Others on the Plight of America

Permit me to recommend three articles. Each goes well beyond Trump but Trump is an engine of each.

Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale who wrote The Road to Unfreedom, reviewed Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic. Comparison with contemporary America are uncanny. Snyder ends his review saying “The conclusions for conservatives of today emerge clearly” from this history of the fall of German democracy: “Do not break the rules that hold a republic together, because one day you will need order. And do not destroy the opponents who respect those rules, because one day you will miss them.” But recent events suggest little respect for those lessons.

Kori Schake, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote The Trump Doctrine is Winning and the World is Losing. Summarizing a magnificent article is difficult but for me the kernel was that “if the United States doesn’t sustain” cooperation among the world’s democracies, “a rising power will eventually force it to defend its interests or succumb.” That’s been the pattern of power transitions except the transition from Britain to the United States, “an exception born of their democratic similarities, and one unlikely to be repeated between the United States and China.” At this point the U.S. handed over leadership in Asian trade to the Chinese with our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and weakening alliances among democratic nations allows China to intimidate weaker countries and reshape Asian geography and maritime rules without cost. Moreover, the costs of the American led world order were small and declining, especially by comparison to the benefits.

And David Sanger, national security correspondent  for the Times and author of the forthcoming The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age, after exploring the extent of cyber-sabotage and American vulnerability, shows the cost of not dealing with growing Russian capability because of its political implications.

Will America choose another Roosevelt to pull us out of this deepening vortex of destruction or will it choose a Hindenburg to hand the reigns to a beast preparing to roast, gas and kill us all?