The ad writes itself
Bobby Bradley via Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)
The U.S. is scattering land mines in Iran in a war Congress has neither approved nor stopped. Travelers are arriving at Kennedy Airport at 1 a.m. in hopes of departing New York on time or at all. There is an epidemic of “mind blowing corruption” revealed in a $1.5 billion bet on oil futures. The Department of Homeland Security insists it will not stop arresting immigrants outside courtrooms after the Department of Justice(?) admitted DHS has no authority to. The president insists on his Sharpie signature being smeared across all new U.S. currency. Oh, and the U.S. has lost its “long-term status as a liberal democracy – for the first time in over 50 years.”
Goodbye Pax Americana
Donald J, Trump is collapsing the world we knew. Ronald Reagan declared morning in America. Trump embraces the sunset. The Financial Times saw it coming in 2016. The 2026 ad writes itself.
Heather Cox Richardson reports:
In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, put in bald language the change in the world order instigated by President Donald J. Trump.
“For 80 years,” Balakrishnan explained, “the US was the underwriter for a system of globalisation based on UN Charter principles, multilateralism, territorial integrity, sovereign equality.” That system “heralded an unprecedented and unique period of global prosperity and peace. Of course there were exceptions. And of course, the Cold War was still in effect for at least half of the last 80 years. But generally, for those of us who were non-communists, who ran open economies, who provided first world infrastructure, together with a hardworking disciplined people, we had unprecedented opportunities.
“The story of Singapore, with a per capita GDP of 500 US dollars in 1965. Now, [it is] somewhere between 80,000 to 90,000 US dollars. It would not have happened if it had not been for this unprecedented period, basically Pax Americana and then turbocharged by the reform and opening of China for decades. It has been unprecedented. It has been great for many of us. In fact, I will say, for all of us, if you look back 80 years.
“But now, whether you like it or not, objectively, this period has ended…. Basically, the underwriter of this world order has now become a revisionist power, and some people would even say a disruptor. But the larger point is that the erosion of norms, processes, and institutions that underpinned a remarkable period of peace and prosperity; that foundation has gone.”
In its place, as scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder said to me in a YouTube conversation yesterday, Trump is aligning himself with international oligarchs like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), and China’s Xi Jinping. Because of his position as the president of the United States of America, this means he is aligning the United States of America with this oligarchical axis as well, abandoning the country’s democratic principles and traditional allies.
It’s not so much a Trump plan as the convicted felon’s reflex for corruption, taste for violence, pathological need for dominance, sociopathy, and flagrant ignorance.
A passing commuter shouted at me on Thursday, “You’re a f%cking idiot!”
I could be president.