The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
"Humiliating for Every American"
Guest post from John Taylor, Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles
If anyone cares to defend yesterday's disgraceful display by our Mafioso-in-Chief, be my guest, in the comments below. Surely this crosses the line, even for the diehards. I've asked a thousand times on this blog: what can this guy do that would make his supporters disavow and disown him? [the "Murder on 5th Avenue in Broad Daylight" question] Perhaps this was it? Are there really no Republicans out there who have the courage to stand up and say: "All Americans should be deeply ashamed of what he has done in our name, and deeply ashamed of how he did it." No?
The text is by John Taylor, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles [and, interestingly, the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library]. Emphases are mine. /DP
#AmericanCoup Seeing Putin's boys bully a besieged freedom fighter in the Oval Office was humiliating for every American. Since there is no presidential precedent for the public brutalizing of an ally, we reach for fiction and Mayor Carmine DePasto, from the comedy "Animal House," and his summit with the dean of Faber College. "If you want this year's homecoming parade in my town," he says, "you have to pay." When the dean accuses him of extortion, the mayor replies, "Look, these parades are very expensive. You're using my police, my sanitation people, my three Oldsmobiles. So if you mention extortion again, I'll have your legs broken."
Musk can fire the White House speechwriters, too, because there's the Trump Doctrine for you. If Ukraine wants to be part of negotiations to end Russia's criminal war, it has to pay in the form of a share of its mineral rights. Since President Zelensky was allegedly rude today, Trump has threatened to cut off military aid and let more Ukrainians die.
Yet large as it was, today's incident was far more than it appeared. Trump and his mini-me Vance wrote the latest chapter in the biography of the United States as a world power. Periodically we have to decide what values we think our country should uphold in the world. We have arrived at another such moment. Everyone must ask themselves what kind of global citizen their country should be. It is work we must all do in the days and weeks ahead it we are to do our part to keep the American dream from entering a death spiral.
Readers should not assume that everyone disagrees with Trump. Millions of Americans opposed the U.S. entering World War II to help Europe against Hitler, history's greatest evildoer. Some were Nazi sympathizers. Others just thought it was none of our business. Most leaders were internationalists in the Cold War, and Americans by and large went along. We rebuilt Japan and Germany and avoided war with the Soviets. We also bred cynicism by leaving bloody footprints from Chile to Vietnam, sometimes meaning well, sometimes not. George W. Bush's massive overreaction to the Sept. 11 attacks, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan without making the U.S. safer, gave foreign policy itself a bad name, enabling Trump to sound like a peacenik by attacking our endless wars.
Making our way through the shadow of disgrace Trump casts requires us to think carefully and humbly. Notwithstanding the heretical teachings of Christian nationalists and apostolic reformists, God doesn't love us more than other people. We're not chosen or anointed. We've had moments of glory and deep disgrace. It has taken more than a quarter of a millennium to come anywhere near letting freedom ring for everyone.
A decent and indeed a Christian foreign policy would look out for our interests while promoting global security, encouraging economic and political liberalism where we can, addressing suffering through a generous foreign aid budget befitting the richest nation in the world, and leading on climate change mitigation and innovation. This is how a good nation counts its blessings. That's how we say thank you to God and sorry to those we hurt along the way.
Some argue that the U.S. always acts on behalf of its strategic and economic interests while just claiming we're for justice and democracy. I must disagree. Too many Americans have died fighting for other nations' freedom and sovereignty. But Trump has swept those values aside in favor of pure self-interest. Those who insist the U.S. has always been out for number one are carefully watching us every one during Trump's days of shame. We're finding out how much sadism and cruelty the American people will tolerate — and so far, we've tolerated quite a bit.
Trump is obviously paying Zelensky back for refusing to cooperate with dirty tricks against Joe Biden in the 2016 election. That is as deep as this individual's strategic vision goes. The rest of his foreign policy is equally thoughtless and toxic. Besides selling out Ukraine, his most significant move was depriving sick, starving people of foreign aid. Journalists such as Nicholas Kristof who are covering Trump's war on USAID can show you exactly where in the developing world Trump is likely to kill those in need. Yet he is doing it without significant public outcry. We know he doesn't care. The question is if the rest of us do — and how the rest of the world reacts.
Zelensky's first calls after his Trump beat down were to European leaders. One possible future is western Europe supporting Ukraine and deterring Russian conventional aggression on its own. Should that happen, Trump would say it was his idea all along. But China would reckon it as an invitation to conquer Taiwan. Its people deserve to be free, but according to Trump's rulebook, if they can't defend themselves, they're out of luck.
The alliances Trump is ripping apart like an angry kindergartner help keep the peace and limit the spread of the most dangerous weapons. Without them, aggressors will gobble up weaker nations. Non-nuclear powers will join the club faster than you can say enriched uranium. If the American people acquiesce in Trump's disgraceful behavior, his abandonment of the weakest among us, our country will end up as exactly what its harshest critics have always said: Out just for itself and its economic interests, or in this case Trump's. The Trump Doctrine will go on to light up a hundred wars. If the U.S. ever needs its friends again, no one will answer the phone. We'll be as lonely as Trump when he turns out the lights.
