The Danger and Foolishness of Trump’s Foreign Policy
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The article centers on Trump's claims about 'running' Venezuela after Maduro's capture. Understanding the complex political, economic, and humanitarian crisis provides essential context for why regime change is so fraught.
Over the weekend, the president of the United States made a social media post accusing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of ordering the murder of former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman last year. Too much happening in the news to really give that sentence the space it deserves, but that’s a thing that actually happened.
As we were about to press “send” on this newsletter, we got breaking news: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced this morning he will not seek re-election, as he weathers a major political crisis involving massive state fraud on his administration’s watch. It’s a remarkable fall from grace for a politician who was his party’s vice presidential nominee just over a year ago. We’ll be going live on camera in just a few minutes—at 9:45 a.m. EST—to discuss. Head to our homepage or our YouTube page to watch. Happy Monday.
A Foreign Policy of Failure and Dishonor
by William Kristol
The British author and poet Rudyard Kipling was a conservative, even a reactionary. He was certainly no anti-imperialist. Yet in his 1897 poem “Recessional,” written at the height of the British empire, Kipling warns his countrymen against becoming “drunk with sight of power” and indulging in “frantic boast and foolish word.”
Needless to say, there’s no chance that Donald Trump will attend to this warning. Trump has always been drunk on fantasies of power. His entire rhetorical repertoire consists of frantic boasts and foolish words. He’s not suddenly going to heed Kipling’s advice.
He won’t, but we should. Trump is our president. He’s acting in our name. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to undo all the dangerous mistakes he’s already made. And we won’t be able to stop him from continuing to indulge in frantic boasts. But an awful lot depends on whether we can limit the damage that he seeks to bring about over the next three years, and whether we can at least hold out hope of a responsible road ahead.
The case against Trump’s foreign policy isn’t a difficult one, and it can be made by a broad coalition of people. They may differ on what a responsible foreign policy would look like going forward—whether it should be more or less interventionist, more or less democracy-promoting, more focused on Europe or Asia, more reliant on hard or soft power, etc. But judging from public
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