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A 20th-Century Mindset for a 21st-Century World
In the immediate aftermath of the President’s Summit in Singapore, and then again this week with the allegedly “disastrous” joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, I keep reading that one side or another has “won” something and that President Trump, by being on the other side, must have “lost” it. It doesn’t seem to be anything you can physically see or touch. It’s not concessions in a treaty (or non-treaty, if you’re Barack Obama) or something valuable such as real estate. It’s not a trophy or a cup. There seems to be no monetary prize. It’s just something I’ve been assured is real and exists. But does it?
When Russia was more than just Russia, back in the day when it was an amalgamation of subjugated states we called the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, and when we were struggling for the hearts and minds (and natural resources) of former colonial holdings of either defeated or bankrupt European powers, there were real prizes out there. It was a battle between the West and capitalism and the dark, evil forces of Communism.
We were battling a proxy war in Vietnam, a shooting war that was designed to be more like Korea than WWII, and battling the propaganda war which also meant rounding up client states and securing “influence.” In this battle, we really could see the ball move, in places such as Africa, Southeast Asia, and South and Central America. Since German reunification and the fall of the Soviet Union, the landscape has altered dramatically. While Putin seeks to replicate the USSR’s world influence, his efforts have produced mixed results at best. China, with its hybrid of authoritarianism and capitalistic predatory behavior, is the emerging 21st-century power that may realign the international scene back into a bipolar world.
The truth, of course, is that despite the headlines there are no winners or losers to be had. There is no one struggling with the decision to buy American goods or North Korean ones, or whether or not being on Russia’s side is going to place them on the right side of history when capitalism falls into the dustbin. Nobody said, “Boy, that Kim guy really shined. I think we’ll buy the next generation of North Korean fighter planes instead.”
The real truth is that this is all about domestic politics. The “international prestige prize” is just another cover for the ongoing war led by the nation’s neo-Marxists at the DNC and their own client states of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the television news divisions. Donald Trump and his army of rubes and hicks derailed their dreams and revealed that much of their accomplishments were built on sand. The declaratory state, which was supposed to soften us up for the real “fundamental transformation” of the United States, dissolved like two Alka-Seltzer tablets in their post-election hangover cure.
You can add to that list a long line of Republicans who are simply mad at Donald Trump for their own reasons, whether it’s the fact that he cut to the head of line by being more in touch with the electorate than they were, or because he has angered the mega-donors who like controlled trade, cheap overseas labor, and an underground domestic class that provides them with their nannies, housekeepers, and gardeners. They have no idea that Trump rose simply on their failure to deliver on anything they had been promising in the post-Reagan era of the GOP.
The next time someone wants to tell me that Putin and Kim came out as “winners” against Mr. Trump, I want to conjure the ghost of the late Johnny Olson. “Hey, Johnny, tell ‘em what they won!”
C’mon, Johnny. Tell me.
Published in Foreign Policy, Politics
The American Conservative posted something similar today:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/war-doesnt-make-sense-anymore/
EJ,
For a journalist to say something of actual value would require knowledge and analysis. To have these things requires, you know, effort. Out modern media isn’t actually interested in putting forth any effort so they just opt for “optics”. They will scream, cry, and thrash around on the floor all about the optics of this word or that gesture. Suddenly every other moment is the end of the world.
What’s great about writing 3,000 words on optics is that it takes no actual knowledge or analysis. It is totally worthless in fact and next week you can write another 3,000 words on something equally trivial that you can demand is the end of the world. Best of all you can feel that you are a major light of the journalistic world and collect your ridiculously generous salary.
Great work if you can get it.
Regards,
Jim
Well … he is no Barack Hussein Obama, that’s for sure.
EJ, you said a lot of things that I’ve been thinking these last few days. All of the “Experts” running around like the sky is falling because of the press conference; while no one knows what was said in the actual meeting between President Trump and Putin.
Wouldn’t it be wise to wait a bit and see if anything actually comes out of that meeting? President Trump may have presented Putin with a Reset-Reset Button.
One thing certainly has been lost, if it was there to begin with: the actual grey matter of so many political pundits.
However no one can blame that loss on either Trump or Putin.
So many of these people on TV are not experts in their fields and get their opinions from other talking heads. We get so little real information about anything. For example, if a bill is before Congress, does the “so called” reporter discuss what’s in the actual bill after reading it? No way. Instead most of them choose to talk about the politics of the warring factions. International relations is particularly frustrating as the TV people expect instant gratification rather than approach the subject with a measured wait and see attitude.
I liked this post. But I don’t get this reference:
Was that from a TV show or something?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Olson#The_Price_Is_Right
Spring chickens!
Thank you,@EJHill!
Yeah, why is it sportscasters want to talk about crime and politics and newscasters want to call balls and fouls?
The American political/media establishment has been proven to be hopelessly myopic and stupid.
So true. Geo-politics hasn’t been this low-stakes in my lifetime, though you wouldn’t know it watching TV.
Let’s take stock: The U.S. has the world’s only five-ocean navy, and its getting bigger. We own the skies. We are now the world’s biggest oil producer. ISIS is destroyed. Our Eastern European allies are hardening their defenses against Russia. The Iran deal is off. And if need be, we could wipe out North Korea in an afternoon. That’s the stuff that is real.
But if a blundered press-conference can be used to recast Trump as Ethel Rosenburg, our hack media will do it. After all, this is the same hack media that cast the Tet offensive as a defeat, just to stick it to Nixon.
Talk to me, Johnny.
Great post. Thanks EJ.
And the politics are, of course, skewed by partisanship. The same set of circumstances between right and left will produce two very different headlines:
“Republicans do something awful”
versus
“Republicans claim Democrats did something awful”
What’s more, the actions of every low-level member of the executive branch are considered policy if it’s a Republican in office, but is only the action of the individual when a Democrat is in office.
Yes!