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The “Trump Doctrine” Described by White House Officials Will Ruin Us

The “Trump Doctrine” Described by White House Officials Will Ruin Us

Last updated on: June 11, 2018 at 5:06 pm by Susan Wright

The “Trump Doctrine” Described by White House Officials Will Ruin Us 2018-06-11T17:06:24-04:00 Susan Wright

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This is a new level of embarrassing, but it’s where we are, unfortunately, and we have to deal with it.

We’re watching Donald Trump’s worldview, as well as his method for dealing with foreign policy unfold.

So where are we?

We’re post-America, where longtime allies and friends are demonized and attacked, in what resembles a diplomatic food fight.

Also, longtime geopolitical foes and global bad actors are wooed, by a dull witted vulgarian, dancing some grotesque burlesque on the world stage.

It’s great for his fans, who don’t really know foreign policy, and don’t really care. Their myopic view of the world doesn’t just give blush to mutated nationalism. It embraces it, even at the expense of their nation’s overall well-being.

We’ve seen that before. It didn’t end well.

Trump fans aren’t really big on history, either.

Since we are not an isolated nation, and we still have many connections to the outside world, it is important to have a coherent foreign policy. Jeffrey Goldberg, with The Atlantic, went in search of something that could be called the Trump Doctrine. Of those things he uncovered, several stood out, and they ring true enough that American citizens should really pay attention.

The first thing to remember is: Chaos.

Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essay that Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”

Wow. It sounds like Thomas Wright paid close attention during the primaries, because he pegged Donald Trump perfectly, given what we’re now seeing.

As we’ve seen this past weekend, Trump and his advisers’ despicable, hostile behavior towards our allies means he intends to blow up those alliances. He would rather we be connected, even if only in a sidekick role, to the Communists of China and Russia.

What is he thinking?

The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.

In other words, under a Trump presidency, our allies can no longer trust us, and should plan to handle that, accordingly.

In the long run, this doesn’t hurt them, because they’ll still have each other to turn to. In the long run, it hurts the U.S.

The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”

Like I said, this will not pay off, and it is an intensely stupid gamble to make with the well-being of our nation.

And if you didn’t think the hubris and fatuity could get worse, think again.

It gets worse. It gets so much worse.

The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.

“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”

“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:

“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, B*tch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

That’s disgusting, but I pretty much expect evangelical Christians to start including this in Sunday hymns, in the near future.

I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, B*tch” but as “We’re America, B*tches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, F**k Yeah!”

“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”

I’m glad Goldberg brought up Team America. That’s the first thing I thought of when I heard of this insane quote.

I get patriotism. I get being proud of our nation’s position in the world. I never felt we should apologize for our freedoms or for those things that make us a powerful, successful nation.

One of the worst things (in a sea of awful) that former President Obama did was go on a global apology tour, apologizing to the world for the dominance of the United States.

What a despicable, petty little community organizer. I’m so glad he’s gone.

That being said, Donald Trump was not the answer to Obama we needed. We needed a reasoned, experienced conservative, who could bring balance back to the nation, undo Obama’s agenda, and not get confused about how you treat friends, versus how you treat foes. What Trump is attempting is going to harm us far faster, and with longer lasting effects than Obama’s blatantly anti-American policies.

The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘F**k Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘F**k Obama’ Doctrine.”

Really? With a world of troubles and a nation to run, the policy is to give a middle finger to the previous occupant of the White House?

The people who surround and prop up Donald Trump really are the most foul and disgusting gutter-tramps you could possibly dig up.

We could have done better, and now we’re stuck.

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