When Donald Trump spoke at the United Nations on Sept. 25 and provoked guffaws from the diplomats in the audience for his boasting, Trump insisted that they were not laughing at him, they were laughing with him. I wasn’t there so I can’t say what they were actually doing on the outside. But on the inside, I’m pretty sure I know: They were crying.
They were crying over the fact that the America they had come to know and respect over the last 70 years — and whose generosity and security order they had come to rely upon and even take advantage of at times — had left the building.
It had been replaced by Trump’s America, which is different in two fundamental ways.
First, Trump’s America does not see itself as the galvanizer and protector of the liberal global order that brought more peace, prosperity and democracy to more corners of the world over the last 70 years than at any time in history — defying the natural order of things, which is constant jungle-like conflict, protectionism and strongman rule.
Second, Trump’s America is unafraid to engage in the raw exercise of power against any foe or friend to gain economic or geopolitical advantage — no matter how big or small — and, at the same time, is ready to overlook any human rights abuse or killing by any country deemed friendly to Trump personally or not interesting to him geopolitically.
