"What Putin wants is the end of the world order the United States and its allies established 80 years ago [post-ww2], in which the first principle was the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very foundation of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the aggressed, because the Trumpian vision coincides with Putin’s: a return to spheres of influence, where great powers dictate the fate of small nations."
I like the dark urgency, sure, but especially the simple clarity of this French senator's analysis.
I'll only add, again, the great powers and spheres of influence politics of the late 19th century that Putin and Grump, apparently, would like to return to did NOT turn out so well but led directly to two devastating world wars. During WW1, before the US got involved, the press once asked Wilson, 'Mr. President, What is this war in Europe about?' "England owns the world and Germany wants a bigger piece of it, Son," Wilson quips, or something like that anyway. (Yes, I'm making this up as I go.) The first principle of the post-WW2 UN mission was to prevent military aggression like the great powers bombing each other into rubble as they did a lot between 1914 to 1945, like Gaza now, like Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Grump's threats to take over Canada or Greenland or the Panama Canal.
I've heard this positive spin building for this aggressive imperialist turn in US foreign policy as a "vibes shift," releasing the "animal spirits," you know they love using Keynes for their malign purposes, and releasing private industry from the bureaucratic slog of government regulations and taxes, boosting Big Tech to win the AI arms race with China, which by the way might require taking over Canada, etc. It's both cartoon ridiculous and so maybe more performative than anything else but then just so basically insulting and disrespectful of other nations and human rights, what can anybody do but say Hell No in every way possible?
I don't know where the bluster begins or ends with Grump but it feels to me inevitable that this will license more conflict and violence around the world. And, yeah, half the electorate voted for this; an obviously violent and fascist government won in a democratic election. This is who we are as a nation. Constitutional crisis doesn't seem to cover it any more. Josh is calling it an inter interregnum, or an interruption, a timeout, in the constitutional order. Most settle in dismay for "not normal." At any rate, the anti-DEI campaign is racist propaganda and hate speech; abducting the Palestinian protester is police state stuff, etc.
I guess I also especially appreciate Claude Malhuret's, right of center pol perspective, former head of Doctors Without Borders, his confidence in American democracy to figure this out. I'm much shakier on that part. There's that Churchill line, when he was badgering FDR to join the fight against fascism in WW2 in Europe, "Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else."
I guess we're still in one of those "everything else" phases and it doesn't seem to be working out but how bad will it have to get before his faithful give him up or the numbers turn against him in overwhelming super majorities? I don't know. But too long.
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