On connaît Justin Raimondo. On peut \u00eatre en d\u00e9saccord sur certains de ses points de vue, notamment sur son engagement libertarien, ennemi sinon compl\u00e8tement \u00e9tranger \u00e0 la vertu r\u00e9galienne par son opposition au concept m\u00eame de gouvernement central. On ne peut par contre lui reprocher quelque inconsistance que ce soit par absence de principes dans son jugement, de cette sorte de mortelle faiblesse du caract\u00e8re qui est la marque de l'\u00a0\u00bbhomme-nouveau-postmoderne\u00a0\u00bb de la postmodernit\u00e9, illustr\u00e9 notamment par la classe des zombies-Syst\u00e8me plac\u00e9e \u00e0 la direction des affaires. Il y a donc de la constance dans sa posture intellectuelle, qui n’est pas la constance dans le jugement mais la constance des r\u00e9f\u00e9rences qui structurent ses jugements, et ces r\u00e9f\u00e9rences comme autant de principes caract\u00e9ris\u00e9s par la p\u00e9rennit\u00e9 qui devrait guider l’esprit en le structurant, au contraire des \u00ab\u00a0valeurs\u00a0\u00bb qu’affectionne la postmodernit\u00e9 et qui ont la volatilit\u00e9 des caprices d’un esprit d\u00e9structur\u00e9 par la soumission au Syst\u00e8me.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On connaît Justin Raimondo et l’on doit savoir par cons\u00e9quent que sa premi\u00e8re intervention concernant Donald Trump ne fut ni plus ni moins pour l’accuser d’\u00eatre un false flag<\/em> au profit de l’establishment <\/em>belliciste, rien de moins. Ensuite, il nuan\u00e7a son propos d’une mani\u00e8re assez remarquable, tout en conservant des r\u00e9serves vis-\u00e0-vis du personnage. Le 17 août 2015<\/a>, nous r\u00e9sumions rapidement cette \u00e9volution :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n « Le 12 juillet 2015<\/a>, Raimondo mettait en ligne un texte sans la moindre concession sur Trump, dont il faisait un candidat-bidon, sinon un candidat-faussaire, un candidat-trompeur, – non, mieux encore puisque tout le monde emploie l’expression, un candidat false flag destin\u00e9 (en divisant les r\u00e9publicains, voire en devenant un troisi\u00e8me candidat) \u00e0 faire gagner Hillary Clinton, la p\u00e9tulante neocon, le pire de tous les cauchemars qu’entretient Raimondo. Officiellement, c’est-\u00e0-dire d’une mani\u00e8re explicite et substantiv\u00e9e, il n’a pas chang\u00e9 d’avis ; n\u00e9anmoins il est bien r\u00e9v\u00e9lateur d’une \u00e9volution au moins souterraine (exactement un mois plus tard, le 12 août 2015<\/a>), le passage qu’il consacre \u00e0 Trump dans le compte-rendu qu’il fait du d\u00e9bat que Fox.News a organis\u00e9 avec les candidats majeurs du parti r\u00e9publicain, où l’on trouvait Trump malgr\u00e9 la haine f\u00e9roce et digne du \u00ab\u00a0d\u00e9chaînement de la Mati\u00e8re\u00a0\u00bb que lui voue la chaîne TV de Rupert Murdoch..<\/em>. »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Hier, dans un texte extr\u00eamement long et dense, Raimondo semble fixer d\u00e9finitivement son jugement sur Trump. L’int\u00e9r\u00eat de ce jugement est que Raimondo n’aime pas plus Trump qu’il ne l’aimait le 12 juillet 2015 lorsqu’il en faisait un false flag<\/em> ; qu’il a peu d’estime pour le personnage lui-m\u00eame, avec tout ce que l’on sait et voit de The Donald <\/em>; qu’il en a \u00e0 peine plus, ou peut-\u00eatre moins encore, pour la confusion et la profusion de ses divers projets, exotiques, provoquants, rigolards, etc. Mais le sujet qu’il aborde dans le texte que nous mettons en ligne ci-dessous n’est finalement pas The Donald<\/em> Trump mais bien, exactement comme le dit le titre (« Nationalism and Its Discontents: The Meaning of Trump<\/em> »), \u00ab\u00a0la signification de Trump\u00a0\u00bb<\/strong>, – et m\u00eame, comme on le lit dans l’avant-dernier paragraphe, \u00ab\u00a0la signification du Trumpisme\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Trump lui-m\u00eame, au travers de ses exc\u00e8s de langage nombreux et vari\u00e9s, et souvent calcul\u00e9s \u00e9videmment, donne parfois la clef du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne que constitue sa position dans l’\u00e9lection pr\u00e9sidentielle ; par exemple, lorsqu’il dit \u00ab\u00a0Je pourrais descendre quelqu’un dans la rue, je gagnerais encore quelques points dans les sondages\u00a0\u00bb. M\u00eame dans l’establishment<\/em> r\u00e9publicain, les vieux-de-la-vieille, coutur\u00e9s de corruption et prestement \u00ab\u00a0cam\u00e9l\u00e9onis\u00e9s\u00a0\u00bb en \u00ab\u00a0homme-nouveau-postmoderne\u00a0\u00bb preneurs de toutes les valeurs soci\u00e9tales en vogue, du f\u00e9minisme \u00e0 la glorification du nivellement par tous les moyens qui peuvent r\u00e9duire \u00e0 n\u00e9ant l ‘identit\u00e9, m\u00eame ceux-l\u00e0 envisagent d\u00e9sormais qu’on peut s'\u00a0\u00bbarranger\u00a0\u00bb avec un The Donald<\/em><\/strong>. (M\u00eame le New York Times<\/em><\/a> ne fait pas silence, – son arme principale contre tout ce qui n’est pas Syst\u00e8me, – sur le fait que l’establishment<\/em> commence \u00e0 dire que Trump est moins dangereux, donc qu’il devient \u00ab\u00a0acceptable\u00a0\u00bb, que le s\u00e9nateur Cruz, le second dans les sondages du parti r\u00e9publicain.) On dira aussit\u00f4t, comme l’on d\u00e9gaine son Colt : cela signifie que Trump est pr\u00eat d’\u00eatre r\u00e9cup\u00e9r\u00e9 par l’establishment<\/em> ; on r\u00e9torquera plus calmement, en se r\u00e9f\u00e9rant \u00e0 ces temps de d\u00e9sordre et de confusion et parce qu’il nous semble qu’il est pr\u00e9f\u00e9rable de faire simple quand tous les traquenards de la sp\u00e9culation gratuite vous invitent \u00e0 faire tellement trop-compliqu\u00e9 : l’establishment<\/em>, en r\u00e9gime de Panic Mode<\/a><\/em> et tout \u00e0 son impuissance autodestructrice qui le prive de sa capacit\u00e9 d’\u00e9liminer les opportuns hors-Syst\u00e8me, finit par admettre sans la moindre vergogne qu’il est pr\u00e9f\u00e9rable d'\u00a0\u00bbembrasser celui qu’on ne peut \u00e9touffer\u00a0\u00bb plut\u00f4t qu’engager un conflit où le parti r\u00e9publicain risque de se d\u00e9sint\u00e9grer au profit du candidat autoproclam\u00e9 Donald Trump. Pour Raimondo, dans tous les cas, cela ne fait aucun doute.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Ce qu’il voit, lui, Raimondo, c’est qu’une seule faction dans l’establishment <\/em>ne suit pas ce courant g\u00e9n\u00e9ral d’accommodement du The Donald<\/em> lanc\u00e9 par les corrompus sans vergogne ni dessein autre que leurs privil\u00e8ges : le War Party<\/em>, ou disons ce qui se pr\u00e9sente sous l’\u00e9tiquette neocon<\/em>. Au contraire, l’opposition de cette faction \u00e0 Trump est plus forte, plus haineuse, plus vocif\u00e9rant et hyst\u00e9rique que jamais ; on l’a vu avec le tr\u00e8s-r\u00e9cent num\u00e9ro sp\u00e9cial anti-Trump<\/a> de The National Review<\/em>, l’\u00e9tendard des pseudo-conservateurs interventionnistes et bellicistes, et l’organe frontiste de bonne r\u00e9putation du courant neocon<\/em>. Ajoutant cela \u00e0 certaines d\u00e9clarations de Trump et au sens g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de la politique de l’establishment<\/em> que Trump attaque frontalement, Raimondo en arrive \u00e0 se d\u00e9tacher de la personne de Trump, de sa personnalit\u00e9, pour voir dans ce candidat formidablement hurlant mais exceptionnellement improbable, et finalement ind\u00e9finissable sinon dans sa volont\u00e9 anti-establishment<\/em>, \u00e0 la fois le symbole et l’outil d\u00e9structurant d’un d\u00e9bat, sinon d’une tendance g\u00e9n\u00e9rale mettant en cause directement la politique-Syst\u00e8me<\/a><\/strong> qui caract\u00e9rise l’action des USA, ouvertement et d’une fa\u00e7on surpuissante depuis le 11 septembre 2016.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Pour Raimondo, il s’agit d’une r\u00e9surrection par un biais compl\u00e8tement inattendu du courant classique des États-Unis avant l’\u00e9volution \u00ab\u00a0imp\u00e9riale\u00a0\u00bb et expansionniste qui se manifesta vers la fin du XIX\u00e8me si\u00e8cle et s’imposa, notamment avec les pr\u00e9sidences Theodore Roosevelt et Woodrow Wilson (malgr\u00e9 l’interm\u00e8de isolationniste des ann\u00e9es 1920 et de la Grande D\u00e9pression). Il s’agit de la vision classique au XX\u00e8me si\u00e8cle de type n\u00e9o-isolationniste ou \u00ab\u00a0America First<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb (la tendance compte bien plus que les \u00e9tiquettes de circonstance) qui est pour lui la politique naturelle des USA. D’où ce paragraphe de conclusion où le \u00ab\u00a0Trumpisme\u00a0\u00bb ne repr\u00e9sente rien de moins, selon Raimondo, qu’une r\u00e9volte g\u00e9n\u00e9rale contre la politique-Syst\u00e8me qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 sa cible constante, \u00e0 lui Raimondo, depuis des d\u00e9cennies de son labeur de commentateur politique.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n « La signification du Trumpisme est que les Am\u00e9ricains veulent si lib\u00e9rer du fardeau de l’empire<\/em>… […] Le surgissement de Trump annonce un bouleversement sismique dans le d\u00e9bat sur la politique \u00e9trang\u00e8re dans ce pays, marquant la fin du consensus interventionniste qui a domin\u00e9 les deux partis. Cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement signifie sans aucun doute la d\u00e9faite finale et humiliante des n\u00e9o-conservateurs qui ne cessent de cracher leur venin sur Trump et ses supporteurs \u00ab\u00a0pl\u00e9b\u00e9iens\u00a0\u00bb. Cela vaut bien le prix et le risque que constitue le triomphe de Trump. Les neocons sont le cœur m\u00eame du Parti de la Guerre : leur d\u00e9faite comme force politique influente au cœur du parti r\u00e9publicain est un \u00e9v\u00e8nement que n’importe quelle personne favorable \u00e0 la paix dans le monde a attendu depuis longtemps et devrait c\u00e9l\u00e9brer sans r\u00e9serve<\/em>. »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Le texte de Raimondo, comme on le voit, est long et extr\u00eamement circonstanci\u00e9. Avant d’arriver \u00e0 cette conclusion qui lui fait \u00e9pouser sans r\u00e9serve et malgr\u00e9 tant de r\u00e9serves sur le personnage la cause de Donald Trump, il a longuement d\u00e9taill\u00e9 les traits et les interventions du candidat, sans jamais parvenir \u00e0 trancher d’une fa\u00e7on assur\u00e9e (comme il le faisait bien entendu et sans r\u00e9serve, il y a quelques ann\u00e9es, pour Ron Paul). Il en est donc finalement venu, pour justifier le sentiment g\u00e9n\u00e9ral qu’il ressent et qu’il exprime lui-m\u00eame, \u00e0 se reporter sur la description des r\u00e9actions du War Party <\/em>contre Donald Trump, se situant alors par logique indirecte : si la fureur, la rage et la haine sont aussi fortes de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9, c’est bien que les partisans de la politique-Syst\u00e8me se sentent menac\u00e9s jusqu’au cœur d’eux-m\u00eames par The Donald<\/em>, et c’est donc que The Donald<\/em> doit \u00eatre soutenu de toutes les forces possibles, quoi qu’on pense de lui, quoi qu’on puisse craindre de lui.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Le raisonnement peut \u00eatre jug\u00e9 risqu\u00e9 sauf si l’on se place du point de vue des dynamiques en marche dans cette \u00e9poque exceptionnelle, ce que fait indirectement Raimondo. (…Lorsqu’il \u00e9crit, — et il suffit de remplacer \u00ab\u00a0impulsion nationaliste<\/em>\u00a0\u00bb par notre \u00ab\u00a0dynamique en marche\u00a0\u00bb : « Pourtant l’impulsion nationaliste, <\/em>– qui est, en partie, une impulsion \u00ab\u00a0isolatuonniste\u00a0\u00bb, – est plus forte que jamais, juste en-dessous de la surface et de l’\u00e9cume du paysage politique am\u00e9ricain, attendant que quelqu’un se saisisse de l’\u00e9tendard. Il se trouve que ce quelqu’un s’est av\u00e9r\u00e9 \u00eatre Donald Trump.<\/em> ») C’est alors admettre que les \u00e9v\u00e8nements ont pris le pas sur les hommes, et qu’une r\u00e9action antiSyst\u00e8me est en cours aux USA, qui ne d\u00e9pend ni de l’organisation humaine, ni de l’analyse politique courante ; c’est alors admettre que quelque chose est \u00e0 l’œuvre, ce \u00ab\u00a0bouleversement sismique\u00a0\u00bb, qui emporte les structures de l’establishment<\/em>, avec leur appareil de communication, leur force d’influence, leur puissance financi\u00e8re ; c’est rejoindre effectivement notre sch\u00e9ma de la crise de l’effondrement du Syst\u00e8me, th\u00e9oris\u00e9e sous la forme du processus d'\u00a0\u00bbinversion paradoxale [et] vertueuse<\/a>\u00ab\u00a0, expliquant comment la puissance (la surpuissance) du Syst\u00e8me finit par se retourner contre le Syst\u00e8me lui-m\u00eame :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n « C’est alors qu’apparaît le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne essentiel de basculement, d’inversion paradoxale puisque inversion vertueuse, de \u00ab\u00a0surpuissance-autodestruction\u00a0\u00bb. La surpuissance du Syst\u00e8me impliquant in\u00e9luctablement et irr\u00e9vocablement la destruction de tout ce qui est organis\u00e9, structur\u00e9, selon le processus dd&e<\/em> [d\u00e9structuration-dissolution-entropisation\u00a0\u00bb], poursuit dans cette voie quand tout est effectivement devenu victime de dd&e. Or, le Syst\u00e8me, pour mener depuis deux si\u00e8cles son entreprise, a \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame de se structurer en \u00ab\u00a0machiner \u00e0 d\u00e9structurer\u00a0\u00bb ; en d’autres termes, il est devenu paradoxalement une entit\u00e9 structur\u00e9e. Son besoin, son dynamisme surpuissant exponentiel de d\u00e9structuration se poursuivant, le Syst\u00e8me qui ne rencontre plus rien \u00e0 d\u00e9structurer, finit alors par s’attaquer \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame puisqu’il reste la seule chose \u00e0 d\u00e9structurer. Il entre alors dans cette logique de basculement et d’inversion surpuissance-autodestruction puisque sa surpuissance s’emploie d\u00e9sormais \u00e0 se d\u00e9truire lui-m\u00eame<\/em>. »<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Comme on voit, on se trouve alors loin de Trump, ou plut\u00f4t le personnage de Trump s’inscrit d’une fa\u00e7on logique et effac\u00e9e (un paradoxe pour lui !) devant une \u00e9volution in\u00e9luctable. Dans ce cas, on adjoindra le cas de Bernie Sanders chez les d\u00e9mocrates \u00e0 celui de Donald Trump, dans le m\u00eame sens, et l\u00e0 aussi quel que soit le programme dudit Sanders, alors qu’il ne cesse de gagner du terrain sur Hillary et qu’Hillary sombre de plus en plus d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9ment dans sa cuirasse de corruption et se dissout dans son infection-Syst\u00e8me. Dans ce cas, on conclut alors que ce qui est en train de se passer aux USA, et d’une fa\u00e7on op\u00e9rationnelle \u00e0 partir du 1er<\/sup> f\u00e9vrier (d\u00e9but des primaires) si la tendance et la puissance du ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne se confirment, constitue un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne majeur que personne n’a vu venir, que personne n’avait pr\u00e9vu, que personne n’aurait m\u00eame pens\u00e9 concevoir, – et nous-m\u00eames, sans aucun doute, bien autant que quiconque, – et que personne, m\u00eame maintenant, n’ose mesurer \u00e0 sa juste valeur et \u00e0 sa formidable ampleur.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Si les choses se poursuivent dans le sens d\u00e9crit ici, se v\u00e9rifierait alors l’id\u00e9e selon laquelle l’effondrement du Syst\u00e8me est un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne subreptice pour nous, qui nous \u00e9chappe compl\u00e8tement, qui se produit sans que nous en ayons conscience et que nous ne r\u00e9alisons que lorsque les cons\u00e9quences s’imposent d’une fa\u00e7on voyante dans les processus politiques den cours. A ce point du raisonnement qui conclut l’analyse pour ce cas et pour ce moment, on comprend \u00e9videmment que la personnalit\u00e9s et les foucades d’un Trump, comme la discr\u00e9tion et les audaces mesur\u00e9es d’un Sanders, n’ont gu\u00e8re d’importance. Il reste que la campagne pr\u00e9sidentielle US s’ouvre sous des auspices absolument, compl\u00e8tement hors-Syst\u00e8me, c’est-\u00e0-dire selon une in\u00e9luctable logique antiSyst\u00e8me. La riposte antiSyst\u00e8me est en train de naître de la vertu de sa propre dynamique au cœur m\u00eame du Syst\u00e8me, au sein m\u00eame des m\u00e9canismes dont l’\u00e9tanch\u00e9it\u00e9 semblait en garantir absolument la p\u00e9rennit\u00e9. L’\u00e9v\u00e9nement est extraordinaire, surhumain, et nous avons bien du mal \u00e0 hausser le commentaire \u00e0 sa mesure.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Voici le texte de Justin Raimondo, « Nationalism and Its Discontents: The Meaning of Trump<\/em> », du 25 janvier 2016<\/a> sur Antiwar.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n At the end of the cold war, a cadre of neoconservative intellectuals surveyed the debris of the fallen Soviet colossus and boldly proclaimed \u00ab\u00a0the end of history<\/a>.\u00a0\u00bb The West, said Francis Fukuyama, writing in The National Interest<\/em>, had won not only the cold war but also the war of ideas – for all time. We were inevitably embarked on a pathway to a \u00ab\u00a0universal homogenous state,\u00a0\u00bb and although the pageant of History (always capitalized!) would continue to \u00ab\u00a0unfold\u00a0\u00bb along a rather bumpy road, in the end it would prove to be a highway to US hegemony over the entire earth. In a symposium commenting on Fukuyama’s thesis, the ever-practical Charles Krauthammer nevertheless insisted that it would be necessary for the United States to hurry History along by force of arms. In a subsequent polemic in Foreign Affairs<\/em>, he argued that we ought to take advantage of \u00ab\u00a0the unipolar moment<\/a>\u00a0\u00bb to \u00ab\u00a0integrate\u00a0\u00bb the US, Japan, and Europe into a \u00ab\u00a0super-sovereign\u00a0\u00bb global empire united by a \u00ab\u00a0new universalism\u00a0\u00bb – which, he averred, \u00ab\u00a0is not as outrageous as it sounds.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Blinded by hubris, enthralled by the possibilities of unlimited power, the neocons – and their liberal internationalist doppelgangers on the other side of the political spectrum – didn’t see the nationalist backlash coming.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That rebuke was prefigured by a stinging rebuttal from the pen of Patrick J. Buchanan in the pages of The National Interest<\/em>, who wrote that Krauthammer’s vision was \u00ab\u00a0un-American,\u00a0\u00bb pure and simple. In Buchanan’s view, this militarized universalism was nothing less than treason. Invoking the Founders, he wrote that this globalist fantasy failed \u00ab\u00a0the fundamental test of any foreign policy: Americans will not die for it.\u00a0\u00bb A nation’s purpose, he added, cannot be ascertained \u00ab\u00a0by consulting ideologies, but by reviewing its history, by searching the hearts of its people.\u00a0\u00bb So what, if not the \u00ab\u00a0benevolent global hegemony<\/a>\u00a0\u00bb dreamt of by the neocons, would and should Americans fight for? Buchanan’s answer was to quote these stanzas from Lord Macaulay<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0And how can man die better<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Than facing fearful odds,<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n For the ashes of his fathers,<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n And the temples of his gods?\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Buchanan’s answer to Krauthammer’s globalism was a foreign policy of \u00ab\u00a0enlightened nationalism\u00a0\u00bb: \u00ab\u00a0total withdrawal of US troops from Europe,\u00a0\u00bb and a rejection of the idea – nowhere authorized in the Constitution – that the President and\/or Congress has the power to sacrifice its sons on the altar of some crazed crusade for \u00ab\u00a0global democracy.\u00a0\u00bb Prophesizing the declaration of President George W. Bush some fifteen years later<\/a> that we would seek to \u00ab\u00a0end evil\u00a0\u00bb in the world, Buchanan raised the banner of non-interventionism in the pre-9\/11 world: that is, in a country that was primed to hear his message.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n He took that message to the Republican party, and the country, in three campaigns for the White House, all the while warning that the \u00ab\u00a0unipolar world\u00a0\u00bb dreamed of by Krauthammer and his fellow neocons was a dangerous fantasy, and that the rising tide<\/a> of nationalism, from Beijing to Biloxi, would make short work of it. A multi-polar world was on the horizon, and the best we could hope for was to adapt to the new reality by tending to our own garden, which had – after a long global struggle with the (alleged) Soviet threat – by this time become choked with weeds and in need of emergency care.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The same nationalist tides that were sweeping the post-cold war world in Europe and Asia were roiling the waters in America, but they took on a different shape and coloration in the wake of the 9\/11 attacks. Whereas Buchananism was inward-looking, anti-interventionist, and anti-globalist, the ultra-nationalism<\/a> utilized by the neocons to mobilize the American people behind a crusade to transform the Middle East was and is aggressive, militaristic, and explicitly hegemonist – a bid to create the \u00ab\u00a0unipolar world\u00a0\u00bb of Krauthammer’s Napoleonic imagination.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n This interrupted and in effect reversed the natural tendency to return to normalcy after the decades-long cold war struggle, and at a huge price in blood and treasure. And yet eventually the pendulum swung back again, as exhaustion – both emotional and financial – set in. America elected a President who vowed to end the wars, and deal with our festering home front crisis: that promise, however was not kept, and Barack Obama will leave office with the US once again in the middle of at least three wars, and with a hand in several others on their periphery. Yet the nationalist impulse – which is, in part, an \u00ab\u00a0isolationist\u00a0\u00bb impulse – is stronger than ever, laying just beneath the surface of the American political landscape, waiting for someone to pick up its banner.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That someone turned out to be Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I have many disagreements with Trump, but unlike his many enemies on the left and especially on the right I understand that his nationalism contains elements that are useful, instructive, and even admirable. Unlike Buchanan, he is certainly no intellectual, but then again the last intellectual to inhabit the White House – Woodrow Wilson – was an unambiguous disaster for the cause of peace and liberty, and so I don’t hold that against The Donald. There is surely a demagogic element to his astonishing rise, which his opponents – particularly those on the right – make much of. The recent jeremiad<\/a> against him launched by the neocons over at National Review <\/em>was filled with comparisons to Mussolini, Juan Peron, Hitler (of course!), and even Andrew Dice Clay<\/a>, this latter barb a direct appeal to the smug snobbery that characterizes our urban elites. \u00ab\u00a0He’s \u00ab\u00a0vulgar,\u00a0\u00bb he’s \u00ab\u00a0rude,\u00a0\u00bb etc. etc., and those were some of the gentler ways they characterized him personally.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Yet demagoguery didn’t bother them when it was deployed by George W. Bush as he marched us off to a disastrous war – a war Trump opposed<\/a>, and continues to denounce today – and implied that his critics were in league with America’s enemies. \u00ab\u00a0You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists\u00a0\u00bb – remember that one<\/a>? Do you recall<\/a> how Bush’s partisans over at National Review<\/em> tried to tar conservative and libertarian opponents of the Iraq war – including this writer – as having \u00ab\u00a0turned their backs on their country\u00a0\u00bb? Demagoguery in the service of mass murder is fine with them: it’s only when their own methods are turned against them <\/a>that the War Party starts to get religion.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Yes, Trump rose to prominence initially on the strength of his anti-immigration and protectionist stance – views he holds in common with his predecessor, Buchanan – but this doesn’t account for the hysterical opposition to his candidacy coming from the neoconservatives. National Review<\/em> has been a veritable fount of anti-Muslim propaganda, with the writings of Andrew McCarthy<\/a>, Mark Steyn<\/a>, Kevin Williamson<\/a>, and a host of others all polemicizing against the idea that terrorism is primarily due to US actions abroad and holding that the roots of Bin Ladenism lie in the nature of Islam per se. Given the logic of their longstanding position, how can they object to Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration? Yet there they were, breaking Godwin’s Law<\/a> and claiming that we’d be facing an American Kristallnacht if Trump gets in the White House. What chutzpah!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n No, the real motive behind the neoconservative holy war against Trump is rooted in his foreign policy positions, which the neocons rightly view as a direct threat to their internationalist project. Chris Matthews is on to their game: please watch his confrontation<\/a> with a neocon journalist below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Discussing the special we-hate-Trump issue<\/a> of National Review<\/em>, Matthews cornered poor NR<\/em> writer Eliana Johnson, who was reduced to stuttering incoherence as he hammered her on what he rightly perceived as the overarching point of unity in \u00ab\u00a0that crowd\u00a0\u00bb on the Trump question: \u00ab\u00a0that’s why they don’t like Trump, because he’s the only guy on the right wing who said [the Iraq war was] a stupid war.\u00a0\u00bb When Johnson denied this, he demanded to know who among the long list of anti-Trump \u00ab\u00a0intellectuals\u00a0\u00bb wasn’t a war-hawk. \u00ab\u00a0Can you answer me?\u00a0\u00bb he persisted. \u00ab\u00a0Who is not a hawk in that group?\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n She couldn’t come up with one (although she might have stopped him by mentioning David Boaz, of the Cato Institute).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Boaz’s brief polemic, by the way, didn’t mention foreign policy: he confined his critique to references to Mussolini, George Wallace, and other comparisons seemingly ripped from the pages of Salon.com. Yet other contributors made no secret of the source of their animus. Neocon Mona Charen was appalled by Trump’s suggestion that \u00ab\u00a0we let Russia fight ISIS.\u00a0\u00bb Trump is \u00ab\u00a0oblivious\u00a0\u00bb to the \u00ab\u00a0global jihad,\u00a0\u00bb fumed Andrew McCarthy, angered by Trump’s vow to \u00ab\u00a0stay out of the [Syrian] fray (leaving it in Vladimir Putin’s nefarious hands).\u00a0\u00bb Bill Kristol was one of the signers, a man whose key role in ginning up the Iraq war is well-known to my readers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A recent piece<\/a> in Politico<\/em> was more explicit about the danger Trump poses to the internationalist-interventionist consensus that reigns supreme in the Washington Beltway:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0One of the most common misconceptions about Donald Trump is that he is opportunistic and makes up his views as he goes along. But a careful reading of some of Trump’s statements over three decades shows that he has a remarkably coherent and consistent worldview, one that is unlikely to change much if he’s elected president. It is also a worldview that makes a great leap backward in history, embracing antiquated notions of power that haven’t been prevalent since prior to World War II.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0It is easy to poke fun at many of Trump’s foreign-policy notions – the promises to \u00ab\u00a0take\u00a0\u00bb Iraq’s oil, to extract a kind of imperial ‘tribute’ from U.S. military allies like South Korea, his eagerness to emulate the Great Wall of China along the border with Mexico, and his embrace of old-style strongmen like Vladimir Putin. But many of these views would have found favor in pre-World War II – and even, in some cases, 19th century – America.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0In sum, Trump believes that America gets a raw deal from the liberal international order it helped to create and has led since World War II. He has three key arguments that he returns to time and again over the past 30 years. He is deeply unhappy with America’s military alliances and feels the United States is overcommitted around the world. He feels that America is disadvantaged by the global economy. And he is sympathetic to authoritarian strongmen. Trump seeks nothing less than ending the U.S.-led liberal order and freeing America from its international commitments.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n All this is heresy in the circles in which the author – Thomas Wright, director of the Project on International Order and Strategy at The Brookings Institution – travels. Brookings is in hock to the Gulf emirate of Qatar to the tune of $14.8 million<\/a>, according to the New York Times<\/em>. This accounts for Wright’s discomfort with The Donald’s view of America’s expensive and often tragic commitments to defending other nations \u00ab\u00a0that would be wiped off the face of the earth if not for us,\u00a0\u00bb as the former real estate mogul puts it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Wright’s characterization of Trump’s attitude toward Putin as an \u00ab\u00a0embrace\u00a0\u00bb is a typical ploy by the War Party, which always portrays a non-belligerent stance as a love affair: what Trump actually said, however, is that \u00ab\u00a0I could get along with Putin\u00a0\u00bb – a definite no-no in Washington, where the new cold war is raging on both sides of the aisle. Contrast this with the position taken by most of the other GOP candidates, such as Christie, Rubio, and Bush, who proudly proclaim they’d confront Russian planes in the skies over Syria, risking World War III.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Examining Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements over the years – the GOP frontrunner wonders why we are stationing 28,000 troops in South Korea, complains that we’re defending Japan while they slap tariffs on our products, and says we have no business stationing tens of thousands of soldiers in Europe, which can damn well take care of itself – Wright trots out the hate figures interventionists love to excoriate. Trump is like Robert A. Taft<\/a>, who didn’t want us to join NATO: he’s like Charles Lindbergh<\/a>, a leader of the anti-interventionist America First Committee<\/a>, a particular hate-figure of the interventionist-neocon foreign policy Establishment. And, of course, Trump is an \u00ab\u00a0isolationist,\u00a0\u00bb because he’s sick of coddling our shiftless \u00ab\u00a0allies\u00a0\u00bb while they rip us off and laugh at us behind our back, all the while huddling under the protective wingspan of the American eagle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n All of this is no doubt reassuring to Wright’s Qatari paymasters, who have a lot to lose if Trump should win the White House and present them with a bill for services rendered. But in reading Wright’s list of Trumpist foreign policy heresies, one can’t help but think that the average American would agree with each and every one of The Donald’s complaints about the profligate paternalism involved in maintaining this precious \u00ab\u00a0international order\u00a0\u00bb Wright would have us enforce for free. He maintains that \u00ab\u00a0those alliances also work to America’s benefit by providing it with prepositioned forces and regional stability. It would actually cost more to station troops in the United States and have to deploy them overseas in a crisis.\u00a0\u00bb But his rationale is a classic example of circular reasoning: he assumes it is our sacred duty to intervene everywhere. A \u00ab\u00a0crisis,\u00a0\u00bb for him, is the possibility that the Emir of Qatar will lose his throne, or that the Saudis will one day be confronted with the consequences of their inveterate barbarism. Ordinary Americans – i.e. Trump supporters – would consider that turn of events a comeuppance waiting to happen.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0Tax these wealthy nations,\u00a0\u00bb says Trump, \u00ab\u00a0not America\u00a0\u00bb – a prospect that no doubt horrifies Wright and his foreign sponsors, but delights Americans to no end. Which is precisely why Trumpian nationalism has such resonance this election season.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In Wright’s view, Trump is not only unduly rude to our alleged \u00ab\u00a0friends,\u00a0\u00bb he is far too friendly to our alleged enemies, i.e. Russia and China. Wright admits, parenthetically, that these two pose no threat to the American homeland, but rather to \u00ab\u00a0the US-led order,\u00a0\u00bb i.e. the albatross of our global empire, where – as the Old Right<\/a> writer Garet Garrett<\/a> put it – \u00ab\u00a0everything goes out and nothing comes in.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As is routine for our war propagandists, Wright accuses Trump of having a soft spot for authoritarian leaders. Since Trump doesn’t want to threaten Putin and the Chinese with regime-change, this must mean he admires – and even wants to emulate – their domestic policies. It’s an absurd position to take, and, not coincidentally, the very same illogic that led to the Iraq war. \u00ab\u00a0He’s killing his own people,\u00a0\u00bb went the refrain about Saddam Hussein – and if you didn’t favor regime-change in Iraq, that must mean you approved of Saddam’s dictatorship. We can see where that line of \u00ab\u00a0reasoning\u00a0\u00bb led, but Wright and his fellow policy wonks haven’t learned that lesson even if the American people have.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Wright gleefully cites Putin’s comments on Trump:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0He says he wants to move on to a new, more substantial relationship, a deeper relationship with Russia, how can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n This horrifies Wright, but what is wrong with getting along with the leader of the Russian state – a person who has at his command thousands of nuclear weapons and has often expressed wonderment at Washington’s rebuke of every attempt at rapprochement? With the threat of a new arms race looming large<\/a> and a new cold war on the horizon, the biggest danger to international peace is our deteriorating relations with Russia. Trump realizes this: Wright, not so much. And the American people are behind Trump in this: asked by pollsters if we should get involved in a dispute with Russia over Ukraine, the overwhelming answer was a resounding \u00ab\u00a0No!\u00a0\u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0It’s not hard to imagine these two men sitting down to cut a deal,\u00a0\u00bb says Wright, but surely cutting a deal to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both nations and resume cooperation in tracking down \u00ab\u00a0loose nukes\u00a0\u00bb floating around the former Soviet Union is a good thing. Except it isn’t a good thing as far as our new Cold Warriors are concerned. Wright derides Putin and Trump for holding an \u00ab\u00a0antiquated\u00a0\u00bb view of world politics, but what could be more antiquated than launching another cold war with Russia – a quarter century after the fall of the Soviet Union?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As for China, Wright is at his wit’s end because Trump seems unconcerned with \u00ab\u00a0its attempts to blunt US power projection capabilities or its repression at home.\u00a0\u00bb And yet \u00ab\u00a0power projection\u00a0\u00bb is just another word for military aggression, which is bound to provoke a response from the highly nationalistic Chinese. Are we supposed to go to war over the Spratly Islands and a collection of artificial atolls<\/a> in the South China Sea – thousands of miles away from American shores? Seriously? Wright pretends to be concerned about China’s repressive domestic policies, but threatening behavior on our part will only empower the sclerotic leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and strengthen their position domestically. Wright fails to understand the power of rising nationalism abroad, just as he disdains its manifestations here in America.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It’s almost funny how Wright portrays the threat to his treasured \u00ab\u00a0US-led order\u00a0\u00bb:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0There will be massive uncertainty around America’s commitments. Would Trump defend the Baltics? Would he defend the Senkaku Islands? Or Saudi Arabia? Some nations will give in to China, Russia and Iran. Others, like Japan, will push back, perhaps by acquiring nuclear weapons. Trump may well see such uncertainty as a positive. Putting everything in play would give him great leverage. But by undoing the work of Truman and his secretary of state, Dean Acheson, it would be the end of the American era.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The idea that Putin is raring to gobble up the Baltics is one of the cold warriors’ talking points, but it is absurd on its face: does he really think Putin is dumb enough to replicate the US invasion of Iraq in a European setting? Don’t make me laugh. Crimea wanted union with Russia<\/a>, and that’s what the Crimeans got: given the way Ukraine is being governed<\/a>, who can blame them? But it is sheer fiction to imagine that Putin wants to recreate the Warsaw Pact: he is playing defense to NATO’s game of offense<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As for the Senkaku Islands<\/a> – what in the name of all that’s holy is the US interest in defending these useless atolls? Are we supposed to go to war with China over these five uninhabited specks – which are also claimed by Taiwan<\/a>, our ally? Let’s take a national poll over that burning question: I can guarantee you the answer in advance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0To understand Trump, in the end, we have to go back to Taft and Lindbergh,\u00a0\u00bb avers Wright, and in this he is absolutely correct. It’s a pity some of my libertarian friends fail to see this, but they are blinded by cultural factors and held captive by political correctness: immigration matters more to them than foreign policy. What they don’t understand is that the question of war and peace is the central issue of modern times. They fail to appreciate the foreign policy paradigm shift represented by Trump’s political success. However, Wright does<\/em> understand it, along with his neoconservative comrades over at National Review<\/em> and the Weekly Standard<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For Wright, Trump is Taft and Lindbergh all rolled up into one:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0The difference is that, unlike Trump, Taft was not outside the mainstream of his time. Many people believed America was safe and that it did not matter who ran Europe. Also, unlike Trump, Taft was boring and struggled to break through the noise in several nomination battles. The more bombastic and controversial figure was Lindbergh, the man who became a household name as the first person to fly across the Atlantic. Lindbergh led a national movement that was divisive, xenophobic and sympathetic to Nazi Germany.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Of course, the America First antiwar movement, which opposed US entry into the European war, reflected the overwhelming majority sentiment of the American people, who opposed intervention before Pearl Harbor. So what Wright is saying is that most Americans in the year 1940 were \u00ab\u00a0sympathetic to Nazi Germany.\u00a0\u00bb This was the line of the Communist Party at the time, which – along with the Party’s liberal-left fellow-travelers – was eager to see us get into the war in order to save Stalin’s bacon. That this nonsense is now gospel among the foreign policy mavens who inhabit the corridors of power in Washington should tell us everything we need to know about what’s wrong in the Imperial City.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n What scares Wright – and the Establishment of both parties – is that Trump is changing what it means to be \u00ab\u00a0mainstream.\u00a0\u00bb When Lindsey Graham, who wants to invade Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Ukraine – for a start – gets less than 1 percent in the polls, and Trump gets 40 percent, the War Party panics. As well they should. I for one take enormous pleasure in imbibing the naked fear Wright and his fellow warmongering wonks exude as the triumph of Trump approaches. Here is Wright, shaking in his boots:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0The Republican primary of 2016 is shaping up to be the most important party primary since 1940. Lindbergh did not run, of course. But Taft was in with a strong chance. Only the fact that the field was badly divided created an unexpected opening for Wendell Willkie, an internationalist, to emerge as the nominee at the convention. Some of Roosevelt’s advisers were so relieved at Willkie’s nomination that they advised their boss he no longer had to run for an unprecedented – and controversial – third term.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Ah, but this time there will be no Wilkie – imposed by the Eastern Establishment<\/a> after Taft’s delegates were disqualified by party bosses – to save the internationalists from the fate they so richly deserve. And that’s what has Wright in a panic:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0The reason we must revisit 1940 is that Republicans have struggled to find a new north star after Iraq. Except for Rand Paul – whose own brand of libertarian isolationism, unlike Trump’s, didn’t sit well with voters – the establishment candidates were not sure whether they still supported Bush 43’s strategy or opposed it. Most tried to muddle through with a critique of President Barack Obama. Marco Rubio stuck to the ambitious Bush 43 approach but found a declining market. Some, like Ted Cruz, tried to deal with the shift in sentiment by cozying up to pro-American dictators and abandoning support for democracy promotion. Cruz even used the isolationist term America First to describe his foreign policy. But Cruz seems to have thought little and said even less about America’s global role outside the Middle East. Ironically for someone with the reputation of being exceptionally smart, he lacks Trump’s detail and substance.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Poor Wright! The combined poll numbers of the two top candidates for the GOP presidential nomination – one of whom is hated by the neocons, and the other who has openly attacked<\/a> the neocons – equal over half<\/em> of Republican primary voters. And the most consistently \u00ab\u00a0isolationist\u00a0\u00bb of the top two is the frontrunner, with his poll numbers rising with every effort to dislodge him. You’ll pardon me if I indulge the temptation to chortle in print: I haven’t had this much fun since Buchanan toppled King George off his pedestal<\/a> in New Hampshire and declared war on the \u00ab\u00a0New World Order.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0It is in this vacuum that the long-dormant Taftian foreign policy has made an unexpected comeback in the hands of Trump,\u00a0\u00bb says Wright, in despair. \u00ab\u00a0What happens next is anybody’s guess.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n What’s an internationalist to do when the rising tide of American nationalism washes over his foreign-subsidized sandcastle? Cry? Write long articles for Politico<\/em>? Perhaps both.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n I have to say, however, that Trump is hardly the consistent \u00ab\u00a0isolationist\u00a0\u00bb Wright portrays in his piece. He is flighty, and therefore unpredictable. Although his views on trade limn (somewhat) those of the late Chalmers Johnson<\/a>, who saw the American empire as a tradeoff between Washington and its overseas clients – we would lift trade barriers if they allowed us to station troops on their soil – Trump lacks Johnson’s intellectual solidity, to say the least. Slapping tariffs on Chinese goods would start a trade war that would be disastrous for us, and the world. In short, I don’t give one iota of political support to Trump because he is simply not to be trusted. If he overcomes the odds and does win the White House, \u00ab\u00a0what happens next is anybody’s guess,\u00a0\u00bb as Wright puts it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Yet Trump’s personal shortcomings are beside the point. The lesson to be taken from this episode is the centrality of foreign policy<\/em> in the political life of our country. The doggedness with which the internationalists are attacking Trump, the nature of their criticisms, and the viciousness of their tactics is an indication of how hard it will be to dislodge them – just as Trump’s popularity shows how eager Americans are to hear someone tell them that we don’t have to continue being the policeman of the world, and that we’re paying through the nose for something that doesn’t benefit us in the least (although it does benefit outfits like the Brookings Institution, which takes in millions from its foreign sponsors). No matter how inconsistent and even obnoxious Trump may be – and his crazy plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants is certainly a noxious fantasy that will never happen no matter who is elected – it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a random anomaly, or as a \u00ab\u00a0fascist\u00a0\u00bb demagogue as some of the more brainless<\/a> libertarians have done.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The meaning of Trumpism is that Americans want to rid themselves of the burden of empire: Wright is right about that. Trump’s rise augurs a seismic shift in the foreign policy debate in this country, marking the end of the interventionist consensus that dominates both parties. And it certainly means the final defeat and humiliation of the neoconservatives, who are busy spewing vitriol at him and his \u00ab\u00a0plebeian\u00a0\u00bb supporters. And that alone is worth whatever price we have to pay for the triumph of Trump. For the neocons are the very core of the War Party: their demise as a politically effective force inside the GOP is an event that every person who wants a more peaceful world has been longing for and should celebrate.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
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dedefensa.org<\/em><\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
Nationalism and Its Discontents: The Meaning of Trump<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n