and Brin, who've never received a vote in their life, have enormous, unchecked influence over public policy. And the dog whistles have been replaced by packs of snarling racists with bared teeth cheering the President at his rallies, and employees of the US government kidnapping, imprisoning, and abusing Central American children.
Trump's "understanding" with the murderous autocrat Putin, embraced and protected by the Republican party, is the logical outcome of a process that's been unfolding for 40 years.
3
American decline began in the 80’s and soon after Reagan took office. George W. cut the brake lines and a Trump floored the gas pedal.
313
@Eddie, note that 2 of the 3 were born into wealth (and therefore spoiled and lacking in understanding of effort) and the 3rd abused his wealth despite more modest beginnings (a personal failing of character).
14
Fine column , but omits the #1 point of Burns
"“Democratic societies that fail to produce the fruits of economic reform quickly.......may slide back into other ‘isms,’ including nationalism.”
This is precisely what happened in the US. The fruits of economic reforms , globalization, were not delivered to the lower middle class and below. Au contraire, their wages become nailed down by global competition with countries where people were willing to work for 1/6th of US wages.
Or their jobs disappeared altogether
Trump is the unavoidable outcome of the failure of those who profited from globalizaton, to take care of their fellow citizens.
Picketty has an interesting column on the analogue development in Europe (Brexit) that I recommend
https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2019/05/14/europe-and-the-class-cleavage/
2
“what diplomacy is all about is “not perfect solutions, but outcomes that cost far less than war and leave everyone better off than they would otherwise have been.”
The truth of the above unglamorous proposition embodies humankind’s challenge, to chose three cookies next week over one today!
We have yet to achieve sustained commitment to the truths we hold self evident!
1
But who needs experienced, knowledgeable and professional diplomats when we have Jared Kushner on the case?
11
Our story isn't unique. It's all about the arc of history for empire builders. There is the long upward bold and aggressive advance punctuated by significant victories in war. There is the military expansion of territories of influence and control. There is the interlude of steady-state success and self-satisfaction. Slowly but inevitably there are external challenges to the empire that grow increasingly louder. There is the increasing financial burden for managing and controlling the empire. Internal doubts start to accumulate and finally outright loss of belief in the main mission.
Read history. The rise of other nations is inevitable. Diplomacy helps the erstwhile empire to come to grips with its own limitations. It helps to facilitate a soft landing instead of an unceremonious crash landing.
17
@Dan Your take on things is interesting. But especially the last paragraph: "Read history. The rise of other nations is inevitable. Diplomacy helps the erstwhile empire to come to grips with its own limitations. It helps to facilitate a soft landing instead of an unceremonious crash landing."
Your view is predicated on FIRST treating nations as if machines, specifically in your view, as an airplane: "It helps to facilitate a soft landing instead of an unceremonious crash landing". What politics, economics, squares with your view, your analogy of a nation being an airplane? And can the rise of other nations be equated with airplanes taking off, will they perform as aircraft with reliable rise and fall? And nations working harmoniously, is that a giant airport mind, planes taking off and landing harmoniously? And what politics, economics is all that? And is it not true that planes run increasingly on computer? Your view seems to suggest not only that American decline and rise of other nations is inevitable, but that it can be managed, and managed primarily by machine analogy, that if nations perform as machines, aircraft specifically, international affairs can be harmonious. But again, what politics/economics (not to mention human future) is all this machine rise and fall of aircraft? Everything is fine as long as humans do not crowd the aisles and recline seat too far back, and sit and entertain themselves and enjoy computer driven flight? "This is your captain speaking..."
1
Vladimir Putin: “The liberal idea has become obsolete.”
I agree. But probably not for Putin's reasons/desires. I'm fairly certain it's technological/mathematical/visuospatial schematics which dictates what politics, economics is becoming everywhere, and this trend is not just hostile to political/economic conceptions emanating from as various sources as the Bible or Koran or Adam Smith or the U.S. Constitution or Karl Marx but hostile to the entire language ability of humanity, the capacity by which some people believe we are distinguished from all other species of animal.
Technology, driverless cars, computation, etc. proceeds whether people vote on it or not, it's considered innovation and a taken for granted matter regardless of the political/economic entity. We live in an advanced game player, behavioral psychology world, as if A.I. long ago started to consciousness in some technologist's mind and has slowly been emerging, spreading across the world in all technological advancements, has been treating people in increasingly machinelike, component manner, and now people must radically play down language ability (not least because words have always been politically/economically controversial) and function, move, communicate in a universal, mathematical, technological, computer oriented manner which facilitates total emergence and triumph of this function over all other human abilities.
Humanity transcends its differences, unites, only by transformation to machine?
3
@Daniel12
good points, not often mentioned or observed, but it makes sense. We have and are changing, adapting to this new focus of our intellect, and language is becoming somewhat quaint and non-applicable.
2
The dynamic that I detect when Trump interacts with Putin is one of envy from Trump's perspective. After all, Putin has ironclad control over the "press" in his country, as well as unlimited opportunity to use his office to enrich himself.
28
@Alan R Brock
Exactly. This is exactly why Trump, during the 2016 campaign, extolled Putin's model of strong leadership over Obama's weak leadership, precisely because Obama's was constrained by the rule of law. Such are the paths toward the development of axes of authoritarianism. It is not collusion as much as it is a mutual synthesis.
15
@Alan R Brock With the Russians interest in psy ops, they have managed to create Putin as both the benevolent daddy and brother that Trump never had.
7
@Alan R Brock
Envy? Or admiration?
1
Of course liberalism is dead, because that's the only way for all those leaders and their cronies to stay in power for the remainder of their lives. We have examples of this kind in every cardinal point.
Who wants to have fair elections and other people exposing the truth of their corruption and evil morality. The most worrisome part is that we get used to their practices, and we all become numb and non responsive.
Something that is not exposed enough is how ably those regimes extract freedom from their citizens, and how they count with the same electoral spectrum that backs cheap populism Their main feature is: how much they hate true freedom.
I agree with Mr. Cohen we need sane liberalism now.
41
Not one mention of Snowden? It was Obama's I'm-King-of-the-World reaction to Russia's refusal to hand over Snowden which set Russian confrontation in motion. Russia could have swallowed Nato Expansion as long as the US recognised Russian legitimate interests. When the US refused, Nato Expansion was seen for what it was.
4
@abo
I don't know of this event, but I do know that prompt action is necessary when dealing with a controlling type.
@abo
What Putin could not stand was our objecting to the invasion of Ukraine and the taking of Crimea. AND, Putin was very unhappy with the exposure (Panama Papers) of his theft and hiding of billions of dollar that he and his mafioso oligarchs had conspired to take from the Russian treasury -- their quite illegitimate interests (that Trump, Manafort and others were eager to tap into).
4
“The liberal idea has become obsolete.” It has, [Putin] says, “outlived its purpose.”
Of course, the guy in the White House who sits at the Resolute desk doesn't understand the concept of "liberal democracy" that transformed the world in the 19th century, let alone what the furniture has to do with it. (Mr. Trump probably couldn't pass the U.S. history class required in many states to graduate from high school. Mr. Putin probably would probably do better.)
One of the major tenets of the idea: expanding suffrage and representative government, with the consent and participation of the governed. Mr. Putin may be saying that if even the United States electoral system has become gummy, liberal democracy is passe.
Let's hope that next year, U.S. voters say, "NOT YET" instead of "nyet".
40
Trump is emblematic of how all past great societies decline. As Rome and Greece before it, in spite of being the beacon of intelligence which spurred mankind forward, they failed. When once great societies are eventually composed of a populace that simply has no relation to the founders nor their vision which established the country, cynicism becomes the law of the land. No one practices this new variant of cynical government better than the Republican Party who would happily use the U.S. Constitution as kindling to burn it all down if it meant a tax cut for the top 1%.
63
"But America’s ability to promote liberal democracy cannot be served by what Burns calls “a State Department in which officers are bludgeoned into timidity, or censor themselves, or are simply ignored.”"
Rex Tillerson: ignored. Mike Pompeo: self-censored. Donald Trump: Bludgeoner in Chief.
Fish rots from the top. Trump didn't create conditions leading up to democracy's failure to institute economic reform or protect hard-won ethnic liberties, but he's capitalized on them.
As he revels in his love of dictators, because he wants to be one, let no one underestimate the man elected by those hurt most by the past 40 years.
For all this grievances, Trump has never suffered a day in his life. And his number one goal is to keep it that way, because after all, what's power for if not to benefit himself?
I pray that Democrats are up to the task of beating him; if they don't, I believe press crackdowns, including jail or worse are soon to follow.
What would a second term under Trump be like without writers like Roger Cohen to speak truth to power?
64
We have not a good president since Kennedy. Whether democrats or republicans they are all in it for themselves. Our votes don’t even count, hopeless we are.
5
@David
Jimmy Carter was the most altruistic President of the Modern era but because he didn’t blow his own horn we were made to believe he was ineffective. President Carter has done more to better the world since leaving office than all the others combined.
1
I hear a lot of international relations in these arguments for the decline of liberal democracy: wasteful wars, a lack of diplomacy, incompetence by leaders such as Trump etc.
What I don't hear is the economic side of things, domestically in the liberal West, or "some" of the liberal West, because, to be fair, not all of the West is currently doing poorly, if one may.
There are countries that seem to be functioning well, especially the Scandinavian countries.
What I don't hear is the wasted economic progress: the greed that has nearly destroyed much of the United States and Britain, and left vast swaths of these countries as "rust belts," and their citizens with a mistrust of "capitalism" as it has been practiced by its greedy captains in these countries and cultures.
Indeed, Trump i think seems a product of this greed, which doesn't value competence, beyond making a profit.
Figures like Trump, wallowing and jubilant in their ignorance, are the winners and captains in this view of capitalism.
I didn't hear how these parts of the West, especially the US, the UK and France have squandered their ideals, i think, by allowing a corrupted version of capitalism, hijacked by the winners, to corrode these societies, cultures and democracies, to where their citizens are willing to trust and try the disproven ideas and demagogues of the first half of the 20th century again.
I hear diplomacy, I hear wars, but they seem peripheral to me. seems like the money to me.
26
@Frea Agreed. Many of those wringing their hands are actually invested in companies who have off-shored for going on 40 years now. I was young when it began and even I - perhaps because of where I was raised - could see that it wouldn't end well when large swaths of the country were without work (and no longer had a family farm). Today, most people's retirements are invested in companies that are systematically buying up all the homes and land in the U.S., creating a nation of not just jobless but homeless or serfs perpetually renting and unable to get out of it, owing all to the company store every month. This is all about the greed of a few wealthy families seeking to reinstate feudalism as they jet between their vast estates. We need a divestment campaign that goes beyond climate change and factors in what a corporate is doing to bring about national and global instability.
5
@Frea Capitalism has been corrupt since invention. For most of its life it ravaged the 3rd or colonized world and created London, Paris, New York. And now it eats its children as it creates robots to colonize space
2
Anything is/was better than a 'that was easy button'. Now, regarding liberalism: It can be a good thing when properly measured out. Unfortunately it leads to excel. I can be pretty liberal when it comes to doling out money for worthy causes or a very good charity. I am conservative in my choices but spending is sort of liberal. But once an entity gets the money, and says thanks, they want more, and more, and more. That is excess. It is like a drug habit; never satisfied. And it runs amok.
So, I said I am conservative in my choices of who/what to support. Only the truly needy/helpless receive my support. Soon, everyone else wants a slice of the pie, especially those whose operating costs are a far greater than what reaches the needy as well as the just plain pilers on. So having said that, I would like to see liberalism die. As a conservative, I choose. It is not a free for all. My choices. My responsibility. No one else is asked or tasked to help me. Or to bail me out.
For anyone to believe that the government should be a 'go fund me' money pot for any and all to dip into at will, necessary or not, is sending an ignorant left leaning electorate a bad signal. Doubly bad if they don't speak English. Where will the money come from? How liberal should liberalism be? And departing from the fiscal idea and looking at L from a more humanistic point of view, what limits/rules will be set on the human experience or "anything goes" and "I ain't hurting anyone!"
@old sarge The extreme of that is anarchy. So where do you draw the line? You're presumably okay with the military but half the budget going to it? Is it really better to safeguard the country and use half its income relative to paying for the care of the elderly and the young ? (The elderly who paid into the system BTW - it's their money.)
I think you misunderstand the word "liberal". In the sense being used by Cohen, it includes both liberals and conservatives. It is not about the balance of deciding how to spend tax revenues, even if your position is that ALL taxes are bad and we should just pay as we go - build our own roads, etc. etc. Even such an extreme position could be liberal provided you believe in the ideas of the enlightenment and the Declaration of Independence. So what you have to agree to is that these decisions are made by society collectively. So if society decides your ideas are bunk, it is up to you to convince them or leave the society.
Otherwise what is the option? Are you truly saying you can do it all on your own without a single person's help? Which is a lie if you answered "yes" since I mean go to work without roads, no SS, no medicare, no military even to safeyguard you. Not a single person can do it on their own. So when multiple people are involved, how is the decision made? If everyone has a voice, that is being Liberal.
17
@RamS
"I think you misunderstand the word liberal".
Yes, and most people's (in the US) view of the word begins and ends with:
"I done voted for Trump just to own da Libs!"
The only person who could redress our current state of affairs is our Last President, and since he did not have the support of The People, these are the times we are living now, much to our detriment.
America, The Giant in Retreat. There is only one person who can make Trump stutter and it is Putin. It is Machiavelli at its best, where Western Civilization is peering into the brink.
The Republican Party has been showing signs of ailing since before The Great Recession, and it is time for The Democrats to reconcile their differences.
It is not only the future of our Country that is at stake, but all civilized nations across the globe, impacted by our lack of leadership.
A Policy of 'Defeatism' will ensure the decline of America, but we are not going to let this happen. Our Country under siege, this is no time to weep but to cast aside self-doubts,
and work to understand that we are returning to the Land of the Free.
Independence Day is upon us, and it will take a renewal of true belief in Our Constitution to bring us back to all that makes America worth fighting for.
14
The incoming president in 2021 faces vast tasks of reconstructing the State Department, reinstating competent, management for others, and bringing federal regulations back to some degree of matching the needs of the real world. Supreme Court rulings might substantially hobble the federal government. There's a small but significant chance of the Affordable Care Act being declared illegal, and the conservative majority seem bent on cutting back the regulatory state. I haven't even gotten to student debt or the crisis of climate change. I live in a town where rising sea level is meeting luxury real estate.
Foreign and trade policy has to start almost from scratch, but with limited public support. What can a president do when much of the public and Congress have soured on trade and military relations with other democracies? Even with Democratic majorities in both houses, things won't be easy.
If the incoming president is Trump, I suppose he'll start out with even less caution than before, but I wonder how many at the Republican convention will be wondering whether he'd finish a full term.
6
There was absolutely nothing "inevitable" about the stunning, history-altering rise of China.
Nothing.
If Burns believes it was, then his judgement is not to be trusted, and he's part of the problem.
As is Cohen.
3
As far off into the weeds as we are right now, I do hold an optimism that Burns has expressed. If we don't, then we will certainly slide into something other than democracy. The country and it founding ideals are worth striving for and working hard to bring our trajectory back into the correct direction.
I find it hard to contemplate that the countless blood and treasure expended over the centuries can be so cavalierly handed over to an ignorant, base, uneducated bully so anethical to our Constitution. I for one will do what I can to help prevent it. I want to celebrate our 250th with pride, not with "what might have been".
28
"But America’s ability to promote liberal democracy cannot be served by what Burns calls “a State Department in which officers are bludgeoned into timidity, or censor themselves, or are simply ignored.”"
And yet this is precisely where we are at, except it's far far worse; a Democratic Party which is essentially spineless, an empty shell, owned by the do-nothing Pelosi Schumer democrats, with their anointed candidate, Joe Biden, already selected to be the nominee, hoping that past association with Obama will cause a confused and dejected electorate to carry them back into the seat of power, the White House, not to serve the people but to regain the opportunity to once more serve themselves.
Burns is 100% right, except oddly he holds onto the belief that our dying Democratic Republic can be reborn.
The Oligarch Trump, ensconced in our White House, his Republican partners, and most of corporate America, the real government of these no longer united United States of America, are together fully engaged in making absolutely sure that the new world order become authoritarianism; and Trump is now become so bold he openly displays his belief in the success of his plans.
The Democratic slate, except for Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, is pitiful, woefully inadequate, and in fact becoming a laughing stock to the 43% assured electorate support which Trump currently enjoys.
If the election was tomorrow, Trump would win, and frankly he has little he need do, to win in November 2021.
10
Good points. That many of those on the Democratic slate would do so much more good for their country if they ran for the Senate, to help secure a Democratic majority in both houses, yet cannot get beyond their own egos to do so instead of running for president, speaks volumes and does not bode well for any of us.
9
“Make America Great Again”. “America First”. Great slogans to make his followers believe he is working in the best interests of the United States while actually destroying it. A foreign agent couldn’t do more to speed up the decline of our country, as described by Roger Cohen in this Op-Ed. Putin and the Russians are smiling.
Four years of this administration will take a heavy toll. Eight years should complete the job; enough to make it almost impossible for the United States to recover and lead the world again as a Liberal Democracy.
70
@HughMacMenamin
The US cannot possibly recover, rebound, just because one, or even two, horrific presidential terms might seem to offer a turn-around catharsis. The country seems to be going down the drain, irreversibly.
So, what of "his followers"? Will they be convinced that America is not to be made great again just because djt failed at the task? Many of them may well slog on, blindly, and undaunted.
The US is beleaguered by undereducation and overwork. Citizens have neither the learning nor the time to examine into the more viable solutions to complex socio-economic problems, how best to combat climate change, etc., etc. As a result, they vote from the gut. The world has become "simply" too complicated for the person in the street (i.e. with an average American public education) to figure out, except by highly subjective "standards".
djt-type politicians are, i'm afraid, here to stay, like it or not.
It takes decades, perhaps centuries, to foster an educated electorate.
17
Let America fall. Our citizens are so entranced by entertainment culture that we can’t be bothered to understand liberalism, much less fight to preserve it.
47
@Fintan Bread and circuses. I would say that the gross materialism of the people propping up a vulgar, greedy capitalistic structure is of equal significance to an entertainment culture here. Look at the perverted gold encrusted Baal that the people have chosen to "lead" them. He is a reflection of all that is wrong around us. When a society gets to the point that the status of children is determined by their chosen footwear, we see that the judgment of that society must be in question.
14
Not all of us.
1
“a State Department in which officers are bludgeoned into timidity, or censor themselves, or are simply ignored.”
Or just aren't there. Lots of cuts and resignations with no replacements make the State Dept an empty shell.
40
"Burns attributes the loss of America’s “unrivaled position of strength” in part to inevitable geopolitical trends, including the rise of China and India in the “Pacific century.” This was, however, compounded by what he calls “grievous missteps.” They included the post-9/11 “inversion of force and diplomacy” that saw a disoriented United States lurch onto a “road to war in Iraq.”
In other words, the bottom line is: Osama bin Laden achieved his goal of disrupting the trajectory of power and stature of the United States after the fall of the Soviet Union. The debacle of the Iraq War was just the first symptom that bin Laden had actually beaten us.
43
@Paul-A: Osama bin Laden helped the US break up the USSR along its internal fault lines with his opposition to its occupation of Afghanistan. After the Russians left, the US turned its back on Afghanistan.
5
As someone who worked in military intelligence while stationed in Germany before, during, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and who has also studied international affairs and European history, I agree with Burns regarding NATO’s expansion after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. While both nature and politics abhor a vacuum, I don’t think that the West should have rushed to give Eastern European nations something that others have had to earn, namely membership in NATO and in the European Union. The turn towards illiberal, autocratic rule in the region in recent years seems to bear out that Eastern European countries should have first been required to prove their respect for general liberal ideals (freedom of the press, free and fair elections, etc.) before being promised military protection and being given quick, easy access to Western markets.
72
@Jonathan Davis
"before ... being given quick, easy access to Western markets".
Here the nub of the problem, i'd suggest, "freedom of the press, free and fair elections, etc." mere side issues, except, perhaps, on highly flammable paper.
"being promised military protection" was just part of the business bargain, the promise that markets (eh, that's kind of like 'societies') will be protected, so that all can profit.
And what bigger, fatter market is there than what's involved in a guarantee of military protection?
@Jonathan Davis: Historically these nations were a buffer zone between Russia and western Europe.
2
The Supreme Court's decision on partisan gerrymandering this week did it for me: American democracy is dead.
Let's stop fooling ourselves. Our Constitution no longer works. It establishes a government that is dysfunctional, undemocratic, authoritarian, and even degenerate. The Democrats might eke out a win in the Presidential election. But they are unlikely to win the Senate, they may not hold the House, and the Courts have been lost already. In the states, they hold most of the large populous ones, but our federal system gives disproportionate representation to the small ones.
Progressive people desirous of good and responsible government have a choice now. We can resign ourselves to being ruled by an irresponsible and often despicable right-wing minority—a minority whose power is likely to be locked in for many more years thanks to the rulings of the Roberts court, including Citizens United, Shelby, and Rucho—or we can "institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to [us] shall seem most likely to effect [our] Safety and Happiness." Altering or abolishing our current government and creating a new one is no easy task. It may even be a bloody one. But do we value our liberty as much as our Founders did? Our current predicament forces that question upon us. The next year or two is will give us our answer.
125
@617to416: Enough money has been spent to preclude a successful constitution convention in the US to fund its fleet of aircraft carriers. After it considers everything else, it might try the constitution the Allies wrote for West Germany after WW II.
7
@617to416 Right-wingers have been working on calling a second constitutional convention to pass a balanced budget amendment (a certified Bad Idea). The project seems to keep getting approved by ever more states, but never quite coming to fruition.
Certain amendments might be popular. To guarantee fair Congressional districts, modify (or better, abolish) the Electoral College, and if necessary, to permit Congress to continue to delegate authority to federal regulatory agencies (like EPA and FDA and the National Highway Safety Administration). Who knows? Maybe even to affirm Roe v. Wade.
8
@David Martin
The Koch brothers want a Constitutional convention for all the wrong reasons. But I'm beginning to think we should join them in demanding one. Once we get to a convention, there's no reason all the states have to remain united under a single constitution. We could create two or three countries with different constitutions to suit different preferences. Doing it via a convention might avoid a bloody conflict. Maybe it's time to try it. I don't think we can go on much longer as we're going on now.
24
In the future, there will be a Trump Award for foreign policy incoherency because its hard to think of a President less rational than Trump in foreign policy.
Russia currently sides with Iran in the Middle East, has docked their latest generation cruise missile cruiser in Cuba and has economically aligned with China. Russia is a co-sponsor of the Kim North Korean regime with China. North Korea most likely got ballistic missile engines from former USSR plants in Ukraine. But Trump treats Putin like his BFF.
Trump publicly complains about the US guarding the Persian Gulf oil shipping corridor, which is actually a good point. But suggesting that China Navy take over in the Gulf must have created some pretty excited reactions in the US and EU foreign policy establishment. This is the kind of major policy shift that would be typically worked through diplomatic channels and not Twitter, because there is no easy replacement for the US.
So far Trump has failed to create a single foreign policy success. Even the modestly enhanced USMCA replacement for NAFTA has not been ratified by Congress.
Intiatives with NK, Iran, Afghanistan, China, EU, Japan, Israel/Palestine, India, all of the steel tariffed countries and other countries more vaguely threatened by the US have yet to produce anything but negative consequences for US interests.
Brand United States is now about as popular as Brand Trump.
28
@Look Ahead
"Brand United States is now about as popular as Brand Trump."
From outside the United States, they are one and the same.
44
@Look Ahead: One is known by the qualities of one's chosen representatives. I wish I could renounce representation by Trump.
10
@Look Ahead
Oh, How could I forget Venezuela? Russia has recently provided critical support to prop up the Maduro regime, while Bolton flashes his notes regarding a US invasion of Venezuela.
1
I for one have made peace with the decline and vote to take it a step further. We are so firmly divided along political lines, why not literally divide? No civil war necessary. Each party is so thoroughly disgusted with the other, surely at this point we could work out an amicable division among the states and part peacefully. I have already cut off communication with former friends who support Trump. People I've known (or so I thought) and loved who I now can no longer bear the sight of. Whatever remaining Trump-loving work acquaintances and associates I happen to have contact with, I would just as soon never talk to again. Family included. I can't be the only person who feels this way.
184
@Velvet goss
You are not the only one who feels this way! I have not seen my brother or parents in over two years - Not since the 2016 election. I found out they were Trump supporters - big Trump supporters. I not only feel betrayed and, as you said, "cannot stand the sight of them anymore" but I also do not trust them.
To hear my mother laugh at liberals who are worried about the future and to call them "snowflakes" evinces a level of cruelty that I had not imagined.
In a way they echo Trump's brand of diplomacy. Which is to say, no diplomacy at all.
Alas, it will be very difficult to peacefully split. I mean even Vermont has a few people with Trump stickers or signs, (and those few are aggressive and seem very much to want to intimidate others).
113
@Velvet goss I think that - as hard as it is - talking with the Trump supporters one knows is a better solution. As a frequent hot head but now aging I am surprised that they listen. Since 99% of our fellow citizens have little to gain in our Trump figurehead plutocracy and giant business society we do have common ground. Look closely at the news photo of the Trump/Xi group meeting in Osaka. No one in that photo from the US side has much in the way of common interest with the rest of us. We can be a united nation if we can all understand that the current system has little to offer any of us - much less to our children and grandchildren. The only way to get to a better place is by finding common ground and it will be difficult to get there without knowing one another.
7
@Brother Shuyun
As Buddhists say, "greed, hatred and ignorance rise endlessly".
Sadly, suspending dialogue achieves nothing. The rest of the world can only look on in horror as the US experiences an existential crisis.
16
The problem with liberalism is when it veers into libertarianism, whether economic ("free" markets, globalization) or social (immigration). If policies are not working for our citizens, they must be changed, rather than clinging to dogma. If they are not changed, then nationalism will result from the backlash.
12
@RAD61: Libertarianism is fairy tale based on the idea that people are inherently honest if they can just make up their own rules as they go along. It is not exactly liberty under a formalized structure of negotiated contracts with defined gives and gets.
21
I think that this article - and Mr. Burns -miss a number of crucial points. First, the US has been a malign influence in many parts of the world over the past 70 years - especially in the Middle East and Latin America, as well as parts of Asia. The refusal to recognize that fact means Mr. Burns (and Mr. Cohen) cannot come to terms with the dark side of the "liberal world order. Second, the origins of the US decline start in the 1960s and are directly connected to the GOP's "southern strategy." Playing to racial tensions made the GOP embrace an ideology that saw the state as only a problem and made social welfare and the responsible use of government power nothing more than a "sell out" to minorities. This toxic ideology, exacerbated and complemented by neoliberalism, meant that the end of the Cold War and the Soviet threat allowed the move to right wing ideological extremism. Today, the US right is quasi-fascist and people like David Brooks and Bret Stephens can write whiny columns about Democrats going too far to the left without any twinge of self-awareness about the GOP's turn to unalloyed extremism. This underlines the point that American decline was made at home and manifested in a gradual devolution into the extreme right that has corrupted American politics and shows few signs of abating. Once the US started on that road, its decline was inevitable. Bush and Trump were just logical extensions of that gradual slide.
168
@Shaun Narine: Now even educated people are shocked when one points out that socialism differentiates the public sectors of mixed economies from their capitalistic private sectors. Something on the order of 40% of the US economy is all governments practicing socialism. The rest is capitalism.
14
@Shaun Narine...In total and complete agreement with your brief but highly intelligent analysis. Too bad not more people see it this way.
24
@Steve Bolger
Oh dear. Talk about missing the point......
Unfettered capitalism - that is, capitalism unrestrained by government control - has led to the astounding corruption and inequity of the American experiment.
6
“Now the Russian president claims liberalism is obsolete. He is wrong. It is more necessary than ever even as Trump scoffs at it.”
Emboldened by the obsequious attentions of the American president, Putin states what he only hopes could be true. He is wrong as you say, Mr. Cohen.
As I watched the first Democratic debates I regained the optimism I’ve always been able to feel as an American. The country will ultimately not stand for the continued unraveling of the fabric of our society and the shredding of the Constitution and rule of law.
The candidates were talking about issues that affect quality of life, fairness and the great tradition of accepting immigrants.
It was not a description of the worldview of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and was stunning by contrast.
Soon enough we’ll have the opportunity to vote for the person who will represent us before the world. If we get it right Mr Putin will be forced to eat his words.
57
There is little doubt that America is in decline, and Trump really has accelerated the entire process. He revels in it, along with his devout followers.
127
@Mike C.
Thanks, Mike. I got some bitter comments.
"His devoted followers."
Says it all--wouldn't you say?
Left to himself, should that vast cadre of supporters, evaporate or disappear--
--Mr. Donald J. Trump would be nothing. Nothing at all.
I would give you (as an instance) the rise--the fall--the fate of Senator Joe McCarthy.
This man terrorized people--make no mistake. Sitting there in the U.S. Senate--the cameras rolling away--the scowl (or the smirk) firmly in place--speaking with a judicial pseudo-solemnity--
--the "junior Senator from Wisconsin" trashed people, ruined careers, ruined reputations--
--till the bottom fell out.
Suddenly--very suddenly--people decided, "You know--I think I've had just about ENOUGH of this guy."
And they had. Oh "Tail gunner Joe" stayed on in the Senate. No one listening to him. Not one paying attention to his words of wisdom.
Eventually, he drank himself to death.
(Mr. Trump is a teetotaler. So I meant nothing mean or spiteful in my last sentence.)
But "his devoted followers." Many of them (not all) ignorant--spiteful--bigoted. Nothing so monstrous--so absurd--so odious they won't cheer it to the rooftop--
--until (somehow, someday) "the bottom falls out." The man's credibility evaporates. He's washed up.
It could happen, Mike. It could.
I pray it does.
Soon.
7
@Mike C. The Rapture is on schedule to open in 2032, around Passover.
1
After World War II and the Marshall Plan, this country was the greatest in the history of mankind. Thirty years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, we were still the hope of the world.
Then came W and the disastrous Iraq War, and now Trump is greasing the skids even faster downward.
All I can say is this. If Trump is re-elected, I'm glad that I'm no longer young.
211
@bnyc
Amen!
5
@bnyc If Trump is reelected it will be the final proof that the US electorate is not capable of running a free republic. There won't be anything that can save us from that. It will eventually end in tyranny, fire and blood.
14
@bnyc
"All I can say is this. If Trump is re-elected, I'm glad that I'm no longer young."
This is what I think...every... single... day. I have had 45 (mostly) good years. Will a child born in 2019 be able to say the same?
And it is not just Trump. It is climate change, invasive species, extinctions, terrorism, white supremacy, nationalism, the social mediaization of the world, and technology. And of course much more.
I have no idea what the world will look like in 30 years, but it won't be pretty, and I am young enough that I might live to see it.
18
Mr. Cohen: I am a liberal democrat and an optimist and a realist, the latter especially when it comes to understanding how we got here. When the Economist-type liberals went into Russia in the early 90s with their privatization mantras (add in here the list of countries where the same IMF conditions have led to corruption, autocrats nationalism and/or terrorism since then), they created the conditions under which Putin emerged - of all places, from Petersburg - and prospered. In that economic liberal sense, liberalism's moment certainly has passed. Do you know if the folks who backed the Jeffrey Sachs plays in Russia have ever fessed up to the mess they made there?
7
@common sense: When do you expect "liberty" to be expunged from the English Language?
Putin owns trump.
Until the American voter realizes this, the election will go on more or less as any normal contest.
It is not.
119
Putin wants trump in office only bc it drives our country down and makes us weak. A house divided still cannot stand, and Putin knows trump is the perfect tool to accelerate civil division and destroy our international alliances. All of this benefits Russia. Putin is a smart man, trump is an easy mark.
19
@Robert FL
Say it again, Putin Owns Trump.
9
"God created war so that Americans would learn geography"
- Mark Twain
Well that didn't work.
Despite almost continuous exposure, we've seemed to have collectively learned nothing. Not geography, not the lessons of history, and never, not in 243 years, have we learned how to avoid war for more than a few years.
Perhaps we have always been really bad at diplomacy. Or perhaps we just won't admit that war has always been an integral part of American diplomacy that has a decent record of advancing American interests if you are able and willing to ignore a lot of dead bodies.
I think there is some truth in both those statements: We have rarely been good at diplomacy, we have fought too many wars of choice that have hurt our collective interests, but we have usually been lucky enough that our enemies were just a little bit worse at it than we were
And that luck? Clearly with Trump, that luck has run out and the enemies of America and Democracy are lining up to take advantage of the diplomatic destruction that election of Trump (with a little help from Putin) has wrought.
Perhaps we will learn something this time. But I doubt it.
51
@LT: The US learned nothing from its own Civil War. The US is only under armistice, like Korea.
3
The Democrats’ debates this week mentioned the importance of NATO, the UN and Trump’s poor behavior at the G20. When we get a Democratic President, diplomacy will be back. Indeed, as Biden said, we will be back.
25
Roger we have been traveling extensively in Asia. Everyone we meet is scratching their heads, they just do not understand how Americans elected Trump and are even reconsidering him for re election!! Everywhere we go we see photos of Obama’s, proudly displayed in shop windows and restaurants. People speak highly of him and of America as he came to represent. They wish trump is a brief nightmare who will disappear from politics, fast forward..
204
@petey tonei It is the same in Europe. But add fear to that. They can see Trump's actions setting up an environment where war might touch Europe again. (I am not ignoring Bosnia and the entire former Yugoslavia here just not projecting how that played in comments or did not).
18
@petey tonei, we even stopped at the Sofitel metropole Opera Wing in Hanoi where Trump met with Kim Jong Un, not a single photo of his to be found anywhere! Meanwhile there are photos of beautiful Joan Baez proudly displayed as well her painting of a Vietnamese monk. I tell you!!
12
My best friend Kurt used to say that he didn't like it when politicians said "America is the best country in the world." I kind of saw his point. We have to be co-equal nations. But America is indispensable. It was the first truly free country in the history of our modern era. I am proud to be American and know so many American stories and unique Americans. Freedom, liberty and equality are the marks of our country. There are many people who use these traditions to the detriment of other people, but the best of us recognize that our ideals imply that we have to help each other and lead the world for freedom.
17
@David: Is freedom really just another word for anarchy?
1
@David
You, sir, are the reason so many people hate Americans.
The whole notion of American exceptionalism is a lie, spoonfed to generation after generation of innocents who grow up and vote for Trump.
"America" is only indispensable in the fact its tentacles have infiltrated every corner of the world and its collapse would precipitate a global catastrophe.
2
@David
Believing you're the best is maybe the surest way to become the worst.
2
Ronald Reagan, a great American patriot and republican President who united America, must be rolling over in his grave over what Trump is doing to America and the republican party.
8
@Joseph B
Trump is just more profane and open about it than Reagan was. Trump took the filter off and allowed people to say what they really felt. If there's any silver lining to his presidency, it's the fact that at least all this is out in the open now - for all to see and history to judge.
99
@Joseph B: During the Reagan Administration, my career slipped from product manager of semiconductor processing equipment to marketer of empty factories. The US fell off the cliff then.
51
@Joseph B Reagan's embrace of Nixon's "Southern Strategy" - embodied by kicking off his presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair, Mississippi, in the county where Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney had been killed in 1964 - was the move that. rather than uniting, intensified the divide in America.
6
I think a lot of this decline of our position is a lack of national initiatives that helped drive our success during the Cold War. We are struggling as a nation on what to do and where to go with ideas ranging close to nationalism and isolationism to more full embrace of globalism. It sort of is a struggle of identity.
We needed a strong energy initiative in the 1970's during the first oil embargo, we are currently behind in solar and lithium ion battery technology and supply chain and other energy initiatives to China. We needed an economic initiative since the 1980's when people were losing their jobs in manufacturing to off-shoring and automation, along with something to help people gain the education they need for the 21st century.
To me, a lot of the answers are blatantly obvious, but somehow the general population is clueless. We need an educated and engaged population who are capable of picking good leadership and are capable of having civil discussions focused on finding solutions. But we need to make sure people have these tools too before we expect them to do this.
24
@Mike L: In the 1980s, Reagan abandoned US conversion to the Metric system. Reagan drove the US over the cliff with this move. Why make anything for the global market in the sole nation using an obsolete measurement system?
16
@Steve Bolger Because all of us who work in the sciences and advanced manufacturing do know the metric system. Our jobs and the knowledge are centered in blue areas, of course, and our schools teach the world's system. I frankly have difficulty trying to figure out "standard" measures for things. What is a fluid ounce anyway?
5
The victimhood mentality pushed by Trump and the GOP is a big factor driving America's decline globally. It has created a culture of retreat, entitlement, and complacency among at least a third of the country.
24/7, you have Trump/the GOP on the airwaves blaming our problems on some external tormentor. The (false) narrative being pushed to the base, particularly onto the uneducated, is essentially that external tormentors are responsible for holding them back, and that it's absolutely not their own choices in life, and definitely not the powers that be in their governments (Trump and the GOP) who are to blame.
Every week, it's a different tormentor who's the scapegoat. This week, it's immigrants who are holding them back. Next week, China. Then Mexico. The following week, Canada, poor people, minorities, NATO, globalists, the media, etc. Rinse and repeat. I swear, the GOP and Fox News have a dartboard of scapegoats, and at the beginning of every week, someone throws a dart at the dartboard to determine which scapegoat they're going to whine about that week.
It's a good distraction from actual causes of our decline; things we as a nation need to work to improve on. An underskilled and undereducated workforce, not suited to compete in a modern global economy. Decrepit infrastructure. Outrageous costs of health care and lack of access, and insurance that can't be relied on. Outrageous costs of post secondary education. Foreign wars of adventure costing us 5 trillion, etc.
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@Joe Arena
You left out unbridled capitalism, that has been offshoring jobs for 40 years and keeping wages stagnant, both of which have decimated the American middle class and poor. Add to that a tax code that has transferred even more wealth to the top.
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@Joe Arena
Joe, aren't you listening to the media who tell us that most Americans LOVE their health insurance?
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@Joe Arena
The vast decline of American influence over the last thirty years--is it all, in the end, just decadence? And laziness?
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Trumps entire career has been founded on a total reliance on personality---the ability to make deals based entirely on a sit-down meeting---with two rivals matching wits. What Trump has never understood, that all deals rely on an organizational infrastructure--whether in the private or public sector---that can implement the devil in the details. This is the exact reason that in business and now in foreign affairs he has failed repeatedly to achieve the goals he tweets about. Even if he were to strike a deal with North Korea or Iran or whoever, he has no organizational systems in place---manned by professionals like Mr. Burns, to implement the details. So, no matter what Trump says happened, nothing of substance will happen.
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@Amanda Jones
Zero sum deals trump is known for do not work in international agreements either.
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I strongly agree with Burns re the Nato expansion. It was ill conceived, giving legitimacy and a shield to long standing rightwing countries which will never be democracies while pushing our military closer and closer to Russias historic borders.
Despite Putins aggressive behavior, we have needlessly provoked legitimate Russian responses.
16
The Berlin Wall fell during American administration which could hardly be described as affirming the "the indivisibility of freedom and human dignity".
These grandiloquent geopolitical fantasies of the rich and comfortable -- men and women never threatened by the marketplace or blighted by injustice -- have brought us to the likes of Trump.
Believe it or not, people on the wrong end of these absurd claims don't like being lied to.
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A gentleman I admire greatly often encouraged his colleagues that "Deeds, not words..." are what's needed to get things done.
It's time for "Deeds" to support and reinstate the values of our unique democracy. In my career, I found that opening a dialogue, intended to be constructive, usually led to proper resolution of issues, challenges and problems. And the honest and open dialogue led to development of trust.
There is so much discussion of the 40% Trump base... But where's the dialogue? Simple interviews with 2016 Trump supporters won't cut it and will NOT achieve our much needed national healing of our once great national pride - where we could all agree to disagree without casting aspersions and vilifying those who don't agree with our views.
Engage the 40%, LISTEN to them, learn what they want for our country, understand them, solicit their ideas about how to improve our nation... Create some buzz about our national revival and coming back together as one nation united for the benefit of all.
Disagreement, problems, challenges, issues and divergent viewpoints are natural. You can't hide from them and they don't go away. Take them head on: start a national dialogue today with the constructive dedication to our nation that our founders had.
Where are you Rachel, Eugene, Ari, Maya, Wallace, Wallace, Joy, Shep, Joe & Mica, Elie, Donnie D, Willie, Colbert, Mahr, Lester? How about kicking off a national engagement with Wallace & Wallace + fellow Americans?
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@Bob
Yes, but how do you give your acceptance and understanding to people who think that Trump's authoritarian leanings are acceptable, who are suspicious of immigrants, who dislike people of color and don't believe they are their equals, who don't believe in climate change, who prefer not to think beyond themselves and believe that the status quo should be embraced, not questioned?
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@Bob
My only question. How do you have a dialogue with a group that does not believe in provable facts and traffics in conspiracy theories routinely?
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Bob,
I just spent significant time with my family and then in-laws. I had to listen extremely patiently while I heard that America will be great again “when other people and countries fear us”; how Democrats and their leadership are “evil tyrants bent on controlling everyone”, and of course, how “the mainstream media are the enemy of the people”. Plus the patently false data: “higher taxes than any other country”, “tax cuts that pay for themselves”, etc.
How can I respond?
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"Liberalism posited the indivisibility of freedom and human dignity, as well as the idea that the rule of law and democracy offered the best chance for human advancement, peace and prosperity."
Liberalism was right then and it is right still but it will take much longer than our impatient souls suppose or deign to promote. We must be as patient as we are persistent in our collective activism. I address this plea to the young. At a bare minimum, VOTE, but don't be satisfied with the minimum.
With a humble apology, I apologize to my juniors for the lassitude and outright self-indulgence of my generation. We have shamelessly pampered our generational interests to the detriment of any vision larger than our parochial demographic.
In Thursday's debate, Joe Biden declared "Sorry, my time is up." Yes it is, Joe, and so is mine. We now must pass power on to generations who have a far deeper and longer stake in our national healing than we do.
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@John LeBaron
The Boomers are often savaged, and it is partly deserved. But I put it to anyone--when opportunities for personal advancement come your way, do you take them, or do you say,"Gee, I'd better not, I could be seen as selfish"?
Few would select the latter.
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@John LeBaron
Well said.
@John LeBaron
Thank you. Apology accepted.
The U.S. has no unanimous foreign policy — a vision that has widespread, bipartisan support. Needless, devastating, costly wars have created a nation of skeptics and doubters about the world around us. Our allies and enemies all seem to be woven from the same cloth, an attitude exacerbated by an astounding ignorance of global issues by American citizens and voters. How can we expect to produce a diplomatic corps from school kids who couldn’t find Belize or Berlin (or Boston) on a map.
The ennui of defeatism has been festering for decades, at least as far back as Vietnam. Trump is applying the coup de grace to global alliances, and most Americans don’t seem to care at all.
Putin may be right. America — the beacon of liberal values — is adrift, with a broken rudder.
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Roger -- The past few days I've been watching the Democrats a lot, debates, tv pundits' guests, etc. Just doing that has produced a better feeling, like a breath of clean air. Trump recedes into the background briefly. Right now I picture him this way: A punk scratching graffiti on the halls of America's conscience. Ultimately he will be minor. Do we really think his smut will effect major changes in the deep emotional principles of this country?
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America's triumph was not that of liberalism but of globalism. The cautions that Mr. Burns uttered about the failure to produce the fruits of economic reform apply no less to the supposed "victor", the US. Trillions wasted on wars and tax cuts have left many Americans yearning for the world that our huckster President promised them. Obama was the last straw for many by parlaying an inspiring origin myth, in which we could all feel good about our country by electing a black man, into a Wall Street sponsored presidency. Hucksterism after all, is not limited to one party.
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Since 9/11 American foreign policy has been a list of blunders. And the latest blunder, withdrawing from the nuclear treaty with Iran, will almost certainly lead to another war in the Middle East. The fact of Trump gaining the presidency indicates that there is something wrong with the presidential system itself. The nepotism in the Trump administration is remarkable, his son-in-law subverted the authority of the Secretary of State and congress is powerless to do anything about it. Trump has just been photographed cozying up to the Saudi crown prince, who’s will to murder breached the Vienna Convention, the same convention that keeps US diplomats safe on foreign soil.
The Westminster system, where the electorate votes for MPs, and the MPs or party members vote for the party leader is superior. In Britain it would be impossible for the PM’s son-in-law to so blatantly subvert the responsibilities of the Foreign Secretary without consequences. There would be either a vote of no confidence in Cabinet, or failing that the Commons, and the PM would be out.
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@Pelasgus A system that produced, in descending order, David Cameron, Theresa May, now likely, Boris Johnson, has much to dis-recommend it. Short of war, Brexit is the biggest unforced error imaginable. Many things are wrong about the Trump Presidency, but a parliamentary system is no panacea. Let's try fixing the Electoral College first.
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@jng
While systems do matter, those which depend upon an intelligent informed electorate, rise or fall on that foundation.
This has always ben the existential question for democracy. Small wonder that the vast majority of political philosophers, have ended up with mistrust of the masses.
16
@jng - the principal problem with the UK parliament, and ultimately the cause of its current dysfunction, is that is still entirely based on a non-proportional, non-transferrable first-past-the-post voting system, much the same as the US.
1
If this column is one more criticism of Trump, it's by this time unnecessary and redundant. If it's a call for a somehow better resumption of the USA is "necessary" or "the world's policeman," imho it's extremely dangerous. Roger Cohen is a really smart guy with a lot of deep experience, but he still hasn't learned what I think is the lesson of US internationalism since 1945: Think twice before trying to determine outcomes in other nations, and think three times and then decide "no" when considering military action abroad.
I know we're all interdependent, Roger, but does that mean we have to continue to put our feet on IEDs?
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America’s slide into decline was and is accompanied by an ignorance of history so profound that it is unlikely that we will—or can—slide out of the morass in which the 40% of Americans have allowed themselves to believe that this president’s deification of nationalism and isolation and xenophobia are the holy grail of “America First.”
It’s doubtful that either he or they understand the deeply moral implications of “the liberal state,” an idea that is anathema to the richness of cultural diversity. They see enemies everywhere and don’t stop to understand that they themselves are friendless. A bleak and despairing emptiness they pursue as fulfilling and enduring. Everyone else is wrong; only they possess every truth.
More importantly, under this president, America has come to embrace the perfect without understanding that diplomacy cannot succeed where it is not fluid. The idea behind liberalism is the uplifting of the human spirit in something like a fellowship in which most nations are partners without seeking to dominate or control but being willing to see, without naïveté, the positives that can outweigh the negatives so that prosperity is not the province of a few.
In attempting to “make America great” once again, the president and his administration have
abandoned the ragged quest for a better world as it doggedly pursues the greatness of itself, the most false of lies.
The only place that Donald Trump takes us is down. There may be no way back.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Your assessment of Trump is correct.
One quibble: America has not at all "come to embrace the perfect". I think you meant something else that was phrased poorly.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18 Trump is the Mad Hatter, but a very dangerous and will become a desperate character when he loses the election.
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@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
The United States will not recover from this. We are an oligarchy in name only.
6
No matter what the US does the geopolitics and the history is on the side of the future dominance of Indo-Pacific. Inevitably with the end of colonialism the world is going back to its two millennial old history. Until 1850 China and India were the dominant economies. The next century is most likely to be dominated by G3- USA along with China and India. A new world order will arise. It will no longer be Western dominated. It could still be mostly democratic, though an Indo-Pacific one.
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@Albanywala
Except that India never was a real nation and, my guess, may never become one. Deep down, it's shallow. China, yes, is a nation that is bound for power and, it seems, will continue to accumulate it. But India? They will never make their trains run on time...
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@Albanywala India is a basket case. First visited in ‘75 and deteriorated a whole lot by ‘11.
It would have been impossible under all circumstances for the US to have maintained unrivaled primacy from 1945 to today. The world has changed, adversaries that have been destroyed during the war have managed to restore their fortunes, and Asian and American nations are rising and striving for influence and relevance. In fact, the current problems with China replay the typical response of an established power trying to manage the rise of a new one. The problem is that hardly any of the established empires that decide to fight rising competitors manage a decisive victory. The US may manage to delay the rise of China, but all it would achieve is a delay, not an outright victory.
However, the current US - China feud has the potential of fracturing the "globalized" world. Many powers may decide to develop systems and technologies outside the US orbit, as to manage to deflect US exercise of power. After the fracture occurs, the country that would "re-unify" the world would emerge as the major power in the 21st century.
I thought that Obama was right not to get involved in Syria. The problem was that it did not have an alternative strategy. His major fault was to play the Ukraine card against Russia while being unable to deflect a Russian counter-play. He then left the Europeans to try to limit the damage. Not the best moment of US foreign policy.
23
@ADRz Whether you believe in climate change or not it is going to have a massive impact on US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, where Saudi and its ruling Royal Family will have to face the prospect of all their lovely oil being left in the ground. This will bring a swift end to earnings from petrodollars for the US and despotic Saudi leaders will no longer have the money to buy the weapons the US and the West wants to sell them. Which is why Saudi is clinging to a corrupt US President.. Who will make a deal with China just before the election, and claim victory from a problem he caused. Yet another false one.
5
Trump is the American president who is most responsible for the sorry affairs of our foreign policy currently, but decisions even worse than his have been rampant, starting with the Vietnam war and the failure of Johnson and Nixon to end it sooner- particularly Johnson.
Botching Afghanistan and the horrible Iraqi adventure are and were so much more destructive to U.S. prestige and our ability to promote democracy than anything Trump has done... yet.
We need to focus on Trump, but not use him as a distraction to deeper political problems in this country that have long led to terrible military decisions that have tragically wasted millions of lives and trillions of dollars that could have done so much good for our nation and the world.
This needs to be analyzed and corrected. How much does the military industrial complex and our money-centric political system contribute to the bellicose nature of our country?
It will be easy to correct the Trump problem in the upcoming election but our tendency to rush into disastrous wars is systemic and a much harder fix.
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@alan haigh Enact a law limiting the amount of money companies can donate to politicians or political parties. Seperate the companies from the lawmakers, so that they are forced to work for the US people and not the companies who pay for their New Hampshire houses,and boats etc.
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i doubt such a law can be enacted. the politicians are bought off. and even if they enacted it, the supreme court is also bought off, it would overrule it.
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@Frea Democrats should work for a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform- the new leaders in the party would support it.
Your pessimism certainly must have been held by many who wanted woman to obtain to right to vote in the 19th and 18th centuries.
I'm not suggesting we can afford to a 200 year wait for serious campaign finance reform, but the world has vastly accelerated the potential for cultural and political change thanks to technical changes culminating in the internet.
If you cynically reject the possibility of change you deserve the world you inherit.
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