Thursday, August 09, 2018

The Trump Doctrine Has Foreign Policy Elites Pulling Out Their Hair


From Real Clear Politics:
I get really aggravated when people say things like “Donald Trump is an idiot” or “he has no idea what he is doing” or lately “can you believe what President Trump said today on Twitter? That was so unpresidential!” 
Really? Have you not turned on a TV or logged onto social media for three years? 
What would have been a political firestorm pre-2015 is now just another day in a presidency that will completely reshape its office forever. The only question is whether that will prove a good thing or a bad thing. If you haven’t figured it out, Trump never has, and never will, operate by the classic Washington rules of decorum, respect for tradition—respect for anything, really—or presidential convention. 
If you can accept all of that—I’m not saying make peace with it, just accept it—you will go a long way towards understanding the Trump Doctrine itself. 
In fact, if I had to summarize the Trump Doctrine, it would be this: America’s interests come first, everything else second. That does mean everything: history, tradition, alliances, the “normal way of doing things,” customs—all of that can and will be thrown out the window if Trump feels that his country is being hurt. 
He sees the world in black and white, black meaning bad for America and white meaning good for America. Period.
GO READ THE WHOLE THING.

3 comments:

Pastorius said...

Yep.

One must wonder if this isn't what we need all the time.

All ideas are bought and sold in a marketplace of ideas.

These multigenerational State Dept. efforts known as Treaties are the way for "elites" to assert their otherwise ineffectual and pussified ideas. If they can sell the idea once, they can assert it's dominance for decades based upon "Treaties."

Is that really a good way to do the business of a nation?

Pastorius said...

All Trump is saying is, hey, what's wrong with renegotiating once in awhile, as things change?

Is there anything inherently wrong in that?

Always On Watch said...

Pasto,
One must wonder if this isn't what we need all the time.

We sure as hell wouldn't have gotten this change with HillaryBeast or Jeb.