Trump-Reagan Fusion Can Win the New Cold War 'A Trump-Reagan fusion represents “the foreign policy synthesis around which the Republican Party can coalesce.”' 'The United States has been thrust into the New Cold War by the People’s Republic of China. Trump administration veterans – Kroenig in the Defense Department and Negrea in the State Department – the authors maintain that Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy rightly recognized that America had already entered an era of great-power competition with Russia as well as with China.' '“[t]he existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” provides conservatives “a central, unifying theme.” By combining Reagan’s characteristic “commitment to individual liberty and a strong national defense” with Trump’s emphasis “on the interests of all Americans and confronting countries, such as China, whose economic policies harm American interests,” Kroenig and Negrea contend, conservatives can fashion a strategy for winning the New Cold War.' 'The progressive mindset accounts for many faults of Biden administration foreign policy. Biden campaigned on “a foreign policy for the middle class.” As president, he declared that democracy must prevail against autocracy. And he has taken credit for restoring America’s alliances. Yet nothing about middle-class interests explains Biden administration foreign policy – from opening wide America’s southern border to espousing the establishment of a Palestinian state in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel of mostly civilians. The president’s tough words on autocracy, moreover, obscured the distinction between the Islamic Republic of Iran, which seeks America’s destruction, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – whom candidate Biden estranged by calling a “pariah” – which wants to increase cooperation with the United States and normalize relations with Israel. And America’s shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 effectively turned over the country to the Taliban, diminishing respect for the United States among friends as well as foes.' Well certainly Bribed Joe's foreign policy is a deranged mess. Joe can't get his story straight on how the US would respond to China attempting to a war of conquest on their peaceful neighbor, Taiwan. Bribed Joe gave Iran a cash infusion, strengthening and encouraging Gaza, Hezbollah, and Yemen to attack Iran. 'The Trump-Reagan fusion promises much better by respecting America’s founding principles and by concentrating on advancing America’s interests in an increasingly volatile world.' Read the whole thing and discuss.
Trump? You mean coddle and kowtow to dictators? Turn on our allies? Encourage enemies to attack allies? Obviously your memory of Reagan differs greatly from reality.
Unfortunately, Reagan didn't win the Old Cold War. US policy towards Russia failed to reform the Russian political system. Instead, it set the stage for the rise of Russian revanchism under Putin by creating economic chaos and extreme hardship for the Russian people. It also set the stage for the reversal of the Nixon/Kissinger split between Russia and China. The Chinese, seeing how Russia was treated, increased cooperation with Russia and redoubled their efforts to achieve military parity with the US. Hence the New Cold War.
Thanks for posting it. I thought they made a few interesting points. But there is no real connection between Reagan’s foreign policy and Trump’s. They work very hard at trying to establish one. Indeed, the whole op Ed scrupulously avoid talking directly about either of the current foreign policies we face now. The notion that the GOP is for a strong American soft power is no longer assured. Trump has been appealing to Coolidge era isolationism. GOP politicians from the south and mid west sound just like Borah, Charles Lindberg,or Hamilton Fish. Couple that with Trump’s open support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nd the whole idea that GOP foreign policy is anything like Reagan’s, and the whole idea crumbles. it is nothing less than the total betrayal of the legacies of Roosevelt and Churchill, and every American that fought in WWII.
The author makes a compelling theoretical case for fusionism, but the differences between the two camps on the Right are more about class and worldview. Those problems won't be solved by this sort of essay. Reagan was motivated by the cold war conflict between communism and the free West and thought the Cold War could actually be won, a goal that perhaps no other US President held. But the fact that he was actually successful, he changed the world, making "Reaganism," at least as far as foreign policy goes, obsolete. A new strategy needed to be built and that was never done. We Mike Penced our way through the 90's up until 9/11 as if Reagan was still spouting guidance instead of what actually happened. And what happened? Reagan left us with victory in the Cold War and America as the greatest superpower the world had ever known (take that Rome!). And what did we do with it? We immediately made every single Domestic and Foreign Policy mistake possible that has gradually diminished us to a weakened used-to-be great power running on fumes from a near empty Reagan tank. The Trump challenge is going back and trying to correct the almost 30 years of the worst decisions that any major power has ever made. And that's the conflict. The people who fly under the Reagan flag now, deluded Mike Pence types who still think it's 1987, and neo cons who got us into Iraq, are the ones who made those stupid decisions (on the GOP side at least) and have double downed on it. There isn't going to be any fusion because the "Reagan" people are not really Reagan people, they're neocons who are waving a Reagan flag to try to get the peasants back in line and lining back up at the recruiting offices to staff their next planned couple of wars while they also ship off our industrial base and import a new workforce that we don't need since...we shipped off our industrial base. There is simply no fusion between those trying to reverse the damage and those wallowing in it.
Which has been shown to be false by Russia proving themselves to be a paper tiger in Ukraine and, China's failing economy that is bringing and end to globalization. China has based their military tech on Russian military tech, which is a failure. There population is in decline and their experience and knowledgeable work force is aging out. On top of which tRaitor tRump's only goal is to avoid jail by installing himself as and American despot. He did not, he campaigned on a foreign policy that would put America back on the map as a world producer of goods and that's exactly what he's done. Foreign policy isn't a middle class issue it's and AmeirCAN issue. Before Hamas attacked Israel The United States, under President Biden's leadership, was doing all it could to broker peace between Israel and the Saudi's; which is why Hamas attacked Israel. It was tRaitor tRump that brokered an impossible deal with the Taliban to withdraw and then set the stage for catastrophe by drawing down our troops to indefensible levels. And yet we are out of Afganistan, our European Allies respect us again, after tRaitor tRump made U.S. a laughing stock. And we will soon be back as a world class producer of strategic goods. He absolutely has, China, recognizes, now that they see Russia's failure in Ukraine, that they are no match for our military. Absolute Bullshit. First of all Reagan's foreign policy was a criminal failure. So if your thinking tRaitor tRump could "fuse" with that ... well tRaitor tRump is just your criminal to do it. Just did. It"s more bullshit, on top of horseshit, trying to make tRaitor tRump into and international "something" that he ISN'T and is CLUELESSLY unable to even understand. RCP really had to lean on their freshman creative writing class to spin that mythology. Look at Gorbachev's face he's wondering how much of Reagan's bullshit he's going to have to endure. The only Oval Office picture that is more pathetic is tRaitor tRump sitting next to a dignitary and the look on their face after he's unloaded in his diaper.
Actually, this is a Hoover Institute spin piece. It masquerades as a pseudo intellectual comparison between Reagan and Trump, connected by barely visible threads. Then it devolves into its real mission. Attacking Biden, which it spends much time on. This is how right wing “think tanks” work.
You're right. Reagan didn't win the Cold War. McDonalds, Levis, and Western music did. BUT What most refuse to see is that Russia is a capitalist oligarchy just like the US. Sure, we pretend to elect leaders and follow leaders but As Trump's walking around a free man clearly demonstrates It is all a facade and the oligarchs rule here as well.
I think Biden's policy is much better: Make the country that chants "DEATH TO AMERICA" as RICH as possible.
There are two stable forms of government, imperial and oligarchic. In the Imperial form, the Emperor allies with the proletariat. In the oligarchic form, the upper middle class dominates the proletariat. Nations tend to switch between the two forms. The Roman Republic, an oligarchy dominated by the Senate, changed to an Empire. The Carolingians created and Empire which peaked with Charlemagne, and thereafter the rise of strong barons led to the Empire's fracturing. The US was modeled on oligarchic republics. In a high natural resource, low population environment, it has evolved towards popular democracy. Popular democracy is a form which is unstable because the populace will demand consumption and not demand saving and the creation of productive assets. Eventually, the fools make beer of the seed corn, have a party and starve to death.
That's quite a creation you've come up with. U.S. was unique in world history dedicated to all men being created of equal value and natural rights. Which led to OUR Government BY THE PEOPLE. That it didn't actually give those rights to ALL men or, the fact that in practice some men are more equal than others doesn't mean that the ongoing "American Experiment" is anything other than government from the bottom up and NOT top down.
The War of Independence was led by merchants, lawyers, and landowners of the colonies to gain freedom from domination by the nobility of Great Britain. A major cause was the Crown's restriction on colonist land speculators who wanted to move into the lands beyond the Allegheny Mountains, buy them from the Indians, and carve them up for sale. Another major cause was the restrictions on merchants who wanted to trade directly with the Caribbean and China, etc., without goods going through England. Look at the signers of the Declaration of Independence - lawyers, merchants, plantation owners, physicians, land speculators, etc.. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/signers-factsheet Consider that the House of Representatives is the only directly elected body, and for it the Electors have the Qualifications of the most numerous Branch of the State's Legislature. Which, at the time, typically involved being free, owning property and being male. The Senate was indirectly elected via the State Legislatures. The President via the Electoral College consisting of Electors appointed according to procedures determined by each State's Legislature. None of this appears to be the structure of a government created by men who trusted the wisdom of crowds. And "created equal" means that no one has special privileges due to noble birth, nothing else.
Until Trump came along, the United States was admired and trusted for its stability. It is the second oldest constitutional republic on earth. Trump tried to end that.
no, Reagan did not end the Cold War, although we Americans like to tell ourselves that. The Soviet Union suffered a total financial collapse. it could not feed itself, and its foreign currency reserves shrank to nothing went oil prices went down after 1985. Russia’s octogenarian apparachicks had no idea how to cope. It is true that Reagan’s spend Russia into the ground defense spending strategy was a significant contributor. But if Yuri Andropov had not died, thing would have been much different.
I don't see any "land speculators" on that list, but yes the most educated and prominent were sent to represent their colony. Which made them tax payers. Hamilton says in Federalist 68 that there was a lot of concern about the "electorate" being easily swayed by a glib conman of low means, which is why they instituted the EC as a check on the gullibility of the masses. No, "Created Equal" means that all men are equal in the sight of God and Country; at least in theory.
