“The
fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to
survive.”
Those
were the weighty words of President Trump when he spoke to an
enthusiastic crowd in Poland. Though they sound more like the work
of his speechwriters than of the tweeter-in-chief, they were both
momentous and generally ignored by the media in the flood of news
about the G-20 summit.
Trump
did more than wring his hands about the future of the West. He
outlined the three causes of concern about the fate of North America
and Europe, facing threats from “the East” and “the South.”
It’s
not surprising that the first threat came from “radical Islamic
terrorism.” He warned about the confrontation with an “oppressive
ideology – one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all
around the globe.”
This
issue gave him the opportunity both to exhort the Arab leaders to
whom he had spoken in Saudi Arabia “to drive out this menace” and
to justify his policy of limiting immigration or expelling those who
don’t “share our values and love our people.”
While
he made a widely agreed point about terrorism, he ignored the
conflict among the Arab countries that emerged right after the Saudi
Arabia meeting in which the U.S. has taken sides, undermining the
very leadership role he had recalled.
And
his love-me-or-leave-me policy is a standard never employed by the
government, because it’s impossible to apply.
His
second threat to the West comes from powers that use “new forms of
aggression,” including “cyberwarfare.” This concern might
apply to China, but because Trump was speaking in Poland, it seemed
obvious he was talking about Russia, that country’s neighbor.
In
his next breath, he named Russia for its action in seizing territory
in the Ukraine and its support for Syria and Iran. He invited Russia
to join the West to “fight against common enemies and in defense of
civilization itself,” implying that Russia was outside the West,
but could change sides.
The
President had difficulty sustaining this stern attitude toward the
Russians. Denying the findings of all American security agencies, he
wondered aloud if Russia had been the only country trying to
undermine the 2016 election. He met Russian President Putin and left
the impression he had accepted Putin’s denial of responsibility.
Compared
to these major world challenges, his third threat to the West seems
almost trivial and not nearly as serious. He warned against “the
steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and
wealth of the people.” This threat to the West comes from
“paperwork and regulations.”
Dealing
with this challenge is “firmly within our control.” If
government successfully declares war on rules, that will represent a
major contribution to the survival of the West.
In
this confrontation, Trump has been causing executive agencies to
withdraw rules and to refrain from adopting new ones. There’s no
need to amend laws you oppose, if the agencies tasked with carrying
out those laws are prevented from adopting the necessary, detailed
rules.
In
effect, the West will be saved if laws are blocked from application
by undercutting the power of government agencies to carry out the
requirements of those laws. All that’s necessary is to run around
the laws, ignoring the legislative process.
Trump’s
concern echoes Alabama Gov. George Wallace in his 1968 run for the
presidency as an avowed racist. A famous phrase attributed to him
was his attack on “pointy headed bureaucrats” (though that’s
not exactly what he said). Those bureaucrats were busy implementing
the civil rights laws.
It
seemed fitting that the president of the leading country of the free
world, the U.S., should deliver the remarks he made in Poland. It
sounded like a reassertion of American leadership.
But
that broader purpose of setting the priorities for the West did not
resonate. The words of warning were belied by the actions of the
person speaking them.
At
the G-20 gathering of the world’s major powers, Trump led the U.S.
delegation away from consensus and toward isolation. On trade, the
final statement was left at broad generalizations. On climate, there
was a statement by 19 participants and a separate one by the U.S.
Trump’s
slogan is “Make America Great Again.” That seems to mean that
the U.S. has decided to go its own way, happily relinquishing world
leadership to focus on narrow and short-term national issues. Can
that help give the West “the will to survive?”
If
not, Trump is laying the groundwork for the next president whose
slogan could well be, “Make America Great Again.”
No comments:
Post a Comment