25 July 2017

Vestigial Russophobia

The other day I read in the paper that the President was expected to sign legislation imposing new economic sanctions on Russia. In the same paper I read a Michael Gerson column accusing the President of "subservience to Russia" and a "policy of preemptive concession." For those arriving late, Gerson is no Democratic spoilsport but a Republican neocon and onetime advisor to George W. Bush. He accuses Donald Trump of abandoning the Republican party's "heroic foreign policy tradition"of resistance to Russian aggression, and taking Republicans with him. He laments the finding of a recent poll that 49% of Republicans think of Russia as a friend or ally of the United States. Those people are forgetting the legacy of Ronald Reagan, Gerson believes, but he seems to forget that Russia and the Soviet Union can be seen reasonably as two very different things, apparently convinced that there's not a kopeck's worth of difference between Soviet totalitarianism and Putin-style authoritarianism and national assertiveness. 

Gerson looks far into the past to equate Trump with Henry Wallace, the anti-Cold War Democrat who ran against Harry Truman as an independent presidential candidate in 1948. Back then, Wallace argued that Americans "have no more business in the political affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the political affairs of Latin America, Western Europe and the United States.” For Gerson, that quote exemplifies an unprincipled indifference to the terror of Stalinism that he hears echoed in Trump's presumed indifference to the burdens of subservience to Russia today. Now as then, aggression emanating from the Russian landmass presumably makes Eastern European politics our business. If anything, Gerson makes more of an effort to argue that it's our business now, because Russia "has made the political affairs of the United States very much its business." This analysis almost certainly puts the cart before the horse. If Russia has meddled in American politics, it's because Americans have stuck their noses where Russian leaders think we don't belong. As a neocon, however, Gerson believes we belong everywhere. Solidarity with liberal democrats wherever they exist is a moral if not existential imperative for him. While Trump most likely thinks of Russia simply as Russia, a nation that's going to pursue it's interests regardless of what we think of them, Gerson can't help seeing the Eurasian giant as the vanguard of an "anti-democratic" movement inherently antithetical to American interests. In his mind, Russia and the U.S. are engaged in a zero-sum contest for global influence. Russian success anywhere, but particularly in Syria, where self-interest in the form of a Mediterranean naval base combines with a realist focus on suppressing terrorism, is unacceptably harmful or simply shameful to the U.S.

It's telling, though, that Gerson seems at a loss to explain why Trump should so appease Russia ("Does it come from Trump’s bad case of authoritarianism envy? A fundamental sympathy with European right-wing, anti-democratic populism? An exposure to pressure from his checkered financial history?") when there probably isn't as much appeasement going on as he thinks. It should hardly count as appeasement to put a brake on the destabilization of Syria, for instance, when instability only fuels terrorism. Even in Eastern Europe, those who paid attention when Trump went there know to expect continued conflict with Russia so long as the President hopes to open the regional energy market to American providers. A conflict that doesn't rise to the level of a crusade might well be beneath Gerson's notice. It clearly infuriates him that Trump fails or refuses to see (or name) "evil" where Gerson himself sees it. But who's to say which man's perceptions more closely match reality? It probably would stink for someone of a critical and liberal mindset to live in Russia or under Russian hegemony today, but a lot about life stinks without being evil, and treating those things as evil may not be the best way to deal with them. Unfortunately, Americans seem increasingly to treat anything that inconveniences them, as individuals or as a nation, as an evil to be abolished rather than a reality to be dealt with differently. If Trump doesn't see U.S.-Russia relations as an eternal struggle of good against evil, that only proves him evil in many eyes. That attitude is all too typical of our time.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Gerson is no Democratic spoilsport but a Republican neocon and onetime advisor to George W. Bush."

That comes as no surprise. Many Dems, these days, have more in common with neo-cons (who are really simply a more authoritarian brand of classical liberalism) than with their truly progressive forebears. That is, if you don't take them at their word, but judge them by their actions and lifestyles. Their real problem with tRump, I'm guessing, is that he is literally a maverick, unlike like McCain & Palin, both of whom had established political careers before their run for the oval office failed magnificently. Even though he, like they, are driven primarily by greed and arrogance, he is not directly under their control. Neo-cons are dangerous because part of their core belief, according to Cheney, is that certain individuals are born to rule. This not only goes against democracy's ideals, but smacks of plutocracy.

Samuel Wilson said...

Yet they bristle when confronted by a true plutocrat in the form of Trump. And I don't know if Cheney himself counts as a neocon, though he definitely was revered by them. The essential thing for them is that the ruler must be ideologically sound, so the closest resemblance is to the Marxist-Leninists some of the early neocons used to be.

Anonymous said...

Cheney penned the "New American Century", which seems to be the bible of neo-cons. I don't see tRump as a plutocrat - one who feels only the wealthy are competent to rule, but he definitely has authoritarian leanings - as does anyone who has ever run a business, successfully or no. After all, when one owns the business, one's word is law. I think tRump is having a difficult time wrapping his head around the fact that the office of the President is NOT the same as a CEO's office. I still say he was a better choice than his opponent. At least he's open and honest about what he is.

Samuel Wilson said...

Hard to say about Trump. If he buys into the idea that the country should be run like a business, and therefore businessmen should run the country, that would be a form of plutocracy. I'd also guess that he'd prefer that "winners" ran the country, and however else he panders to parts of the working class, that preference probably shuts them out of power.

Anonymous said...

A lot of people on the right seem to think the government should be run like a business. They don't understand the primary mission of a business is to create profit where there is none. The primary mission of a government is to create and maintain order via law. Government does NOT exist to create profit, therefore, running government like a business is doomed to failure right from the start. Also, since businesses aren't run by parties, they'd have to eliminate the notion of political parties before they could even begin to attempt to run the government like a business, and let's face it, none of them are willing to quit their particular party.

Unfortunately, the left has a similar problem. They don't seem to really understand the notion of democracy. They want this country to pander to everyone, whether that person supports the ideals this country was founded on or not. They seem to have no notion, whatsoever, of nationalism and so should not be allowed a majority in the government of a NATION.

According to a news program I recently watched, immigrants tend to get more and better government-sponsored services than native-born Americans get. If true, that is shameful. We should add two qualifications to immigration: Ability to speak, read and write American English and a desire to assimilate and become an American. A jeans-wearing, TV-watching, movie-loving, Rock 'n Roll-listenin' American. Anyone whose first - or only - loyalty is to anything OTHER than the Constitution of the United States should be denied entry.

Samuel Wilson said...

The confusion over "government as a business" arises because a lot of people interpret that to mean "living within your means" balanced budgets, no deficits -- not so much "profit" in the acquisitive sense as "not operating at a loss." The only area where government can "create profit" (not counting the ways politicians enrich themselves) is to achieve a favorable trade balance. Presumably that's a big part of what Trump has in mind in running the country like a business, but that old-school mercantilist attitude ironically puts him at odds with a lot of free-traders in the party that traditionally favors the "run the government like a business" argument.

As for the left, that's what you get once hedonism and postmodernism weakened the 20th century commitment to creating the "new man" by overthrowing all traditional cultures. It might be time for a reappraisal of the "Popular Front" approach of the 1930s, when Marxists, seeing an opening during the Depression, underscored their commitment to American culture (without ignoring genuinely mistreated minorities) and could use slogans like "Communism is 20th Century Americanism." Even then, probably, you had avant-garde intellectuals griping about pandering to rednecks, the lowest common denominator, etc., but more pragmatic people might find something useful in that bit of the past.

Anonymous said...

What I'd like to see tRump do is to tell Europe either they ban islam and drive the scum out of the West, or we end NATO, pull all of our troops and missiles out and let Europe fall to Russia. I'd rather see Europe as a client state of Russia than part of an islamic caliphate.

Anonymous said...

Communism and socialism cannot work in a culture where the people are brought up to be selfish and individualistic. Capitalism can't work because it is motivated solely by greed, which is inimical to a healthy society. None of these socio/political/economic theories ever seem to take true human nature into account. If we are to continue, much longer, as a culture and as a species, we have to find a new way OR we must be willing to simply eliminate the selfish and greedy from our midst. Any other way will only continue the downward spiral we are in.

Samuel Wilson said...

9:15 a.m. - Western civilization is nothing if not individualistic, compared to the alternatives out there. For all your rhetoric of defending the west, your thinking sometimes seems almost "Asiatic" by usual western standards. Can you find within the western heritage some possibility of individualism without selfishness, or must the west revolutionize itself into something many westerners wouldn't recognize, or even like?

9:11 a.m. -- I think you might have to convince Russia to take Europe in that case, since I don't think dominating the entire continent is part of Putin's agenda.