[Peace-discuss] Bacevich on Trump

[David Green]

*- www.counterpunch.org <http://www.counterpunch.org>
- https://www.counterpunch.org <https://www.counterpunch.org> -*Trump in
the Rearview MirrorPosted By Andrew Bacevich On September 13, 2018 @ 1:53
am In articles 2015 | Comments Disabled
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Donald Trump’s tenure as the 45th U.S. president may last another few
weeks, another year, or another 16 months.  However unsettling the
prospect, the leaky vessel that is the S.S. Trump might even manage to stay
afloat for a second term.  Nonetheless, recent headline-making revelations
suggest that, like some derelict ship that’s gone aground, the Trump
presidency may already have effectively run its course. What, then, does
this bizarre episode in American history signify?

Let me state my own view bluntly: forget the atmospherics.  Despite the
lies, insults, name calling, and dog whistles, *almost nothing of substance
has changed. *Nor will it.

To a far greater extent than Trump’s perpetually hyperventilating critics
are willing to acknowledge, the United States remains on a trajectory that
does not differ appreciably from what it was prior to POTUS #45 taking
office. Post-Trump America, just now beginning to come into view, is
shaping up to look remarkably like pre-Trump America.

I understand that His Weirdness remains in the White House. Yet for all
practical purposes, Trump has ceased to govern. True, he continues to rant
and issue bizarre directives, which his subordinates implement, amend, or
simply disregard
<https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/bob-woodward-book-donald-trump-fear/index.html>
as
they see fit.

Except in a ceremonial sense, the office of the presidency presently lies
vacant. Call it an abdication-in-place. It’s as if British King Edward
VIII, having abandoned <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBn06A-sdok> his
throne for “the woman I love,” continued to hang around Buckingham Palace
fuming about the lack of respect given Wallis and releasing occasional
bulletins affirming his admiration
<https://nypost.com/2015/03/01/how-britian-covered-up-the-friendship-between-hitler-edward-viii/>
for
Adolf Hitler.

In Trump’s case, it’s unlikely he ever had a more serious interest in
governing than Edward had in performing duties more arduous than those he
was eventually assigned as Duke of Windsor. Nonetheless, the 60-plus
million Americans who voted for Trump did so with at least the expectation
that he was going to shake things up.

And bigly <https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37483869>. Remember, he was
going to “lock her up.”  He would “drain the swamp” and “build a wall” with
Mexico volunteering to foot the bill. Without further ado, he would end
“this American carnage.” Meanwhile, “America First” would form the basis
for U.S. foreign policy. Once Trump took charge, things were going to be
different, as he and he alone would “make America great again.”

Yet the cataclysm that Trump’s ascendency was said to signify has yet to
occur. Barring a nuclear war, it won’t.

If you spend your days watching CNN or MSNBC or reading columnists employed
by the *New York Times *and the *Washington Post*, you might conclude
otherwise. But those are among the institutions that, on November 8, 2016,
suffered a nervous breakdown from which they have yet to recover. Nor, it
now seems clear, do they wish to recover as long as Donald Trump remains
president. To live in a perpetual state of high dudgeon, denouncing his
latest inanity and predicting the onset of fascism, is to enjoy the
equivalent of a protracted psychic orgasm, one induced by mutual
masturbation.

Yet if you look beyond the present to the fairly recent past, it becomes
apparent that change on the scale that Trump was promising *had* actually
occurred, even if well before he himself showed up on the scene. The
consequences of that Big Change are going to persist long after he is gone.
It’s those consequences that now demand our attention, not the ongoing Gong
Show jointly orchestrated by the White House and journalists fancying
themselves valiant defenders of Truth.

Trump himself is no more than a pimple on the face of this nation’s
history. It’s time to step back from the mirror and examine the face in
full. Pretty it’s not.

*The Way We Were*

Compare the America that welcomed young Donald Trump into the world in 1946
with the country that, some 70 years later, elected him president. As the
post-World War II era was beginning, three large facts — so immense that
they were simply taken for granted — defined America.

First, the United States made everything and made more of it than anyone
else. In postwar America, wealth derived in large measure from the
manufacture of stuff: steel, automobiles, refrigerators, shoes, socks,
blouses, baseballs, you name it. “Made in the USA” was more than just a
slogan. With so much of the industrialized world in ruins, the American
economy dominated and defined everyday economic reality globally.

Second, back then while the mighty engine of industrial capitalism was
generating impressive riches, it was also distributing the benefits on
a relatively
equitable basis
<https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/introducing-this-blog/>.
Postwar America was the emblematic middle-class country, the closest
approximation to a genuinely classless and democratic society the world had
ever seen.

Third, having had their fill of fighting from 1941 to 1945, Americans had a
genuine aversion to war. They may not have been a peace-loving people, but
they knew enough about war to see it as a great evil. Avoiding its further
occurrence, if at all possible, was a priority, although one not fully
shared by the new national security establishment just then beginning to
flex its muscles in Washington.

Now, by twenty-first-century standards, many, perhaps nearly all, Americans
of that era were bigots of one sort or the other. Racism, sexism, and
homophobia flourished, lamented by some, promoted by others, tolerated by
the vast majority. An anti-communist political hysteria, abetted by cynical
politicians, also flourished. Americans worked themselves into a tizzy over
the putative threat posed by small numbers of homegrown subversives. And
they fouled the air, water, and soil with abandon. Add to this list
violence, crime, corruption, sexual angst, and various forms of self-abuse.
Taken as a whole, American society, as it existed when Trump was growing
up, was anything but perfect. Yet, for all that, postwar Americans were the
envy of the world. And they knew it.

By 2016, when Trump was elected president, America had become an altogether
different country. Without actually disappearing, racism, sexism, and
homophobia had — at least for the moment — gone underground. Attitudes
toward people of color, women, and gays that a half-century earlier had
been commonplace were now largely confined to a pathological fringe.
Hysteria about communists had essentially disappeared, only to be replaced
by hysteria over Islamic terrorists. Pollution, of course, persisted, as
did violence, crime, corruption, and sexual angst. New and more imaginative
forms of self-destructive behavior had made their appearance.

Yet little of that turned out to be central. What had truly changed in the
decades since Trump was a babe-in-arms were those three taken-for-granted
facts that had once distinguished the United States. New realities emerged
to invert them.

By 2016, the U.S. was no longer by any stretch of the imagination the place
that made everything, though it bought everything, often made elsewhere. It
had long since become the ultimate consumer society, with Americans
accustomed to acquiring and enjoying more than they produced or could
afford. Accounts no longer balanced. The government lived on credit,
assuming that the bills would never come due. So, too, did many citizens.

By 2016, the U.S. had long since become a deeply unequal
<https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/income-inequality-continues-to-grow-in-the-united-states.html>
society
of haves and have-nots. Finance capitalism, the successor to industrial
capitalism, was creating immense fortunes without even pretending
<https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/22/heres-how-much-ceo-pay-has-increased-compared-to-yours-over-the-years.html>
to
distribute the benefits equitably. Politicians still routinely paid tribute
to the Great American Middle Class. Yet the hallmarks of postwar
middle-class life — a steady job, a paycheck adequate to support a family,
the prospect of a pension — were rapidly disappearing. While Americans
still enjoyed freedom of a sort, many of them lacked security.

By 2016, Americans had also come to accept war as normal
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176433/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_not_so_great_wars%2C_theirs_and_ours/>.
Here was “global leadership” made manifest. So U.S. troops were now always
out there somewhere fighting, however obscure the purpose of their
exertions and however dim their prospects of achieving anything approximating
victory
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176463/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_victory_in_our_time/>.
The 99% of Americans who were not soldiers learned to tune out those wars,
content merely to “support the troops,” an obligation fulfilled by offering
periodic expressions of reverence
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175423/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich,_playing_ball_with_the_pentagon/>
on
public occasions. Thank you for your service!

*The Way We Are*

But note: Donald Trump played no role in creating this America or
consigning the America of 1946 to oblivion. As a modern equivalent of P.T.
Barnum, he did demonstrate considerable skill in exploiting the
opportunities on offer as the strictures of postwar America gave way.
Indeed, he parlayed those opportunities into fortune, celebrity, lots of
golf
<https://www.newsweek.com/trump-150-days-presidency-trump-golf-club-1090729>,
plenty of sex, and eventually the highest office in the land. Only in
America, as we used to say.

In 1946, it goes without saying, he would never have been taken seriously
as a would-be presidential candidate. By 2016, his narcissism, bombast,
vulgarity, and talent for self-promotion nicely expressed the underside of
the prevailing zeitgeist. His candidacy was simultaneously preposterous,
yet strangely fitting.

By the twenty-first century, the values that Trump embodies had become as
thoroughly and authentically American as any of those specified in the
oracular pronouncements of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin
Roosevelt. Trump’s critics may see him as an abomination.  But he is also
one of us.

And here’s the real news: the essential traits that define America today —
those things that make this country so different from what it seemed to be
in 1946 — will surely survive the Trump presidency. If anything, he and his
cronies deserve at least some credit for sustaining just those traits.

<https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553393936/counterpunchmaga>Candidate
Trump essentially promised Americans a version of 1946 *redux*. He would
revive manufacturing and create millions of well-paying jobs for working
stiffs. By cutting taxes, he would put more money in the average Joe or
Jill’s pocket. He would eliminate the trade deficit and balance the federal
budget. He would end our endless wars and bring the troops home where they
belong. He would oblige America’s allies, portrayed as a crew of
freeloaders, to shoulder their share of the burden. He would end illegal
immigration. He would make the United States once more the God-fearing
Christian country it was meant to be.

How seriously Trump expected any of those promises to be taken is anyone’s
guess. But this much is for sure: they remain almost entirely unfulfilled.

True, domestic manufacturing has experienced a slight uptick
<https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-19/u-s-manufacturing-is-primed-for-another-year-of-growth>,
but globalization remains an implacable reality. Unless you’ve got a STEM
degree, good jobs are still hard to come by. Ours is increasingly a “gig”
economy, which might be cool enough when you’re 25, but less so when you’re
in your sixties and wondering if you’ll ever be able to retire.

While Trump and a Republican Congress delivered on their promise of tax
“reform,” its chief beneficiaries
<https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-final-gop-tax-bill-is-a-recipe-for-even-more-inequality>
will
be the rich, further confirmation, if it were needed, that the American
economy is indeed rigged in favor of a growing class of plutocrats. Trade
deficit? It’s headed for a 10-year high
<https://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-trade-deficit-climbs-7-still-on-track-to-hit-10-year-high-2018-08-03>.
Balanced budget? You’ve got to be joking. The estimated federal deficit
next year will exceed a trillion dollars
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/deficit-projected-to-top-1-trillion-starting-next-year-1531950742>,
boosting the national debt past $21 trillion. (Trump had promised
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/04/02/trumps-nonsensical-claim-he-can-eliminate-19-trillion-in-debt-in-eight-years/?utm_term=.207db9d6f0e2>
to
eliminate that debt entirely.)

And, of course, the wars haven’t ended. Here is Trump, just last month,
doing his best George McGovern imitation: “I’m constantly reviewing
Afghanistan and the whole Middle East,” he asserted
<http://thehill.com/policy/defense/403537-trump-battles-sense-of-inertia-a-year-into-afghanistan-war-plan>.
“We never should have been in the Middle East. It was the single greatest
mistake in the history of our country.” Yet Trump has perpetuated and, in
some instances, expanded America’s military misadventures in the Greater
Middle East, while essentially insulating himself from personal
responsibility for their continuation.

As commander-in-chief, he’s a distinctly hands-off kind of guy. Despite
being unable to walk, President Franklin Roosevelt visited GIs serving in
combat zones more often than Trump has. If you want to know why we are in
Afghanistan and how long U.S. forces will stay there, ask Defense Secretary
James Mattis or some general, but don’t, whatever you do, ask the president.

*On Not Turning America’s Back on the World*

And then there is the matter of Trump’s “isolationism.” Recall that when he
became president, foreign policy experts across Washington warned that the
United States would now turn its back on the world and abandon its
self-assigned role as keeper of order and defender of democracy. Now,
nearing the mid-point of Trump’s first (and hopefully last) term, the
United States remains formally committed to defending the territorial
integrity of each and every NATO member state, numbering 29 in all. Add to
that an obligation to defend nations as varied as Japan, South Korea, and,
under the terms of the Rio Pact of 1947, most of Latin America. Less
formally but no less substantively, the U.S. ensures the security of
Israel, Saudi Arabia, and various other Persian Gulf countries.

As for obliging those allies to pony up
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/11/donald-trump-tells-nato-allies-to-spend-4-of-gdp-on-defence>
more
for the security we have long claimed to provide, that’s clearly not going
to happen any time soon. Our European allies have pocketed both Trump’s
insults and his assurances that the United States will continue to defend
them, offering in return the vaguest of promises
<https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/06/07/nato-members-have-turned-a-corner-in-defense-spending-stoltenberg-says/>
that,
sometime in the future, they might consider investing more in defense.

By-the-by, U.S. forces under Donald Trump’s ostensible command are today
present in more than 150
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments> countries
worldwide. Urged on by the president, Congress has passed a bill that
boosts the Pentagon budget to $717 billion
<https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/08/01/congress-finalizes-defense-budget-authorization-months-ahead-of-schedule/>,
an $82 billion increase over the prior year. Needless to say, no adversary
or plausible combination of adversaries comes anywhere close
<https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/13/barack-obama/obama-us-spends-more-military-next-8-nations-combi/>
to
matching that figure.

To call this isolationism is comparable to calling Trump svelte.

As for the promised barrier, that “big, fat, beautiful wall
<http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-california-campaign-20160602-snap-story.html>,”
to seal the southern border, it has advanced no further than the display
<https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/13/politics/trump-border-wall-prototypes-visit/index.html>
of
several possible prototypes. No evidence exists to suggest that Mexico
will, as Trump insisted, pay for its construction, nor that Congress will
appropriate the necessary funds, estimated at somewhere north of $20 billion
<https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/apr/28/scott-peters/would-trumps-border-wall-cost-same-one-and-half-us/>,
even with Republicans still controlling both houses of Congress. And in
truth, whether it is built or not, the U.S.-Mexico border will remain what
it has been for decades: heavily patrolled but porous, a conduit for
desperate people seeking safety and opportunity, but also for criminal
elements trafficking in drugs or human beings.

The point of this informal midterm report card is not to argue that Donald
Trump has somehow failed. It is rather to highlight his essential
irrelevance.

Trump is not the disruptive force that anti-Trumpers accuse him of being.
He is merely a noxious, venal, and ineffectual blowhard, who has assembled
a team of associates who are themselves, with few exceptions, noxious,
venal, or ineffectual.

So here’s the upshot of it all: if you were basically okay with where
America was headed prior to November 2016, just take a deep breath and
think of Donald Trump as the political equivalent of a kidney stone — not
fun, but sooner or later, it will pass. And when it does, normalcy will
return. Soon enough you’ll forget it ever happened.

If, on the other hand, you were not okay with where America was headed in
2016, it’s past time to give up the illusion that Donald Trump is going to
make things right. Eventually a pimple dries up and disappears, often
without leaving a trace. Such is the eventual destiny of Donald Trump as
president.

In the meantime, of course, there are any number of things about Trump to
raise our ire. Climate change offers a good example. And yet climate change
may be the best illustration of Trump’s insignificance.

Under President Obama, the United States showed signs of mounting a belated
effort to address global warming. The Trump administration wasted little
time in reversing course, reverting to the science-denying position to
which Republicans adhered long before Trump himself showed up.

No doubt future generations will find fault with Trump’s inaction in the
face of this crisis. Yet when Miami
<https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/03/miami-shanghai-3c-warming-cities-underwater>
is
underwater and California wildfires rage
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/california-climate-change-report-wildfires-jerry-brown>throughout
the year, Trump himself won’t be the only — or even the principal*— *culprit
charged with culpable neglect.

The nation’s too-little, too-late response to climate change for which a
succession of presidents share responsibility illustrates the great and
abiding defect of contemporary American politics. When all is said and
done, presidents don’t shape the country; the country shapes the presidency
— or at least it defines the parameters within which presidents operate.
Over the course of the last few decades, those parameters have become
increasingly at odds with the collective wellbeing of the American people,
not to mention of the planet as a whole.

Yet Americans have been obdurate in refusing to acknowledge that fact.

Americans today are deeply divided. There exists no greater symbol of that
division than Trump himself — the wild enthusiasm he generates in some
quarters and the antipathy verging on hatred he elicits in others.

The urgent need of the day is to close that divide, which is as broad as it
is deep, touching on culture, the political economy, America’s role in the
world, and the definition of the common good. I submit that these matters
lie beyond any president’s purview, but especially this one’s.

Trump is not the problem. Think of him instead as a summons to address the
real problem, which in a nation ostensibly of, by, and for the people is
the collective responsibility of the people themselves. For Americans to
shirk that responsibility further will almost surely pave the way for more
Trumps — or someone worse — to come.

*This column originally appeared on TomDispatch
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/>.*

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