Donald Trump has revealed his foreign policy team.
It isn’t your Bush dream team and we aren’t in the 1950s anymore. McCain, Romney, and anyone at National Review will hate it.
For those that understand the split between the neo and paleo conservatives in the 1950s and 1960s, Trump’s speech on foreign policy today will leave you both shocked and stunned. Stunned because no one except Ron Paul has had the fortitude to stand up and say the things Trump said today. No one, that is, since the paleos split with the William F. Buckleyites over how to best deal with Soviet communists. Buckley and National Review were fine with a foreign policy that was as unconstitutional as the progressive domestic policy pushed by Truman and the Democrats. They were willing to concede to big government as long as it was fighting pinkos at home and reds abroad.
There is just one problem with this policy today. Trump pointed it out. The United States is broke and can’t afford hundreds of military bases and a foreign policy that insists on boots on the ground throughout the globe.
He is right about Russia. It is not the big, bad bogeyman the neoconservatives insist it is. Russia has done more to preserve Western civilization and Christianity in the last several years than the United States government. That is a sad testament to how far American culture has fallen. In more ways than one, Russia has become, and should be, an ally in beating back the hounds of the progressive apocalypse. And Trump is right. N.A.T.O. just isn’t essential any longer. Before Woodrow Wilson submerged the United States in European affairs, it would never have been necessary. Let Europe police Europe.
Trump may not be perfect, but he has the gravitas enough to make a speech about interventionism and people outside of the libertarian movement will listen. Paul was booed off the stage. Trump will just mock you until you back down. This is why people like him. He fights back, brutally. Even Rush Limbaugh seemed to approve of Trump’s speech. That is “progress.”
One can quibble with why Trump believes the United States needs a retrenchment of the American empire–he said we need to build better bridges–but nevertheless, the tide has turned. The Wilsonian adventurism of the last several decades might finally come to a close under President Trump. We can only hope.
If not, we have a fine example of what will happen to the United States.
Rome.
That is not a story with a happy ending.
