Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
There’s No Going Back – Ever
We can never go back to the “good old days.” That was a thought that occurred to me today, and I realized how that fact—and I believe it is a fact—defines not only how we see the world, but how we see our political reality. It colors how we see those who agree with us, and those who vehemently disagree with us. I also realized that all the Trump/Never Trump arguments are not really about Trump at all. The people who get stuck on either side of that conflict are struggling with something else entirely. And realizing that truth, with honesty and sincerity, might actually bridge the seemingly insurmountable polarization that has plagued this country, particularly the Conservatives, for years.
Think about it. There is no denying that life today is vastly different from the life we experienced, say, 20 years ago. And many people have a predisposition to living lives that are relatively predictable, familiar, and consistent. When they have occurrences that disrupt that predictability, they can feel beleaguered—life has turned upside down and has let them down in a way, so that they become confused, stressed, and even angry at the new and unanticipated outcomes. They feel betrayed and disappointed, and once they wrestle down these reactions, they are ready to go to war. They can decide to fight for what they once anticipated for their lives, demand that life return to some kind of normalcy, and rebel against those who think they should be prepared to go in a new direction. Even if that direction has some merit, they will reject it because it is not the life that they expected or desired.
I propose to you that this mindset evolves from that sense of life’s betrayal, and Donald Trump has become the scapegoat for those who reject Trump and life’s demands.
Before you reject my proposal, let me describe those who are on the other side of this chasm.
Many of us do prefer to have predictable lives, for one reason or another, but we have learned that life doesn’t acquiesce to our expectations. The best planning in the world can be victim to life’s vagaries, and no matter how strenuously we’ve worked to correct course, life seems determined to design its own path. We learn, either as a child, or sometimes not until we are adults, that rejecting life’s whims doesn’t always work—it smiles at us, even laughs sometimes, at our foolish beliefs that we have the power to change its course. Eventually, we learn how to ride the rapids, tolerate the roller coasters, and even swim with the sharks. Over time we begin to learn how to balance the usual patterns of our lives with the unforeseen events that meet us. If we are wise, we learn that the changes we encounter can even be enjoyable and rewarding, stretch us beyond our understanding or our limitations and expand our possibilities. The patterns we follow allow us to grab hold of the familiar so that we can take a breath and find our footing, but also free us to try something new and creative, ripe with potential.
I propose to you that this mindset characterizes the people, whether reluctantly or with vigor, who support Donald Trump.
* * * *
How can these descriptions of these two groups of folks be helpful? For those of us who hope that one day the disruption among Conservatives can be mended, these factors are important and valuable to understand:
The Trump/Never Trump conflict is much deeper and primal than a fight over one man.
For those who reject Trump-
- This conflict has to do with the loss and dread that comes with losing the past, either the past of our imagination or the past that truly existed. (In many respects, it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not—we are wedded to it.)
- It is more comforting to hold onto our memories than to have the uncertainty of creating new ones.
- They confuse “preferences,” such as decorum and good manners, with “values” such as truth and integrity, and struggle with having to compromise either type.
- It’s so much easier to create a scapegoat, than to find a way to work with the reality of “what is,” rather than to insist on “what should be.”
For those who accept (however fully or reluctantly) Trump—
- For our own peace of mind, we benefit from reminding ourselves of the depth of the rejection of Trump by others and what it represents.
- We can find a way to talk about Conservative values and what they mean to us, and see if the people we support can live those values, and to what degree.
- We can remember that both sides of this disagreement can be determined to win over the other side, denigrate those who disagree with us, or simply “make them wrong.”
- Remember that the differences in beliefs are often not “values based”; they are also not fact-based but opinion based. We can accept, therefore, that we are unlikely to change the minds of those who prefer to fight to maintain the past rather than suffer through creating a new future.
For me, I have some empathy for those who desperately hold on to the past. I understood, and at one time even preferred, that outlook on life. It is the outlook with which I was raised.
But I also realized that it limited my own growth and creativity. It was an insular way to live, protecting me from considering other ways to live. It was, in fact, frightening to contemplate new directions and new ideas. Along the way, however, I encountered ideas that challenged me to explore, and people who supported my thinking about other pursuits. I enjoyed the ups and (some of) the downs that greeted me. Not everyone who resists moving forward, however, will be able to do so.
But I hope and pray they will.
Because there is no going back—ever.
Published in Politics
All countries are at least partially dependent on other countries. The question for Israel is simply whether it wants to be more dependent on the United States, a country with representative government, or dependent on dictatorships. But Israel is still realistic enough to sense an advantage in having decent relations with Arab dictatorships as they perceive the threat from Iran.
Similarly for today’s Germany. Germany being dependent on thug-o-cratic Russia was a bad bet, whereas being dependent on a representative governments like Norway, Canada and the US for energy is a much better position to be in.
Countries that have representative governments tend to have similar interests to other countries that have representative governments.
Thug-o-cratic regimes like Russia and Iran often have similar interests as well, at least in the short term.
There’s just no getting around this issue of “dependency.” Admit that your country will be dependent, in some respects, on other countries and then prioritize relationships with countries whos interests align with your own.
Japan and the United States are pretty tight. Japan’s leadership recently said that they only have one military alliance, one with the United States and they aren’t looking for other alliances.
Wow.
Taiwan and the US have a pretty close relationship. If Taiwan tried to be completely independent from the US and other countries, it would be an invitation for China to attack them.
Same for Australia and New Zealand. Small countries, if they have representative governments and sense a threat from a dictatorship, are very likely to pick up the phone and ask the United States for help.
But inevitably, wrt Canada and the US, it comes with more expensive energy. It’s a matter of economic and military interests diverging, which is an interesting thing to see play outl
Which countries would you say the US is dependent on? Economically? Politically or militarily?
That’s definitely true, and Australia made its choice in the recent US/China dust up. But Australia’s economic growth over the past three decades (at least) has been overwhelmingly dependent on China’s appetite for minerals and coal. It’s not always an easy, or obvious, choice.
I’d be tempted to say Canada and Mexico in the sense that the US is better off with peaceful and prosperous neighbors. That is a kind of dependency. But the US is also better off with a peaceful and prosperous Europe and far East. So, nearly every European nation and also Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.
India is an important country. If India becomes freer and more prosperous, retaining and strengthening the representative nature of its government, then India-US relations will likely grow stronger.
I could also see, if Iran were to overthrow its dictatorship and get a government that is representative, Iran-US relations would be very good. Iran-Israel relations would be dramatically different if Iran were to overthrow its theocratic regime with a government that was representative.
There are economic incentives to buy from whomever is offering the lowest price. But as the Russia example demonstrates, there is a risk in doing so.
You left out a pretty important trade partner:
(Hint: China)
Sure. If we went cold turkey and completely stopped our trade with China, huge economic disruption, for both China and the US.
I was just thinking about the state of Delaware, population about 970,000.
If Delaware were a country, it would be difficult for it to develop a large enough military to defend itself from a Russia or China. So, it would make sense to enter into a military alliance with a larger country with a similar political system. Perhaps New York or Florida.
Similarly, one can see how a nation like Latvia, with its small population of about 1.9 million, sees NATO membership is essential for its security, if they want to retain their representative government. Most of NATO consists of representative governments and as Benjamin Franklin supposedly said, “We must all hang together or we must all hang separately.”
Why did Finland ally itself with Nazi Germany? Because America was still isolationist and the UK did seem powerful enough to deter the Soviet Union.
Recognizing a “savvy” move doesn’t mean he supports it. In fact, he says it wouldn’t have happened if he had been reelected and events seem to support that. The “old GOP” neither saw the Marist cultural revolution nor did anything to stop it. We now see they were as useless as “tits on a bull.” they had their chance and we are done with them.
Why? Trump pursued the agenda he promised. Things got better. I don’t stab people in the back because snowflakes in the party got their panties in a wad.
Trump just promised to oppose letting men in women’s bathrooms. I suspect you got your wires crossed.
It isn’t Trump who was the weak link.
So at some level, in this globalised world economy, we are all dependent on each other.
My feeling is they all want to retain their independence – and in the Baltics it’s personal when it comes to Russia.
No, the old problems will return. You will just have to accept that. Trump won more votes then any president had before. That isn’t a sign of a party in distress. No, not at all. What we have are two groups who vote out of emotion (hatred) Democrats and Never Trumpers.
If you didn’t vote for Trump, you enabled the man who is returning to the Iran deal.
It is interesting to note that the framers’ goal was a “more perfect union” which is a quite modest but achievable goal, as opposed to a ‘perfect union’ or any other kind of perfection.
I got the 2000th view.
Susan, you’re right – there is no going back. Of course, there’s no going back in anything, really. Even in something as controlled as software development and delivery, when I make a mistake I don’t get to take it back. The only course is to fix it forward.
You’re right, of course, Barfly. But I can say that in my daily life I occasionally wish for a time, or the repeat of a special event, that I could change. It is nonsense, and I don’t usually dwell on those thoughts, but they show up now and then.
I agree. I remember my Dad saying something like that in the early ’70’s, that Conservatives and Liberals was a better description.
Consider the fundamental elements. Earth, air, fire, and water themselves are proportioned combinations of simpler qualities: hot/cold and dry/wet. Republican and Democrat are the social expression of individuals’ conservative/liberal and adult/child qualities.
This is certainly true – the genie doesn’t go back into the toothpaste tube.
But I could wish the libs would stop ‘fixing’ stuff faster than we can stay afloat.
Eh… Not really. I mean I agree with you that there is no going back but painting the Never Trumpers as psychologically damaged individuals who just can handle life and want to put their hands over their ears and close their eyes and chant “I can’t hear you” over and over is so simplistic as to be laughable.
In your eagerness to paint your side as the cold eyed realists who are the only ones to understand the danger you are missing out on what many Never Trumpers are saying that is real and that many of the dangers they are warning about are truly concerning.
I am not a Never Trumper. I am not a Trumper. I strive to understand what both sides are saying and come to my own conclusions. My current conclusion is that while a second Trump term in 2020 would have been problematic in many ways, it would have been better for the country than Biden. However at this point I believe a second Trump term beginning in 2024 would be disastrous.
Assuming it is a choice between Trump and Biden, which would be the more disastrous?
I agree with you support for Ukraine isn’t necessarily in Germany’s interest, but I don’t think that they ones necessarily dragging Bidden kicking and screaming into helping Ukraine. NATO is a large organization. I think that Poland, UK, and the Baltics were more on the pro-Ukrainian side at least in the beginning. Now it may have more or coalesced as a US foreign policy objective. I just don’t believe it started out that way.
I agree with you that Germany has a different conception than the US which is fine, but you can’t be in military alliance with the US. Not be meeting your commitments under that Alliance and also have a relationship with a strategic competitor of that alliance. I realize Germany might want to have its cake and eat it too, but it isn’t just the US that is going to have heartburn with that it is much of NATO that is going to have a issue with that as well.
Fair point. I meant in terms of military losses; however, we are seeing that the Russian way of war is much less discriminant than the US tries to be, so I agree they have skin in the game, which is all the more reason for them to do more in the name of their own defense.
I actually meant their own resources. They had sizable Nuclear energy sector which they began decommissioning after Fukushima. They have pretty good reserves of coal. I am not sure what their gas reserves look like but I doubt they have actually really even done much exploration to determine what those might be. My sense of German energy is that it is very similar to California in the US. A net energy importer not necessarily from lack of resources but because exploiting those resources goes against the fashionable green movement in Western Europe. It is a kind of NIMBYism that is long term harmful. France and the UK aren’t much better mind you they too are not keeping up with domestic energy production, although France does better because of Nuclear. In general though all of Western Europe has gone on a pseudo green kick. I say pseudo because they aren’t really decarbonizing they are just importing carbon from Russia, which I suppose in a different world would be rational but when Russia is an existential threat to the European project that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Importing from the US and Canada would make more sense if we weren’t also caught up in our own green boondoggle.
They should be working to become independent themselves. Not decommissioning Nuclear power plants would be something. Also working to make supplies available from Western Europe would make sense too. Norway and the UK have exploitable gas reserves. I agree dependence isn’t good but it is a choice for Germany. It isn’t their fate.
Agreed but not necessarily a bad thing in the long run. Realistically Europe should be taking up its own defense and foreign policy that better reflects their own values and priorities. If they don’t align with the US that is fine as long as you aren’t expecting the US to foot the bill for your defense. Also I expect that Germany would have a large say, but not only say. Their are plenty of other NATO countries or EU countries that would tend to balance out Germany.
It does to an extent. As I pointed out if Germany wasn’t on a pseudo green fetish, They would have other options. They might even have cheaper options. They chose to go down the path of dependence. I don’t think it isn’t rational but Putin doesn’t have Western Europe’s or Germany’s long term welfare in mind. Something that policy makers in Europe should realize and take into account. If you are going to be a client of a great power then It is better to be a US client than a Chinese client or a Russian client. Europe itself could bid fare to be a great power if they are willing to developed their own energy resources and take ownership for their own defense.
That is a bit of a double edged sword as we are learning. The question is how much of a double edge sword is it for China as well.
The US has a solid history of flying our skin over to be in Europe’s games, and others’ games as well.
Your characterizations of my descriptions are exaggerated and distorted. Not even close.
The thing of it is, Hillary Clinton ran for the US presidency in 2016. It is important to note how the US general she was most closely aligned with during that time period was a guy who published a book in 2016. In that screed, he clearly stated that war against Russia was a US necessity by Dec 2017.
It was not at all EU officials aligned with NATO officials who oversaw the Maiden revolution in Dec 2013, that toppled the legitimately elected president of the Ukraine. It was our funding via the John Kerry/Biden forces inside the Obama Administration that accomplished that.
Why? Well for one thing, Ukraine sits on a super valuable shale oil reserve. And then after the president was deposed, Burisma Energy had the ability to employ both Biden and Kerry’s offspring.
I agree the democrats were up to their elbows in the Maiden revolution; however, it was originally a dispute between pro-Russian and pro-European political groups in Ukraine. The EU types definitely stirred the pot.
And Biden and Kerry got heapin’ platefulls.
On the contrary, I think the US dragged the rest of NATO into a confrontation with Russia over Ukraine.
The Germans weren’t behind Maidan (or any of the other colour revolutions), that was the US.
The UK is the only one of that lot capable of shaping NATO policy – Poland and the Baltics are not really in that position, it’s as possible as Turkey shaping NATO policy to its own benefit at a cost to other NATO members, ie not in any substantive way – and the UK, at this point, is very much Deputy Dog. They need the US after Brexit, they have no option but to support.
I think the core issue is Russia’s place in the world – equal(ish) or subordinate. It all flows from that.
Does NATO really need Russia as a strategic competitor? Does the US need Russia as a strategic competitor? Does Europe need Russia as a strategic competitor?
In each of these cases, if so why so? (Imo: maybe, yes, no.)
Again, I think you are putting the cart before the horse. The US paid for a lot of global security after WWII, and as a consequence the US has had a the power to dictate (mostly politely, but still) the post war security architecture (!!) of much of the world. That was a feature, not a bug.
The US now wants to stop paying, and that’s fair enough, but I’m not sure the US is ready for the reduction in power that will come with that. What will a world where German interests are not subordinate to US interests look like?
(My guess is that it would include a functioning Nordstream 2 pipeline. And I also expect a colour revolution attempt in Germany if they look like they’re even thinking of being more independent.)
Why do you suppose it is that Putin has been thundering around Moscow for almost two decades blaming the US for all of Russia’s problems and putting himself forward as the solution? He wants us as an enemy – why not indulge him?
Does he have any justification at all for this?
Cart, horse?
We’re not the ones that let the ones who allowed the oligarchs to accumulate all the distributed shares of formerly Communist-owned Gazprom and all the other commodities goodies for kopeks on the ruble.