The Trump Doctrine: Kicking friends in the teeth, massaging the adversary

The U.S.-North Korea summit was a good thing in the same way that aging is a good thing. Consider the alternatives: nuclear war, death.

The Trump-Kim meeting stopped dead in its track the dangerous escalation of threats and insults emanating primarily from the Trump administration but also from North Korea. It may even pave the way toward peaceful coexistence. But if, ultimately, the only thing that is accomplished is keeping closed the nuclear Pandora’s Box, that’s still a very good thing. Give the devil his due; I doubted that Trump, brimming always with bluster and bravado, could pull it off.

That said, the agreement is schematic in the extreme, and any devils that lie in the details may anger the hothead in the White House and he could undo the whole thing in a flash or even make things worse than ever. Even more than the vague nature of the agreement is the fact that it was reached as if it was a pact among equals, in more technical words, under the concept of “sovereign equality.” The United States in its international relations gives lip service to, but seldom respects, the concept of sovereign equality. Not on anything important. That’s why the United States has refused to join the International Criminal Court. What? Somebody else judge us… No! When U.S. soldiers are accused of war crimes as in Haditha, Iraq or My Lai, Vietnam, we will judge them and…set them free.

The Trump administration has the most contempt for the concept of sovereign equality than any other in American history, and so does its base. America first and sovereign equality don’t go well together.

Trump is a natural bully and his base is mostly made up of people who believe that every other country in the world takes advantage of the United States. In fact, the rules, of the international game, such as those on trade overseen by the World Trade Organization (WTO), were largely written by the USA and benefit this country most. If it turns out the Korea agreement is fair for both sides, the base will read that as another instance of the of pit bull (U.S.) victimized by another one of those chihuahuas out there.

The base may go bananas. When this sort of things happen as it did when Trump decided to allow the Dreamers to stay, Trump reacts to the ensuing backlash by backpedalling faster than an NFL defensive back.

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine for a moment what Republicans in Congress and conservative hawks everywhere would have been saying and doing if Barack Obama had done anything like what Donald Trump did in just the last week. Here is what I think they would say: Obama…

…sabotaged the Western alliance by insulting and dissing the world’s rich democracies in the G-7 and refusing to sign a joint statement;

…served as an advocate for Vladimir Putin by urging the G-7 to take Russia back in exchange for zero concessions or contrition from Russia over Crimea or alleged assassination attempts in the UK;

…cozied up to one of the world’s worst dictators, fawned over him, lavished abundant praise on a leader who has threatened to attack the United States with nuclear missiles and who has an abysmal human rights record at home, in effect legitimized him in exchange for vague promises.

Had this been Obama, the GOP would have cried shame. They would have called it appeasement, treason even. Impeach him, they would demand. Off with his head, the most radical on the right would advocate. They would have said Obama is a Third World revolutionary who hates America.

Instead, there is, for the most part, a deafening silence from Republican politicians. John McCain did say that if Trump did not stand with the G-7, America does. But McCain is one of the few exceptions and, to quote an administration official, “it doesn’t matter, he is dying anyway.”

The silence is yet further proof that the standard Republican talking points on everything from the deficit to the necessity of standing up to tinpot dictators and promoting democracy and human rights (in places like Cuba and Venezuela only) have been crap all along.

The main thing most Republicans care about is having the power to continue to implement their long top-down class war. Soak the rich with more money. Frack the other 90 percent with budget cuts. And, oh, there is one other thing they care deeply about: to ensure that the dominant group and the dominant culture in the country remain as it always has been: white, northern European, English-speaking, monolingual. All the other stuff about protecting the borders and ensuring the enforcement of immigration law is a pretext for what is a campaign of ethnic cleansing lite.