Changing positions on world stage
It is hard to imagine a peacetime America in worse shape than we are in now, with high unemployment, an economy staggering in the throes of an international pandemic, enduring the somewhat uninspired efforts of a president whose primary efforts must be directed to undoing and counteracting the misdeeds of his predecessor nationally and internationally.
That’s where the United States stands now, in the wake of four years of governance by an amateur president, interested at best in self-glorification, at worst in presidential profitmaking. All in all, a bad trip for Americans at all levels.
And we are told that he wants to come back for another round in 2024. My guess would be that the average American voter will be as enthusiastic about that as he or she would look forward to a recreational root canal. If nothing else, spare us more humiliating presidential ”tweets.”
The best of American presidents draw their fellow Americans to accomplish great deeds, honoring their country.
The worst of them see others as rivals, degrading them, seeking to diminish them in the eyes of their countrymen and women. It is a characteristic of Donald Trump that he considers no one to be superior to him, not even Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Perhaps the most heartening aspect of America’s present situation in the world is that our current rivals for top dog are not in that great of shape either.
Russia is our classic favorite enemy, at least since World War II, probably because it favors, at least superficially, the still-alive bugbear socialism used again by the American right to smear the American left in the 2016 elections, in spite of Mr. Trump’s likely symbiotic relationship with Russia and its leader, Vladimir V. Putin. Russia is showing surprisingly thin skin in dealing with Mr. Putin’s rival, Alexei A. Navalny, in recent dust-ups in many Russian cities.
The Trump administration put other countries up as enemies that we could be in search of, but was unsuccessful in its nominations. These have included Iran, Saudi Arabia,
Venezuela, the eternal Cuba and others. But Americans have not come to hate these countries enough to go to war with them, partly because the worst of them, as in China, make our children’s toys and most of our household appliances cheaply. (Try a China-free shopping trip, for example.)
For the most part, we have avoided wars, except now-favored Vietnam and possibly indirect U.S.-exportless Yemen. (We work out our basic xenophobia through our immigration policy.)
So far, we (and President Joe Biden) seem to be safe little copperheads as we — vulnerably divided — change our skins in a dangerous world out there. I suppose if Mr. Putin decided that Russia needed a unifying war to fight off Mr. Navalny or Xi Jinping thought that the toolanguid Chinese needed stimulation to realize his dreams, a steamy war might break out to awaken the United States to some sort of unity. Otherwise, we may get to doze awhile longer, feverishly dreaming, safely, while a new world-leading nation is born — maybe China, maybe some other poor devil of a country with unrealistic ambitions.
The cause of democracy suffered what appears to be a ringing setback in the military coup d’etat that occurred in Myanmar earlier this week, returning it to military rule after about five years of elected rule under the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now back in prison. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seems to be in charge, despite widespread efforts to make democracy work, including by the United States. Myanmar, previously known as Burma, is a beautiful, if poor, country, like neighboring Vietnam, which had to fight a war against us back when we were doing such things, minus intermediaries.
The American crusade for democracy seems to have lost steam across the world, accompanied by — or perhaps led by — Mr. Trump’s own lack of empathy for practitioners of it at home. There are still fun parts. One of these is to see Mr. Navalny getting under Mr. Putin’s skin in the new Russia. Another is realizing that it doesn’t matter a hill of beans to us what Myanmar wants to call itself. It must drive the publishers of stamp albums nuts though.