America’s Reputation Is Shot.
17 March 2025
This post contains excerpts from a great article by David Brooks, a conservative columnist with the New York Times.
It’s very hard to do big things alone. So competent leaders and nations rely on relationships built on shared values, shared history and shared trust. They construct coalitions to take on the big challenges of the age, including the biggest: whether the 21st century is going to be a Chinese century or another American century.
. . .
President Trump does not seem to notice or care that if you betray people, or jerk them around, they will revile you. Over the last few weeks, the Europeans have gone from shock to bewilderment to revulsion. This period was for them what 9/11 was for us — the stripping away of illusions, the exposure of an existential threat. The Europeans have realized that America, the nation they thought was their friend, is actually a rogue superpower.
In Canada and Mexico you now win popularity by treating America as your foe. Over the next few years, I predict, Trump will cut a deal with China, doing to Taiwan some version of what he has already done to Ukraine — betray the little guy to suck up to the big guy. Nations across Asia will come to the same conclusion the Europeans have already reached: America is a Judas.
This is not just a Trump problem; America’s whole reputation is shot. I don’t care if Abraham Lincoln himself walked into the White House in 2029, no foreign leader can responsibly trust a nation that is perpetually four years away from electing another authoritarian nihilist.
. . .
Trumpian incompetence will provoke a counterreaction, which will prove to be an opportunity and rebirth. When that happens people will be ready to hear the truth that Trump will never understand — that when you turn America into a vast extortion machine, you will get some short-term wins as weaker powers bend to your gangsterism, but you will burn the relationships, at home and abroad, that are actually the source of America’s long-term might.
We have a lot of work to do. We have to rebuild our society based on:
More political activism. Every American should try to spend an hour a week working on some political or civic cause.
Reducing wealth inequality by supporting small businesses that are unlikely to abuse their power and wealth as big businesses have done. In addition, we must support policies favoring the middle and working classes, not the super wealthy, who put Trump and Musk in power.
Supporting truthful and courageous media. We should avoid Fox and other dishonest media and support blogs and other media that strives to be honest and make the world a better place, not just enrich themselves.
Creating a new conservative political party. It should be based on the rule of law, the Constitution and support of our traditional democratic allies and an explicit rejection of Trump and his supporters.
The index to my prior essays (mostly post 5 November 2024) is here.
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