I have a kind of intuition about why Zelensky and Ukraine are being defamed. One level is just that, if you're going to throw someone to the wolves, it's psychologically easier if you can somehow say it's their fault.
But a deeper reason might be seen if we imagine a world where Chomsky and Assange are in charge, rather than Trump and Musk. In that world, the main claim would be, it's our fault, we (the West, the American bloc) started it, we provoked Russia.
Now it's always possible that tomorrow this will become the official line for a while. Though obviously they'd say Biden, the Democrats, and the globalists started it. But I think the reason we don't hear this from the very highest levels, is that Trump and his people have no principled objection to the United States having and using any particular tools of power. They just think that supporting Ukraine was a terrible use of them.
If I ask myself who Trump's people would regard as enough of an ideological enemy to warrant the use of any and all means to bring them down, I see Communism and Islam. Post-communist Russia doesn't qualify.
Trump’s decision to halt arms deliveries and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine has left the country dangerously exposed. Without access to battlefield surveillance, missile tracking, or secure communications, Ukraine faces an immediate and severe disadvantage against Russia’s military machine. The consequences extend beyond Ukraine’s borders—Trump’s reversal has shaken European confidence in the United States, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to call for rapid rearmament and even hint at a nuclear security guarantee for the continent. European leaders now openly discuss a future in which the United States is no longer a reliable partner, marking a profound shift in the transatlantic alliance. Trump’s actions, intended as a transactional maneuver, may instead trigger a geopolitical realignment that weakens American influence for generations.
One could argue that Europe should have long anticipated this moment and built independent security capabilities instead of relying on Washington’s goodwill. Indeed, European nations have often deferred hard decisions on defense spending and strategic autonomy, making Trump’s move less a betrayal than a long-overdue reckoning. However, this ignores the reality that the current crisis is not a gradual shift but a sudden rupture, leaving allies scrambling in the face of an emboldened Russia. More critically, it underestimates the damage done to America’s own standing—abandoning Ukraine does not force Europe to step up so much as it forces them to look elsewhere. By prioritizing short-term leverage over long-term alliances, Trump has not made America stronger but has instead made it dispensable.
I agree. One consequence will be massive nuclear proliferation. Another will be the loss of our vast system of global alliances, and with it, the benefits that the accrue to a superpower. Trump has handed the world to China. Americans have never known a world in which we're not the top dog. So many of the things Americans take for granted devolve from it. I wonder when we'll realize what we've lost.
Those at the head of the U.S. government are the most cowardly, greedy, immoral people on the face of this earth. They are willing to betray anyone, to crush any value, spit on the graves of those who died defending freedom and democracy, turn their own nation over to a war criminal and become war criminals themselves, to get something: money, power, influence. Their behavior is despicable. They are traitors not just to our own nation but to all people brave enough to stand up and not submit to tyranny. No. The guy in the WH and his criminal gang of grifters, thieves, frauds, and liars are traitors without exception. But UKRAINIANS are the human beings standing up against tyranny. Standing up for their right to be FREE from putin and russia. This nation and their brave leadership are the leaders of the free world. They lift our hearts as they celebrate their poets, writers, artists, singers, composers; the power of their language and culture declares they will be free and remain free from the abomination that is the regime of trump and the gop, which has become the government of putin on the Potomac. Just read this article and understand the depths of depravity and injustice present in the WH, the executive branch, and the gop led congress. Such an abomination must not be allowed to remain. It must fall and fall hard and soon. Stand with Ukraine and do not submit to the tyranny of trump and putin. They will not and must never prevail.
What an asinine fatalistic argument reverse engineered to make Trump’s madness sound sane. You might as well say “it was inevitable we were all going to perish in a nuclear Holocaust, so we might as well get it over with now.” Also doesn’t explain the absolutely psychopathic decision to abruptly cut off Intel access and deliberately get Ukrainian civilians killed. Or the endless favoritism shown to Putin to make the terms to end the war as favorable to him as possible. Trump is simply *choosing* to align the US with the mass murderer in the Kremlin over the free world.
Most of your readers may not know but you surely do, Claire, that Timothy Garton Ash is not trustworthy. He accused Ayaan Hirsi Ali of being an “enlightenment fundamentalist” for her audacity in bemoaning the assassination of her friend and colleague Theo Van Gogh at the hands of a radicalized Muslim immigrant to the Netherlands. To compound his offence, Garton Ash suggested that the only reason anyone took Hirsi-Ali seriously was because she was physically attractive. How would you feel if that accusation was lobbed your way? Anyone interested in learning more about the venality of Garton Ash (and his partner in crime, Ian Buruma), can read “The Flight of the Intellectuals: The Controversy Over Islamism and the Press” by Paul Berman. See,
A caveat. Europe operates under a mostly-common legal/economic framework. Otherwise it is a bunch of very separate countries/societies that happen to be located near one another. There is no "Europe" in the totalized sense that there is a Russia or a United States. The posited unity isn't really there and might be pretty hard to achieve/maintain, even though it would be really useful right now. A lot of talk, sure, but I don't see "Europe" as able to act in concert militarily or even politically -- and I don't mean Hungary-like behavior either.
Russia does fear even the possibility of a single European entity. A few weeks ago Solovyov was ranting about how much Russia loves Italians, Portuguese, French... "But Europeans? We hate them and will destroy them wherever they are!" So don't unite, y'all.
I don't think Vladimir Rudolfovich has anything to worry about. Unfortunately.
Claire, you mentioned in your re-stack of Nick Cohen's piece that you have written multiple essays and even whole books on European anti Americanism as a psychological disease.(I assume you are referring to Menace in Europe). Anyways I am curious what would be your response to those in the US who cite European Anti Americanism when citing a reason not to support Ukraine because a bit to my surprise I am seeing more than a few Americans make this argument.
Ukrainians loved us until we betrayed them, so obviously this argument is completely specious. If you're hearing people advance this as an argument for abandoning NATO, it might make more sense. And yes, I've heard that, too. It's idiotic. Historically, anti-Americanism in Europe has come from the far-right and the far-left. The Trump administration is obviously committed to bringing the most anti-American forces in Europe to power, thereby creating its own excuse for abandoning Europe.
Among Europe's normal political parties, anti-Americanism was not a strong force until Trump made it so through his hostility to Europe. If they mean casual snobbery or stereotyping by Europeans, I would say that Europe's snobbery toward America has always been matched by equal and opposite snobbery and stereotyping about Europe from Americans. It's an example of what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences," and it's as stupid a reason for abandoning an alliance that has brought unprecedented prosperity and peace to the world as I can imagine. It's like saying the United States should break up because Californians make fun of southerners and vice versa.
As an American with a brain I would never rely on The Hill for rational unbiased news. I do not mean to insult you or The Hill, but an unfortunate number of Americans have lost their ability to discriminate between truth and malicious falsehoods. Thus, we are doomed.
My God, where do they get these people. Could this Andrew Latham fellow actually believe what he's writing? Has he somehow managed to put what we're doing to Ukraine out of his head? Or is he totally cynical, and counting on a readership so uninformed that it doesn't know we've cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine? That Ukrainian civilians are right now dying in agony as a result?
I'm actually fascinated by the question. Does he believe this? Or is he a hired gun who knows full well that this is an argument only an idiot could find compelling?
Me personally I have had some scrapes with Pletka in the past. I know she doesn't like Macron or the people around him like Attal and Borne and has implied the later two are traitors to Judiasism(both Attal and Borne are Jewish) for not supporting Israel more after October 7th.
Pletka's view on the current conflict seems to be along the lines that yes Trump is doing bad things but people like Macron and Starmer aren't really good people and Zelensky is increasingly bad as well. Pletka interestingly thinks Trump's policies towards Canada are quite bad but mostly because they are going to hurt the Canadian Conservative Party.
The author doesn't have to be a hired gun (although he is hired by The Hill.) That a large population of Americans can't discriminate truth and falsehood coming from our media and the lies of the president is the problem. There is an all consuming program of propaganda here from the Republican party and its adherents. The gullibility is jaw-dropping; they even believed Trump's disavowal of Project 2025. Our "predicament" appears well-earned.
Irving Kristol is widely regarded as the father of neoconservatism. He was a genius and his wife, the scholar, Gertrude Himmelfarb, was even smarter than Irving. Gertrude wrote many books but two in particular were magisterial; “The Road to Modernity: The British, French and American Enligtenments” (2004) and “The Jewish Oddessy of George Eliot” (2009). How Irving and Gertrude managed to produce a son as blinkered as Bill Kristol is truly a mystery.
In any case, in 1983, Irving wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled “What’s Wrong with NATO.” It was remarkably prescient and foreshadowed precisely the collapse of NATO that we are currently witnessing. The piece is well worth the five minutes or so that it takes to peruse it. It can be found here (I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s paywalled).
Irving wrote the article well before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It had two main themes; the first was that a military alliance where one party, the United States, did all the heavy lifting was not sustainable over the long run. He made the argument that the American leadership of NATO fostered an unhealthy European dependency on the United States that would eventually undermine the Alliance. The father of neoconservatism was spectacularly right about that. As we watch NATO bleeding out and as we behold the utter panic of the Europeans, from whatever perch in the afterlife that he now calls home, Irving must be saying to himself, “I told you so.”
The second theme of Irving’s 1983 op-ed concerned the American nuclear umbrella that Europe sheltered beneath. According to Kristol, the nuclear umbrella was remarkably leaky. Actually, he thought it was pure fiction. Irving suggested that no American President would ever launch nuclear weapons to prevent either a ground invasion or nuclear attack by the Soviet Union on Europe. The idea of risking the destruction of the United States (protected as Trump would later say by two big beautiful oceans) was something that, when push came to shove, no American leader would countenance. Here’s a bit of what he said in his own words,
“It strikes me as absurd to think that a President is going to risk the destruction of the United States by inaugurating a nuclear holocaust because Russian tanks have moved into West Germany and our conventional forces on the Continent have failed to stop them. Today the nuclear umbrella is 99 percent bluff. Mutual assured destruction, the threat upon which the umbrella over Europe relies, really no longer exists as a believable strategy.”
Irving suggested that the reason the Europeans were desperate for a large American troop presence in Europe was not so much to deter a Soviet ground invasion but to insure Americans had skin in the game. They hoped that if the Soviets invaded from the East and harmed American soldiers, the use of American nuclear weapons would become more palitable.
What Kristol said about the nuclear umbrella protecting Europe in 1983, is even more true about the American nuclear umbrella protecting our Asian allies from China and North Korea in 2025. It’s pure fiction and everyone, in their heart of hearts knows it. There is no way that Trump or any other American President of either political party would risk Chinese or North Korean nukes raining down on Americans to protect Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan or the Philippines.
That’s why NATO has reached the end of its useful life and why America’s European and Asian allies need to step up to the plate and do far more to protect themselves with far less American help. It’s a simple reality that the world is back to the situation that has prevailed for much of human history; international relations mediated through spheres of influence. If Europe truly wants to be consequential, it can no longer do it on the American dime. It will have to make the sacrifices that come with competing as a great power.
It’s comical listening to Europeans bemoan American diffidence when after decades of happily supping on the American teat they now have to face the realities that Americans have been facing for decades. Supposedly the Europeans are now willing to run large fiscal deficits to increase military spending. The United States have been doing precisely that for decades. The Europeans now face the prospect of watching their social safety nets fray so they can increase defense spending. Americans have sacrificed butter for guns since the end of World War II. Europeans now face the prospect of recruiting hundreds of thousands of soldiers and training them to be war-ready. The United States has faced that challenge year after year. Europe now needs to put large numbers of its soldiers in harms way. Good luck with that. If Putin allows the British and French (there won’t be many others) to enter Western Ukraine after a cease fire, they will likely stand alone. Does anyone believe that Trump will supply a backstop? My advice would be, don’t count on it.
The moment we face now was inevitable. The idea that the United States would single-handedly pay any price to protect the Western world while its allies luxuriated in their fantasy that the gravy train would go on forever was wishful thinking. In fact, it was more than wishful thinking; it was delusional.
Who could have guessed that Joe Biden’s plan to cut Russia and Putin down a notch or two by enticing him to invade Ukraine would finally push NATO over the cliff?
It was going to happen anyway. Apparently, the time has come.
It emphatically wasn't going to happen anyway. This is happening because of Trump, and only because of Trump.
The US isn't running large fiscal deficits because of its military. It's running these deficits because of tax cuts, stimulus programs, increased government spending, and decreased tax revenue caused by widespread unemployment during the great recession and Covid. We also run a massive deficit because we can: Any other country that ran deficits like ours would quickly face what's called explosive debt--a vicious cycle of higher debt, interest rates and deficits. We've had low interest rates on our debts despite ever-growing deficits since Reagan. It's because the dollar is the world reserve currency and the US has been seen as the most stable place in the world to put money. (This is going to change rapidly now.)
We actually spend far more on social programs than Europe; we just manage them so irrationally that we get less bang for the buck. The notion that Europe has better healthcare because it doesn't pay for its defense is just wrong: we pay more for healthcare than Europe because our healthcare system is insane.
Claire, I agree with almost everything that you’ve said here, but I do think that the reason the United States runs massive fiscal deficits is because of all of the reasons you mentioned including a huge defense budget not excluding the reality of huge defense expenditures as you’ve suggested.
I think you’re also correct when you say that the American health care system is dysfunctional and wildly too expensive. In fact, this fact alone accounts for much of America’s fiscal problems. On the other hand, at least when it comes to the cost of pharmaceuticals, the United States provides an enormous subsidy to Europe.
It’s true, owning the world’s reserve currency makes financing deficits far more practical. I wonder how you think that nations that use the Euro are going to be able to finance the large deficits that will be required to improve European security. As you know, the state of the European defense industry is a mess. If Europe is serious about building up its defenses, the only sources for most of the weapons it needs will be American, Israeli and to a lesser extent Indian defense companies. That is unless Europe decides to buy from China.
I’m not sure what you think the most likely prospect for a new world reserve currency might be. It surely won’t be the Euro or the Yuan. The most likely alternatives are Bitcoin (and other crypto currencies) and gold. Trump is wisely planning to build a crypto reserve. Musk is planning to audit Fort Knox to make sure there’s as much gold there as the government says there is.
I’m not sure that the European social safety net is quite as efficient as you suggest. The real kicker for Europe that isn’t talked about much is the profoundly anemic state of European economic growth. It wasn’t that long ago that the GDP of the EU and the USA were almost equal. Now the the GDP of the USA outpaces that of the EU by a country mile.
If the European nations really plan to spend a lot more on defense, the first thing they need to do is fix their ailing economies. To do that, they need to emulate in a modestly more gentle fashion what Elon Musk is doing in the United States. European governments and European companies need to be far less regulated and more efficient. Europe’s addiction to social democracy isn’t conducive to economic growth.
Until that problem is solved, Europe will never have enough money to ramp up its defense capabilities.
Europe will ramp up its defense spending just fine. European defense contractor stocks are soaring. Ours, meanwhile, are collapsing, because the entire world is looking at us with horror and realizing it's suicidal to be dependent on us in any way. We will no longer be able to finance our own military spending with foreign sales, as we've done for the past century, which will be a severe financial burden for us.
But Europe is about to get a big Keynesian-multiplier boost from all of its new defense spending. In the long term, it will not be good for Europe to undertake so much debt. But Keynes was right: In the long run, we're all dead. We're about to see a lot of growth in European economies, and this is a good thing. Europe's rigid fiscal discipline, I now think, has been a mistake. I was very wrong to defend it, and so was every deficit hawk. Keynes had a wisdom that I lacked, and I never appreciated the profundity of that comment the way I do now.
So in some ways, this will be a blessing for Europe. Europe does not have "an addiction to social democracy," whatever that might mean. Like the US, Europe has social welfare programs. European countries on average don't spend more on social welfare, as a proportion of GDP, than the United States.
Trump's crypto scheme is not "wise." I cannot think, in fact, of an example of political corruption more brazen. It's pure self-dealing for Trump, his sons, and Trump’s crypto donors--funded by *our* taxpayer dollars.
The truth is: Trump is ripping you off. You have been conned.
Let me ask you: What would have to happen--to the economy, to Americans, to you--for you to say, "I have been conned?"
I I ask because I strongly suspect that deep down, you must know everything you're saying here is absolute horseshit. But I think it's impossible for you to admit this to yourself. This does not make you unusual. Notoriously, it is *incredibly* difficult for people to accept they've been conned. We know that when a con man steals half of someone's retirement account, many would rather give him the other half than accept that he's made off with their money and is never giving it back.
The reason people tie themselves into pretzels in their efforts to believe the best of someone who has (obviously, to everyone else) scammed them is that it's *immensely* painful to realize that you've been conned. It is traumatic. For many, It's life-shattering.
But if we're to get through this without a civil war--one that will leave what's now left of our country a smoldering ruin--we need to find a way to persuade people like you that no, it wouldn't be a good idea to give Trump the rest of our savings. And this means getting through these massive ego defenses. So I want to figure out how to do this.
It's plain as day that Trump's second term has been an absolute catastrophe for the United States and for the world. You're too intelligent not to see this. What's preventing you from acknowledging it an entirely, tragically, human unwillingness to accept that you've been scammed.
This is a subject that's been studied extensively by scam researchers, and the overwhelming consensus is that I should offer you my unjudgmental emotional support--and certainly not react to your beliefs with rage and mockery. But I'm not going to patronize you with my unjudgmental emotional support. I don't even know your real name.
I'm simply going to ask: What empirical indicator would cause you to say, "I've been scammed?" Can you list ten of them? Write them down, right now, right here.
If your reaction is, "Nothing would cause me to believe this," I think you can draw your own conclusions.
I get it, Claire. You think Trump’s a mountebank. You think that like Thomas Mann’s Felix Krull he’s a flimflam man. Like “Professor” Harold Hill in “The Music Man” you think Trump’s a spellbinding cymbal salesman. You’re entitled to your opinion. You might even be right. I don’t care and I’ll tell you why.
I think globalism is a pernicious disease that’s ruined the prospects of tens of millions of Americans. The labor arbitrage globalism facilitated has laid waste to vast tracts of the American Midwest. Whether it’s uncontrolled immigration of the unskilled that’s driven down the wages of working people or the penchant of American manufacturers to send American jobs abroad, the end result has been the near destruction of the American working class.
Bernie Sanders gets it wrong. It’s not the millionaires and the billionaires who have ruined the prospects of so many Americans. He’s also wrong to suggest that making America’s social welfare programs more generous or implementing new ones is the answer.
The real villain is the educated class, a class of so-called experts like doctors, lawyers, university faculty, journalists, pundits, scientists and other professionals who have set up an economy that works for them but fails everyone else. Another villain in the American failure that has decimated so many American lives is the legions of unproductive and unnecessary government workers. These workers, mostly Democrats, are finally experiencing the lay offs and financial distress that they’ve heaped on their less educated working class brethren. It’s hard to have any more sympathy for them than they had for the millions of less educated workers who experienced years ago what they are experiencing now.
Then there’s the trillions wasted on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that America lost and the billions wasted on the war in Ukraine instigated by Biden that Ukraine is destined to lose. Some of us know personally Americans who came home from our recent wars sans arms or legs (or both). All for what?
The Europeans were warned for decades by Republican and Democratic administrations that Americans would eventually tire of the massive military subsidies the United States was providing and that they needed to do more. They ignored that call; some European nations still refuse to step up to the plate.
The system can’t be reformed; it needs to be ripped up root and branch. That’s what Trump is doing with the assistance of Elon Musk. The destruction of the Administrative State, AKA the deep state is an absolute requirement to restore the system established by our founders.
If it takes a film flam man to bring the deep state to heel, so be it.
But back to my question. What empirical, observable developments would cause you to say, "I was wrong to believe that Trump would rectify these problems?"
1) I would be very disappointed in Trump if he didn’t dramatically reduce illegal immigration that is giving the quest of legitimate asylum seekers a bad name.
2) I would be unhappy if the number of illegal immigrants that the Trump Administration deported wasn’t significantly higher than the number deported by the Biden Administration.
3) I would be concerned if the total number of federal workers wasn’t at least a third less than when Trump took office.
4) If NATO still exists at the end of a Trump Administration I would be unhappy if the Alliance wasn’t led by a European General instead of an American General.
5) If NATO is still operative by the time Trump leaves office, I would call it a failure if the financial and manpower burden of sustaining the Alliance didn’t seriously shift in the direction of Europe.
6) A detente with Russia being clearly in the interests of the United States, I think it would be bad if American/Russian relations were to be as bad as they were under Biden. It’s time to put an end to Cold War II.
7) Even as the United States turns its attention to Asia, I would regret it if the manpower costs and financial costs of the Asia pivot didn’t shift decisively in the direction of our Asian allies.
8) I would consider it to be a major failure if Iran attained nuclear weapons on Trump’s watch.
9) I would consider it to be a major failure if Hamas and Hezbollah rearmed and regained even a fraction of their previous capabilities on Trump’s watch.
10) Getting back to domestic policy, I would consider it to be a Trump failure if his tariff policy didn’t result in at least an increase in net manufacturing jobs by the time he leaves office.
11) Given the gross inefficiency that pervades higher education policy in the United States, I would chalk it up as a own-goal if Trump didn’t succeed in reducing indirect costs on NIH and NSF grants by a dramatic amount even if it turned out to be a bit more than the 15 percent currently on offer.
12) As all objective people know, American universities are a hot bed of antisemitism. It would be a failure by the Trump Administration if the Jew-hatred on college campuses hadn’t significantly abated by the time he retires to Palm Beach permanently.
13) Even if the Department of Education and the Agency for International Development still exist by the time Trump leaves office, he would have failed if the tendency of those agencies to champion progressive causes didn’t end up being neutered.
14) A dramatic increase in the number of American charter schools and a reinvigorated school choice movement would be a Trump win while a modest increase would be a Trump failure.
15) The best thing Trump could do would be to insure that the United States isn’t involved in new wars (proxy or otherwise) that our country ends up losing.
I could go on and on, Claire, but it’s your turn now to tell us what it would take for you to believe that Trump was right and you were wrong.
And by the way, the idea that Biden instigated this war is absolutely insane. I've made this case before, but I feel a responsibility to say it again, just in case some impressionable kid is reading this and wondering if that could be correct. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest that this is true.
All the best equipment in the world is useless without people to operate it. The estimates I’ve seen suggest that to mount a credible defense, Europe needs an extra 300,000-500,000 additional troops. Where are those supposed to come from? Already a significant minority of Europeans don’t support their leaders passion for protecting Ukraine. What will happen if Europe imposes a draft to acquire the troops it needs?
It’s true that European defense stocks have surged in value but its defense industries are not particularly competitive. Germany’s Leopard tanks were hardly the game changer they were cracked up to be for Ukraine. They turned out to be a big flop.
In terms of missile defense the European defense industry is grossly deficient. Before Russian intermediate range missiles begin flying, Europe better have purchased the Aegis system from the United States or the Arrow 2 from Israel, otherwise they will be naked.
Europe is also way behind in AI and satellite reconnaissance technology. It will take more than money to fix all of this, it will take a lot of time.
Trump has done Europe a huge favor by providing an incentive for Europeans to get their act together.
Trump is threatening Canada. Which he didn’t campaign on, of course. It is a huge shock. My mother is Canadian, though she is now a US citizen. So this feels a bit personal. Trump is threatening to take Canada out of NORAD protection and wants to dispute a border treaty. The tariffs are really attempts to weaken Canada’s economy in preparation for annexation. This insane betrayal of our best friend on our border, is not being put front and center by the press either. He’s off his rocker, but maybe not… he’s cunning and he wants to emulate Putin and not deter him. People here are distracted by the takeover of the government by Musk and the cutting back of services — well, all of it. There’s so much. The Trump assault is a deluge. Your post spells out the threats to Europe well, which are threats to all of us. Trump will destroy this country if not put in check. I am hoping the courts will do that but— who knows. He’s got his MAGA thugs making threats to GOP congresspeople who give any hint of opposition and to judges as well. It is possible that the look that Amy Coney Barrett gave him after his long speech the other night was as much one of fear as loathing. She’s likely being threatened by the MAGA crazies.
I might be interested someday in one of your retreats! I’d be taking the Middle East course if I wasn’t such a night owl. I go to bed around 4 to 6 AM most nights so… but maybe in the near future I will take a class or even begin this one somehow. It looks amazing!
I have been naming what is happening treason for the past 45 days...it began with treason against the citizens of the U.S. by taking all power into the executive. Then allowing musk to crash all federal agencies and get into payment systems...a huge threat internally and externally. Then, the gop led congress rolling over, in effect giving him permission to take their constitutional prerogative, thereby becoming traitors to the constitution and their oath of office. Then the staged attack on President Zelenskyy, a smokescreen that every sane person could see through, to do putin's bidding. Of course it is treason. President Macron is correct. The sooner Europe realizes the next step is to use American arms etc to support putin, the sooner Europe will act to defeat trump and his pal putin. It is a nightmare scenario that could be the worst thing ever imagined.
There are worse things than treason. Your last point bears amplifying: Turmp could absolutely send a few American battalions to help Russia push the no-cards Ukrainian army out of Kursk. He's already sending their military money in the form of proposals to un-sanction. If asked to, he will demand that Ukraine start paying reparations to Putin right now for damaging his oil depots and destroying part of his armed forces. Moscovia has been calling for Zelensky to stand trial for genocide and more; Trupm will definitely endorse this should Putin make the request.
I strongly expect some or all the above to happen this year. And that will be pretty benign compared to what will immediately follow.
While I don't think Trump Will send a few American battalions to help Russia push Ukraine out of Kursk--cutting off all US intelligence will achieve that, sooner or later, especially with the economic lifeline he's determined to throw to Russia--I do think, fantastical and absurd as it sounds, that we have to take seriously the possibility that he will send troops into Canada, Greenland, and Panama.
The idea is so absolutely insane that everyone is dismissing what he's saying as the meaningless ravings of a madman or a bid to distract us. Perhaps. But he's saying it so often, and with such an insistence, that I don't rule out the idea that he's serious, and neither should Canada Greenland, or Panama. He's already declared economic war on Canada (and Europe). This was unthinkable only weeks ago.
The reasons to impeach Trump now fill volumes. If our government was functioning in any way as it was meant to do, Trump would have by now been not only impeached over and over, but imprisoned. We've untethered ourselves entirely from the Constitution and the Founders' intent.
You may be correct that there are worse things than treason. I guess I see deciding to betray your nation for your own benefit is where treason begins. The question George is this: How do We the People address the traitorous actions of an elected leader who, speaking for all the nation, does what a majority, at least according to polling, oppose what the elected leader is doing ostensibly in behalf of all the people. Who is the enemy, domestic and foreign? Europe has NOT been our enemy. Stalinist russia and now putinist russia has been identified as a foreign enemy for as long as I have been living on earth. It seems quite obvious that when an elected leader does what this regime is doing to our government internally and combines those actions by supporting russia and aligning with putin, then that defines treason. The worst is indeed yet to come, but the worst may be that the ongoing coup to overthrow democracy will continue to such a degree that we will find ourselves in much the same situation as russians have been for generations...just to use the word war to say what is happening in Ukraine results in years long prison sentences. Unless the gop grows spines and balls we are all endangered. They are endangered as well, but they do not realize it. Fighting the regime's treason does not make the fighters traitors, unless they lose the fight and do not get to write the accounts of what happened. Sorry, if I've misunderstood the point you were trying to make. It will either be Fascism or Democracy. That is what the fight is about now. Frankly, I am not interested in the U.S. becoming a subsidiary of putin and russia just so trump can get a hotel in moscow and his hands on "the pee tape".
Dante placed miscreants guilty of treason on the Ninth and lowest Circle of the Inferno. Of course, Trump doesn't worry about that now, but eventually, he may...
You have understood my point just fine. To answer your question: you address traitors by not electing -- or nominating -- them in the first place. There wasn't the least doubt about what this man was, yet he was permitted to ascend anyway. So that's on us.
Now we will address the problem by deciding how to proceed once Dona'ld Fredovich refuses to do his Executive job and enforce the Judicial rulings against him -- a situation neither seen nor envisioned by anyone in America's history so far. Is there even a mechanism to compel him to do his job? Probably not, so it will be necessary to create one and use it. But I don't see any will to do that. Tumpr will win.
Again, democracy and fascism are not the only options. For example, we might end up living under crypto-fascism while being forced to pay for putative democracy. Or we may become the largest Haiti on the planet. Outrageously impossible? So was America paying Putin to bomb Ukraine harder as retribution for not begging to let itself be raped. Now it's just policy.
George, I truly appreciate everything you have written. Yes. Voting for this guy, which I did not, is "on us". That he was not convicted in the second impeachment trial is also "on us" as represented by gop leadership/McConnell at the time. That he was not prosecuted fully and quickly, also "on us" trying to avoid looking "partisan" I guess, is "on us". The guy is a slippery SOB and no doubt he'll continue to be slippery until the people we've elected and expect to adhere morally and ethically to the Oath they swore and who are supposed to represent We the People decide to do just that.Speaking of morality and ethics, these too are "on us". In the meantime, we are all dealing with a waking nightmare. My hope continues to be that we all awaken from it and overcome the horror of this time. My concern is that the process of awakening will mean major outbreaks of violence by the government against the people, because this crowd will not go quietly via electoral defeat. ( a very worst case scenario).
The Republican avoidance of town halls has mostly to do with cuts to benefits their own constituents receive. A little bit has to do with job losses from tariffs. Europe isn’t on anyone’s mind who isn’t involved with it.
Not exactly. Double check the timing on this, but I'm pretty sure those town halls preceded Trump's mugging of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Since then, Republican leadership have told their members to simply stop holding town halls.
One place Republican voters could have had a chance to complain would be right wing media outlets but the hosts seem to have turned audiences against Zelenskyy calling him a dictator. The Tenet Media story has gone woefully underreported
I've had enough conversations with friends to tell you that we are absolutely disturbed by this. But also, there's *a lot* to be disturbed by right now. It's simply impossible to give every act of depravity the attention it deserves.
Not all acts of depravity are created equal, though. The past week will be remembered by historians for one thing above all: the United States abandoned its allies and the postwar world it built, and made common cause with Putin and his axis of evil. Compared to that, even the destruction of American democracy pales. (Although it's hardly unrelated.)
Yes - I truly believe that Aditya is right: Europe isn’t on anyone’s mind who isn’t involved with it. Shocking, but true - Europe is on a bucket list for travel, but otherwise... not on the radar screen much. Claire, your post has so much that should/could inspire action. Which needs to begin today. Recent polls (e.g. Quinnipiac) indicate that by far a large majority of Americans distrust Putin. Maybe we need to put Europe into people's minds by including it in polls? Now that most of Europe is quickly realizing that the US is no longer a friend, perhaps we should ask the American people what They think? Would they prefer that their President pivot to Putin rather than stay allied with Europe? And similar questions. Publish those poll numbers. Let that realization sink in. That our president is making a hugely consequential choice on behalf of the American population who most likely do not want that. I think if we have enough of these types of public opinion polls that reveal for the nation what most of them think(until the Administration finds a reason to ban them), that exercise in national awareness might serve to stir up more concerted pushback by the American people...
Lana, if what you and Aditya are saying is right, it's an astonishing indictment of the American media. You're in effect saying that Americans are unaware of the effect the Trump presidency is having on our power, our national security, and our future. That's astonishing. If Americans were to read a newspaper from any other country in the world, they'd quickly appreciate that something catastrophic has happened, and that life for Americans will never again be as easy as it was in the 20th century. From what you're saying, the only people who don't realize what's happening to America are Americans themselves.
I have a kind of intuition about why Zelensky and Ukraine are being defamed. One level is just that, if you're going to throw someone to the wolves, it's psychologically easier if you can somehow say it's their fault.
But a deeper reason might be seen if we imagine a world where Chomsky and Assange are in charge, rather than Trump and Musk. In that world, the main claim would be, it's our fault, we (the West, the American bloc) started it, we provoked Russia.
Now it's always possible that tomorrow this will become the official line for a while. Though obviously they'd say Biden, the Democrats, and the globalists started it. But I think the reason we don't hear this from the very highest levels, is that Trump and his people have no principled objection to the United States having and using any particular tools of power. They just think that supporting Ukraine was a terrible use of them.
If I ask myself who Trump's people would regard as enough of an ideological enemy to warrant the use of any and all means to bring them down, I see Communism and Islam. Post-communist Russia doesn't qualify.
I don't think they view communism *or* Islam that way. Trump will capitulate to China add to Iran exactly has he has everyone else.
Trump’s decision to halt arms deliveries and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine has left the country dangerously exposed. Without access to battlefield surveillance, missile tracking, or secure communications, Ukraine faces an immediate and severe disadvantage against Russia’s military machine. The consequences extend beyond Ukraine’s borders—Trump’s reversal has shaken European confidence in the United States, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to call for rapid rearmament and even hint at a nuclear security guarantee for the continent. European leaders now openly discuss a future in which the United States is no longer a reliable partner, marking a profound shift in the transatlantic alliance. Trump’s actions, intended as a transactional maneuver, may instead trigger a geopolitical realignment that weakens American influence for generations.
One could argue that Europe should have long anticipated this moment and built independent security capabilities instead of relying on Washington’s goodwill. Indeed, European nations have often deferred hard decisions on defense spending and strategic autonomy, making Trump’s move less a betrayal than a long-overdue reckoning. However, this ignores the reality that the current crisis is not a gradual shift but a sudden rupture, leaving allies scrambling in the face of an emboldened Russia. More critically, it underestimates the damage done to America’s own standing—abandoning Ukraine does not force Europe to step up so much as it forces them to look elsewhere. By prioritizing short-term leverage over long-term alliances, Trump has not made America stronger but has instead made it dispensable.
I agree. One consequence will be massive nuclear proliferation. Another will be the loss of our vast system of global alliances, and with it, the benefits that the accrue to a superpower. Trump has handed the world to China. Americans have never known a world in which we're not the top dog. So many of the things Americans take for granted devolve from it. I wonder when we'll realize what we've lost.
Those at the head of the U.S. government are the most cowardly, greedy, immoral people on the face of this earth. They are willing to betray anyone, to crush any value, spit on the graves of those who died defending freedom and democracy, turn their own nation over to a war criminal and become war criminals themselves, to get something: money, power, influence. Their behavior is despicable. They are traitors not just to our own nation but to all people brave enough to stand up and not submit to tyranny. No. The guy in the WH and his criminal gang of grifters, thieves, frauds, and liars are traitors without exception. But UKRAINIANS are the human beings standing up against tyranny. Standing up for their right to be FREE from putin and russia. This nation and their brave leadership are the leaders of the free world. They lift our hearts as they celebrate their poets, writers, artists, singers, composers; the power of their language and culture declares they will be free and remain free from the abomination that is the regime of trump and the gop, which has become the government of putin on the Potomac. Just read this article and understand the depths of depravity and injustice present in the WH, the executive branch, and the gop led congress. Such an abomination must not be allowed to remain. It must fall and fall hard and soon. Stand with Ukraine and do not submit to the tyranny of trump and putin. They will not and must never prevail.
https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/prezident-i-persha-ledi-vzyali-uchast-u-vruchenni-nacionalno-96533
Well, don't blame Friedrich Nietzsche... he warned us it would eventually come to this.
This piece from Timothy Garten Ash may be of interest.
https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/48567
I cross-posted it yesterday.
What an asinine fatalistic argument reverse engineered to make Trump’s madness sound sane. You might as well say “it was inevitable we were all going to perish in a nuclear Holocaust, so we might as well get it over with now.” Also doesn’t explain the absolutely psychopathic decision to abruptly cut off Intel access and deliberately get Ukrainian civilians killed. Or the endless favoritism shown to Putin to make the terms to end the war as favorable to him as possible. Trump is simply *choosing* to align the US with the mass murderer in the Kremlin over the free world.
Which article are you talking about? The one by
Timothy Garton Ash? It hardly seems reverse-engineered to make Trump sound sane.
Most of your readers may not know but you surely do, Claire, that Timothy Garton Ash is not trustworthy. He accused Ayaan Hirsi Ali of being an “enlightenment fundamentalist” for her audacity in bemoaning the assassination of her friend and colleague Theo Van Gogh at the hands of a radicalized Muslim immigrant to the Netherlands. To compound his offence, Garton Ash suggested that the only reason anyone took Hirsi-Ali seriously was because she was physically attractive. How would you feel if that accusation was lobbed your way? Anyone interested in learning more about the venality of Garton Ash (and his partner in crime, Ian Buruma), can read “The Flight of the Intellectuals: The Controversy Over Islamism and the Press” by Paul Berman. See,
https://www.amazon.com/Flight-Intellectuals-Controversy-Islamism-Press/dp/1935554441
I was responding to Wig Wag’s response. Not to those articles. I enjoyed your piece as usual.
A caveat. Europe operates under a mostly-common legal/economic framework. Otherwise it is a bunch of very separate countries/societies that happen to be located near one another. There is no "Europe" in the totalized sense that there is a Russia or a United States. The posited unity isn't really there and might be pretty hard to achieve/maintain, even though it would be really useful right now. A lot of talk, sure, but I don't see "Europe" as able to act in concert militarily or even politically -- and I don't mean Hungary-like behavior either.
Russia does fear even the possibility of a single European entity. A few weeks ago Solovyov was ranting about how much Russia loves Italians, Portuguese, French... "But Europeans? We hate them and will destroy them wherever they are!" So don't unite, y'all.
I don't think Vladimir Rudolfovich has anything to worry about. Unfortunately.
Yes, this is the single most important reason for pessimism. There are reasons for optimism, though. I'll cover some of those this week.
Claire, you mentioned in your re-stack of Nick Cohen's piece that you have written multiple essays and even whole books on European anti Americanism as a psychological disease.(I assume you are referring to Menace in Europe). Anyways I am curious what would be your response to those in the US who cite European Anti Americanism when citing a reason not to support Ukraine because a bit to my surprise I am seeing more than a few Americans make this argument.
Ukrainians loved us until we betrayed them, so obviously this argument is completely specious. If you're hearing people advance this as an argument for abandoning NATO, it might make more sense. And yes, I've heard that, too. It's idiotic. Historically, anti-Americanism in Europe has come from the far-right and the far-left. The Trump administration is obviously committed to bringing the most anti-American forces in Europe to power, thereby creating its own excuse for abandoning Europe.
Among Europe's normal political parties, anti-Americanism was not a strong force until Trump made it so through his hostility to Europe. If they mean casual snobbery or stereotyping by Europeans, I would say that Europe's snobbery toward America has always been matched by equal and opposite snobbery and stereotyping about Europe from Americans. It's an example of what Freud called "the narcissism of small differences," and it's as stupid a reason for abandoning an alliance that has brought unprecedented prosperity and peace to the world as I can imagine. It's like saying the United States should break up because Californians make fun of southerners and vice versa.
Along these lines this article below albeit more directed towards is example of what I was talking about.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5183938-canadas-absurd-parochial-panic-about-trumps-america/?tbref=hp
As an American with a brain I would never rely on The Hill for rational unbiased news. I do not mean to insult you or The Hill, but an unfortunate number of Americans have lost their ability to discriminate between truth and malicious falsehoods. Thus, we are doomed.
My God, where do they get these people. Could this Andrew Latham fellow actually believe what he's writing? Has he somehow managed to put what we're doing to Ukraine out of his head? Or is he totally cynical, and counting on a readership so uninformed that it doesn't know we've cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine? That Ukrainian civilians are right now dying in agony as a result?
I'm actually fascinated by the question. Does he believe this? Or is he a hired gun who knows full well that this is an argument only an idiot could find compelling?
Another writer I am curious as to Claire's thoughts about is Daniella Pletka on Substack.
https://whatthehellisgoingon.substack.com/p/wth-donald-trump-vs-the-blob
Me personally I have had some scrapes with Pletka in the past. I know she doesn't like Macron or the people around him like Attal and Borne and has implied the later two are traitors to Judiasism(both Attal and Borne are Jewish) for not supporting Israel more after October 7th.
Pletka's view on the current conflict seems to be along the lines that yes Trump is doing bad things but people like Macron and Starmer aren't really good people and Zelensky is increasingly bad as well. Pletka interestingly thinks Trump's policies towards Canada are quite bad but mostly because they are going to hurt the Canadian Conservative Party.
I think she's trying very very hard to ignore the evidence in front of her eyes.
The author doesn't have to be a hired gun (although he is hired by The Hill.) That a large population of Americans can't discriminate truth and falsehood coming from our media and the lies of the president is the problem. There is an all consuming program of propaganda here from the Republican party and its adherents. The gullibility is jaw-dropping; they even believed Trump's disavowal of Project 2025. Our "predicament" appears well-earned.
Irving Kristol is widely regarded as the father of neoconservatism. He was a genius and his wife, the scholar, Gertrude Himmelfarb, was even smarter than Irving. Gertrude wrote many books but two in particular were magisterial; “The Road to Modernity: The British, French and American Enligtenments” (2004) and “The Jewish Oddessy of George Eliot” (2009). How Irving and Gertrude managed to produce a son as blinkered as Bill Kristol is truly a mystery.
In any case, in 1983, Irving wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled “What’s Wrong with NATO.” It was remarkably prescient and foreshadowed precisely the collapse of NATO that we are currently witnessing. The piece is well worth the five minutes or so that it takes to peruse it. It can be found here (I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s paywalled).
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/25/magazine/what-s-wrong-with-nato.html
Irving wrote the article well before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It had two main themes; the first was that a military alliance where one party, the United States, did all the heavy lifting was not sustainable over the long run. He made the argument that the American leadership of NATO fostered an unhealthy European dependency on the United States that would eventually undermine the Alliance. The father of neoconservatism was spectacularly right about that. As we watch NATO bleeding out and as we behold the utter panic of the Europeans, from whatever perch in the afterlife that he now calls home, Irving must be saying to himself, “I told you so.”
The second theme of Irving’s 1983 op-ed concerned the American nuclear umbrella that Europe sheltered beneath. According to Kristol, the nuclear umbrella was remarkably leaky. Actually, he thought it was pure fiction. Irving suggested that no American President would ever launch nuclear weapons to prevent either a ground invasion or nuclear attack by the Soviet Union on Europe. The idea of risking the destruction of the United States (protected as Trump would later say by two big beautiful oceans) was something that, when push came to shove, no American leader would countenance. Here’s a bit of what he said in his own words,
“It strikes me as absurd to think that a President is going to risk the destruction of the United States by inaugurating a nuclear holocaust because Russian tanks have moved into West Germany and our conventional forces on the Continent have failed to stop them. Today the nuclear umbrella is 99 percent bluff. Mutual assured destruction, the threat upon which the umbrella over Europe relies, really no longer exists as a believable strategy.”
Irving suggested that the reason the Europeans were desperate for a large American troop presence in Europe was not so much to deter a Soviet ground invasion but to insure Americans had skin in the game. They hoped that if the Soviets invaded from the East and harmed American soldiers, the use of American nuclear weapons would become more palitable.
What Kristol said about the nuclear umbrella protecting Europe in 1983, is even more true about the American nuclear umbrella protecting our Asian allies from China and North Korea in 2025. It’s pure fiction and everyone, in their heart of hearts knows it. There is no way that Trump or any other American President of either political party would risk Chinese or North Korean nukes raining down on Americans to protect Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan or the Philippines.
That’s why NATO has reached the end of its useful life and why America’s European and Asian allies need to step up to the plate and do far more to protect themselves with far less American help. It’s a simple reality that the world is back to the situation that has prevailed for much of human history; international relations mediated through spheres of influence. If Europe truly wants to be consequential, it can no longer do it on the American dime. It will have to make the sacrifices that come with competing as a great power.
It’s comical listening to Europeans bemoan American diffidence when after decades of happily supping on the American teat they now have to face the realities that Americans have been facing for decades. Supposedly the Europeans are now willing to run large fiscal deficits to increase military spending. The United States have been doing precisely that for decades. The Europeans now face the prospect of watching their social safety nets fray so they can increase defense spending. Americans have sacrificed butter for guns since the end of World War II. Europeans now face the prospect of recruiting hundreds of thousands of soldiers and training them to be war-ready. The United States has faced that challenge year after year. Europe now needs to put large numbers of its soldiers in harms way. Good luck with that. If Putin allows the British and French (there won’t be many others) to enter Western Ukraine after a cease fire, they will likely stand alone. Does anyone believe that Trump will supply a backstop? My advice would be, don’t count on it.
The moment we face now was inevitable. The idea that the United States would single-handedly pay any price to protect the Western world while its allies luxuriated in their fantasy that the gravy train would go on forever was wishful thinking. In fact, it was more than wishful thinking; it was delusional.
Who could have guessed that Joe Biden’s plan to cut Russia and Putin down a notch or two by enticing him to invade Ukraine would finally push NATO over the cliff?
It was going to happen anyway. Apparently, the time has come.
It emphatically wasn't going to happen anyway. This is happening because of Trump, and only because of Trump.
The US isn't running large fiscal deficits because of its military. It's running these deficits because of tax cuts, stimulus programs, increased government spending, and decreased tax revenue caused by widespread unemployment during the great recession and Covid. We also run a massive deficit because we can: Any other country that ran deficits like ours would quickly face what's called explosive debt--a vicious cycle of higher debt, interest rates and deficits. We've had low interest rates on our debts despite ever-growing deficits since Reagan. It's because the dollar is the world reserve currency and the US has been seen as the most stable place in the world to put money. (This is going to change rapidly now.)
We actually spend far more on social programs than Europe; we just manage them so irrationally that we get less bang for the buck. The notion that Europe has better healthcare because it doesn't pay for its defense is just wrong: we pay more for healthcare than Europe because our healthcare system is insane.
Claire, I agree with almost everything that you’ve said here, but I do think that the reason the United States runs massive fiscal deficits is because of all of the reasons you mentioned including a huge defense budget not excluding the reality of huge defense expenditures as you’ve suggested.
I think you’re also correct when you say that the American health care system is dysfunctional and wildly too expensive. In fact, this fact alone accounts for much of America’s fiscal problems. On the other hand, at least when it comes to the cost of pharmaceuticals, the United States provides an enormous subsidy to Europe.
It’s true, owning the world’s reserve currency makes financing deficits far more practical. I wonder how you think that nations that use the Euro are going to be able to finance the large deficits that will be required to improve European security. As you know, the state of the European defense industry is a mess. If Europe is serious about building up its defenses, the only sources for most of the weapons it needs will be American, Israeli and to a lesser extent Indian defense companies. That is unless Europe decides to buy from China.
I’m not sure what you think the most likely prospect for a new world reserve currency might be. It surely won’t be the Euro or the Yuan. The most likely alternatives are Bitcoin (and other crypto currencies) and gold. Trump is wisely planning to build a crypto reserve. Musk is planning to audit Fort Knox to make sure there’s as much gold there as the government says there is.
I’m not sure that the European social safety net is quite as efficient as you suggest. The real kicker for Europe that isn’t talked about much is the profoundly anemic state of European economic growth. It wasn’t that long ago that the GDP of the EU and the USA were almost equal. Now the the GDP of the USA outpaces that of the EU by a country mile.
If the European nations really plan to spend a lot more on defense, the first thing they need to do is fix their ailing economies. To do that, they need to emulate in a modestly more gentle fashion what Elon Musk is doing in the United States. European governments and European companies need to be far less regulated and more efficient. Europe’s addiction to social democracy isn’t conducive to economic growth.
Until that problem is solved, Europe will never have enough money to ramp up its defense capabilities.
Europe will ramp up its defense spending just fine. European defense contractor stocks are soaring. Ours, meanwhile, are collapsing, because the entire world is looking at us with horror and realizing it's suicidal to be dependent on us in any way. We will no longer be able to finance our own military spending with foreign sales, as we've done for the past century, which will be a severe financial burden for us.
But Europe is about to get a big Keynesian-multiplier boost from all of its new defense spending. In the long term, it will not be good for Europe to undertake so much debt. But Keynes was right: In the long run, we're all dead. We're about to see a lot of growth in European economies, and this is a good thing. Europe's rigid fiscal discipline, I now think, has been a mistake. I was very wrong to defend it, and so was every deficit hawk. Keynes had a wisdom that I lacked, and I never appreciated the profundity of that comment the way I do now.
So in some ways, this will be a blessing for Europe. Europe does not have "an addiction to social democracy," whatever that might mean. Like the US, Europe has social welfare programs. European countries on average don't spend more on social welfare, as a proportion of GDP, than the United States.
Trump's crypto scheme is not "wise." I cannot think, in fact, of an example of political corruption more brazen. It's pure self-dealing for Trump, his sons, and Trump’s crypto donors--funded by *our* taxpayer dollars.
The truth is: Trump is ripping you off. You have been conned.
Let me ask you: What would have to happen--to the economy, to Americans, to you--for you to say, "I have been conned?"
I I ask because I strongly suspect that deep down, you must know everything you're saying here is absolute horseshit. But I think it's impossible for you to admit this to yourself. This does not make you unusual. Notoriously, it is *incredibly* difficult for people to accept they've been conned. We know that when a con man steals half of someone's retirement account, many would rather give him the other half than accept that he's made off with their money and is never giving it back.
The reason people tie themselves into pretzels in their efforts to believe the best of someone who has (obviously, to everyone else) scammed them is that it's *immensely* painful to realize that you've been conned. It is traumatic. For many, It's life-shattering.
But if we're to get through this without a civil war--one that will leave what's now left of our country a smoldering ruin--we need to find a way to persuade people like you that no, it wouldn't be a good idea to give Trump the rest of our savings. And this means getting through these massive ego defenses. So I want to figure out how to do this.
It's plain as day that Trump's second term has been an absolute catastrophe for the United States and for the world. You're too intelligent not to see this. What's preventing you from acknowledging it an entirely, tragically, human unwillingness to accept that you've been scammed.
This is a subject that's been studied extensively by scam researchers, and the overwhelming consensus is that I should offer you my unjudgmental emotional support--and certainly not react to your beliefs with rage and mockery. But I'm not going to patronize you with my unjudgmental emotional support. I don't even know your real name.
I'm simply going to ask: What empirical indicator would cause you to say, "I've been scammed?" Can you list ten of them? Write them down, right now, right here.
If your reaction is, "Nothing would cause me to believe this," I think you can draw your own conclusions.
I get it, Claire. You think Trump’s a mountebank. You think that like Thomas Mann’s Felix Krull he’s a flimflam man. Like “Professor” Harold Hill in “The Music Man” you think Trump’s a spellbinding cymbal salesman. You’re entitled to your opinion. You might even be right. I don’t care and I’ll tell you why.
I think globalism is a pernicious disease that’s ruined the prospects of tens of millions of Americans. The labor arbitrage globalism facilitated has laid waste to vast tracts of the American Midwest. Whether it’s uncontrolled immigration of the unskilled that’s driven down the wages of working people or the penchant of American manufacturers to send American jobs abroad, the end result has been the near destruction of the American working class.
Bernie Sanders gets it wrong. It’s not the millionaires and the billionaires who have ruined the prospects of so many Americans. He’s also wrong to suggest that making America’s social welfare programs more generous or implementing new ones is the answer.
The real villain is the educated class, a class of so-called experts like doctors, lawyers, university faculty, journalists, pundits, scientists and other professionals who have set up an economy that works for them but fails everyone else. Another villain in the American failure that has decimated so many American lives is the legions of unproductive and unnecessary government workers. These workers, mostly Democrats, are finally experiencing the lay offs and financial distress that they’ve heaped on their less educated working class brethren. It’s hard to have any more sympathy for them than they had for the millions of less educated workers who experienced years ago what they are experiencing now.
Then there’s the trillions wasted on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that America lost and the billions wasted on the war in Ukraine instigated by Biden that Ukraine is destined to lose. Some of us know personally Americans who came home from our recent wars sans arms or legs (or both). All for what?
The Europeans were warned for decades by Republican and Democratic administrations that Americans would eventually tire of the massive military subsidies the United States was providing and that they needed to do more. They ignored that call; some European nations still refuse to step up to the plate.
The system can’t be reformed; it needs to be ripped up root and branch. That’s what Trump is doing with the assistance of Elon Musk. The destruction of the Administrative State, AKA the deep state is an absolute requirement to restore the system established by our founders.
If it takes a film flam man to bring the deep state to heel, so be it.
But back to my question. What empirical, observable developments would cause you to say, "I was wrong to believe that Trump would rectify these problems?"
To answer your question:
1) I would be very disappointed in Trump if he didn’t dramatically reduce illegal immigration that is giving the quest of legitimate asylum seekers a bad name.
2) I would be unhappy if the number of illegal immigrants that the Trump Administration deported wasn’t significantly higher than the number deported by the Biden Administration.
3) I would be concerned if the total number of federal workers wasn’t at least a third less than when Trump took office.
4) If NATO still exists at the end of a Trump Administration I would be unhappy if the Alliance wasn’t led by a European General instead of an American General.
5) If NATO is still operative by the time Trump leaves office, I would call it a failure if the financial and manpower burden of sustaining the Alliance didn’t seriously shift in the direction of Europe.
6) A detente with Russia being clearly in the interests of the United States, I think it would be bad if American/Russian relations were to be as bad as they were under Biden. It’s time to put an end to Cold War II.
7) Even as the United States turns its attention to Asia, I would regret it if the manpower costs and financial costs of the Asia pivot didn’t shift decisively in the direction of our Asian allies.
8) I would consider it to be a major failure if Iran attained nuclear weapons on Trump’s watch.
9) I would consider it to be a major failure if Hamas and Hezbollah rearmed and regained even a fraction of their previous capabilities on Trump’s watch.
10) Getting back to domestic policy, I would consider it to be a Trump failure if his tariff policy didn’t result in at least an increase in net manufacturing jobs by the time he leaves office.
11) Given the gross inefficiency that pervades higher education policy in the United States, I would chalk it up as a own-goal if Trump didn’t succeed in reducing indirect costs on NIH and NSF grants by a dramatic amount even if it turned out to be a bit more than the 15 percent currently on offer.
12) As all objective people know, American universities are a hot bed of antisemitism. It would be a failure by the Trump Administration if the Jew-hatred on college campuses hadn’t significantly abated by the time he retires to Palm Beach permanently.
13) Even if the Department of Education and the Agency for International Development still exist by the time Trump leaves office, he would have failed if the tendency of those agencies to champion progressive causes didn’t end up being neutered.
14) A dramatic increase in the number of American charter schools and a reinvigorated school choice movement would be a Trump win while a modest increase would be a Trump failure.
15) The best thing Trump could do would be to insure that the United States isn’t involved in new wars (proxy or otherwise) that our country ends up losing.
I could go on and on, Claire, but it’s your turn now to tell us what it would take for you to believe that Trump was right and you were wrong.
And by the way, the idea that Biden instigated this war is absolutely insane. I've made this case before, but I feel a responsibility to say it again, just in case some impressionable kid is reading this and wondering if that could be correct. There is not one bit of evidence to suggest that this is true.
You are very wrong on the state of the European defense industry. If India's was so good why does India buy fighter jets from France?
All the best equipment in the world is useless without people to operate it. The estimates I’ve seen suggest that to mount a credible defense, Europe needs an extra 300,000-500,000 additional troops. Where are those supposed to come from? Already a significant minority of Europeans don’t support their leaders passion for protecting Ukraine. What will happen if Europe imposes a draft to acquire the troops it needs?
It’s true that European defense stocks have surged in value but its defense industries are not particularly competitive. Germany’s Leopard tanks were hardly the game changer they were cracked up to be for Ukraine. They turned out to be a big flop.
In terms of missile defense the European defense industry is grossly deficient. Before Russian intermediate range missiles begin flying, Europe better have purchased the Aegis system from the United States or the Arrow 2 from Israel, otherwise they will be naked.
Europe is also way behind in AI and satellite reconnaissance technology. It will take more than money to fix all of this, it will take a lot of time.
Trump has done Europe a huge favor by providing an incentive for Europeans to get their act together.
Pure speculation. This was not inevitable, now matter how comforting that may be to Trump's enablers.
Trump is threatening Canada. Which he didn’t campaign on, of course. It is a huge shock. My mother is Canadian, though she is now a US citizen. So this feels a bit personal. Trump is threatening to take Canada out of NORAD protection and wants to dispute a border treaty. The tariffs are really attempts to weaken Canada’s economy in preparation for annexation. This insane betrayal of our best friend on our border, is not being put front and center by the press either. He’s off his rocker, but maybe not… he’s cunning and he wants to emulate Putin and not deter him. People here are distracted by the takeover of the government by Musk and the cutting back of services — well, all of it. There’s so much. The Trump assault is a deluge. Your post spells out the threats to Europe well, which are threats to all of us. Trump will destroy this country if not put in check. I am hoping the courts will do that but— who knows. He’s got his MAGA thugs making threats to GOP congresspeople who give any hint of opposition and to judges as well. It is possible that the look that Amy Coney Barrett gave him after his long speech the other night was as much one of fear as loathing. She’s likely being threatened by the MAGA crazies.
I might be interested someday in one of your retreats! I’d be taking the Middle East course if I wasn’t such a night owl. I go to bed around 4 to 6 AM most nights so… but maybe in the near future I will take a class or even begin this one somehow. It looks amazing!
I have been naming what is happening treason for the past 45 days...it began with treason against the citizens of the U.S. by taking all power into the executive. Then allowing musk to crash all federal agencies and get into payment systems...a huge threat internally and externally. Then, the gop led congress rolling over, in effect giving him permission to take their constitutional prerogative, thereby becoming traitors to the constitution and their oath of office. Then the staged attack on President Zelenskyy, a smokescreen that every sane person could see through, to do putin's bidding. Of course it is treason. President Macron is correct. The sooner Europe realizes the next step is to use American arms etc to support putin, the sooner Europe will act to defeat trump and his pal putin. It is a nightmare scenario that could be the worst thing ever imagined.
There are worse things than treason. Your last point bears amplifying: Turmp could absolutely send a few American battalions to help Russia push the no-cards Ukrainian army out of Kursk. He's already sending their military money in the form of proposals to un-sanction. If asked to, he will demand that Ukraine start paying reparations to Putin right now for damaging his oil depots and destroying part of his armed forces. Moscovia has been calling for Zelensky to stand trial for genocide and more; Trupm will definitely endorse this should Putin make the request.
I strongly expect some or all the above to happen this year. And that will be pretty benign compared to what will immediately follow.
Also, treason.
While I don't think Trump Will send a few American battalions to help Russia push Ukraine out of Kursk--cutting off all US intelligence will achieve that, sooner or later, especially with the economic lifeline he's determined to throw to Russia--I do think, fantastical and absurd as it sounds, that we have to take seriously the possibility that he will send troops into Canada, Greenland, and Panama.
The idea is so absolutely insane that everyone is dismissing what he's saying as the meaningless ravings of a madman or a bid to distract us. Perhaps. But he's saying it so often, and with such an insistence, that I don't rule out the idea that he's serious, and neither should Canada Greenland, or Panama. He's already declared economic war on Canada (and Europe). This was unthinkable only weeks ago.
https://substack.com/@tristansnell/note/c-98551450?r=3ywxg
The reasons to impeach Trump now fill volumes. If our government was functioning in any way as it was meant to do, Trump would have by now been not only impeached over and over, but imprisoned. We've untethered ourselves entirely from the Constitution and the Founders' intent.
You may be correct that there are worse things than treason. I guess I see deciding to betray your nation for your own benefit is where treason begins. The question George is this: How do We the People address the traitorous actions of an elected leader who, speaking for all the nation, does what a majority, at least according to polling, oppose what the elected leader is doing ostensibly in behalf of all the people. Who is the enemy, domestic and foreign? Europe has NOT been our enemy. Stalinist russia and now putinist russia has been identified as a foreign enemy for as long as I have been living on earth. It seems quite obvious that when an elected leader does what this regime is doing to our government internally and combines those actions by supporting russia and aligning with putin, then that defines treason. The worst is indeed yet to come, but the worst may be that the ongoing coup to overthrow democracy will continue to such a degree that we will find ourselves in much the same situation as russians have been for generations...just to use the word war to say what is happening in Ukraine results in years long prison sentences. Unless the gop grows spines and balls we are all endangered. They are endangered as well, but they do not realize it. Fighting the regime's treason does not make the fighters traitors, unless they lose the fight and do not get to write the accounts of what happened. Sorry, if I've misunderstood the point you were trying to make. It will either be Fascism or Democracy. That is what the fight is about now. Frankly, I am not interested in the U.S. becoming a subsidiary of putin and russia just so trump can get a hotel in moscow and his hands on "the pee tape".
Dante placed miscreants guilty of treason on the Ninth and lowest Circle of the Inferno. Of course, Trump doesn't worry about that now, but eventually, he may...
You have understood my point just fine. To answer your question: you address traitors by not electing -- or nominating -- them in the first place. There wasn't the least doubt about what this man was, yet he was permitted to ascend anyway. So that's on us.
Now we will address the problem by deciding how to proceed once Dona'ld Fredovich refuses to do his Executive job and enforce the Judicial rulings against him -- a situation neither seen nor envisioned by anyone in America's history so far. Is there even a mechanism to compel him to do his job? Probably not, so it will be necessary to create one and use it. But I don't see any will to do that. Tumpr will win.
Again, democracy and fascism are not the only options. For example, we might end up living under crypto-fascism while being forced to pay for putative democracy. Or we may become the largest Haiti on the planet. Outrageously impossible? So was America paying Putin to bomb Ukraine harder as retribution for not begging to let itself be raped. Now it's just policy.
George, I truly appreciate everything you have written. Yes. Voting for this guy, which I did not, is "on us". That he was not convicted in the second impeachment trial is also "on us" as represented by gop leadership/McConnell at the time. That he was not prosecuted fully and quickly, also "on us" trying to avoid looking "partisan" I guess, is "on us". The guy is a slippery SOB and no doubt he'll continue to be slippery until the people we've elected and expect to adhere morally and ethically to the Oath they swore and who are supposed to represent We the People decide to do just that.Speaking of morality and ethics, these too are "on us". In the meantime, we are all dealing with a waking nightmare. My hope continues to be that we all awaken from it and overcome the horror of this time. My concern is that the process of awakening will mean major outbreaks of violence by the government against the people, because this crowd will not go quietly via electoral defeat. ( a very worst case scenario).
The Republican avoidance of town halls has mostly to do with cuts to benefits their own constituents receive. A little bit has to do with job losses from tariffs. Europe isn’t on anyone’s mind who isn’t involved with it.
Really?
Not exactly. Double check the timing on this, but I'm pretty sure those town halls preceded Trump's mugging of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Since then, Republican leadership have told their members to simply stop holding town halls.
One place Republican voters could have had a chance to complain would be right wing media outlets but the hosts seem to have turned audiences against Zelenskyy calling him a dictator. The Tenet Media story has gone woefully underreported
I'm glad to see this comment. The suggestion that Americans are not disturbed by this *at all* is just chilling. I hope you're right.
I've had enough conversations with friends to tell you that we are absolutely disturbed by this. But also, there's *a lot* to be disturbed by right now. It's simply impossible to give every act of depravity the attention it deserves.
Not all acts of depravity are created equal, though. The past week will be remembered by historians for one thing above all: the United States abandoned its allies and the postwar world it built, and made common cause with Putin and his axis of evil. Compared to that, even the destruction of American democracy pales. (Although it's hardly unrelated.)
Yes - I truly believe that Aditya is right: Europe isn’t on anyone’s mind who isn’t involved with it. Shocking, but true - Europe is on a bucket list for travel, but otherwise... not on the radar screen much. Claire, your post has so much that should/could inspire action. Which needs to begin today. Recent polls (e.g. Quinnipiac) indicate that by far a large majority of Americans distrust Putin. Maybe we need to put Europe into people's minds by including it in polls? Now that most of Europe is quickly realizing that the US is no longer a friend, perhaps we should ask the American people what They think? Would they prefer that their President pivot to Putin rather than stay allied with Europe? And similar questions. Publish those poll numbers. Let that realization sink in. That our president is making a hugely consequential choice on behalf of the American population who most likely do not want that. I think if we have enough of these types of public opinion polls that reveal for the nation what most of them think(until the Administration finds a reason to ban them), that exercise in national awareness might serve to stir up more concerted pushback by the American people...
Lana, if what you and Aditya are saying is right, it's an astonishing indictment of the American media. You're in effect saying that Americans are unaware of the effect the Trump presidency is having on our power, our national security, and our future. That's astonishing. If Americans were to read a newspaper from any other country in the world, they'd quickly appreciate that something catastrophic has happened, and that life for Americans will never again be as easy as it was in the 20th century. From what you're saying, the only people who don't realize what's happening to America are Americans themselves.
I’ve never seen anyone in media make a connection between how easy Americans have it and foreign policy of any kind.
For one thing Americans don’t want anyone telling them that they have had it easy.
Trump’s position on avoiding forever wars seems popular so extrication from Ukraine probably would be too. But that’s a far cry from embracing Putin.
The aid pause to get Macron, Merz and Starmer energized is one thing but not sharing intelligence is incredibly cruel and saves no money
Yes. Is it that hard to believe? A quick YouTube search would confirm it
See my response to Lana, above. Yes, it is that hard to believe. It's evidence of a complete breakdown in the way Americans understand the world.