He started off with ‘America First’…..
Then?
Went to trying to squeeze money out of other countries….
That got stopped by the Supreme’s…
He left the Ukraine, and Europe hanging to support his buddy Putin….
He then could NOT understand why those same countries didn’t rush to help him deal Iran….
Donald Trump made sure to get rid of any ‘expert’ that could assist him in foreign policy…
Relying on a ex-Senator from Florida and VP from the MidWest to do his foot work across the planet….
All of this has NOT worked….
Leaders of other countries tries smile and joke with him and laugh at his troubles behind his back…
They have NOT bent to his will….
They HAVE instead stood TOGETHER and will do so until he leaves the stage and the next American President
comes on board to mend the tears in things….
America CANNOT live ALONE as a Island……
It just won’t work…..
Admiring Trump from afar is one thing. But sovereignty is sovereignty, and borders are borders.
Trump used to understand that.
A decade ago, Trump waged his first-ever political campaign as a nationalist crusader, demanding harder borders and more muscular American sovereignty. When the United Kingdom held its 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union — the 10-year anniversary is in a few days — Trump cheered it on and crowned himself “Mr. Brexit.”
In his second term, Trump’s grasp of nationalist politics has slipped. He has underestimated the power of patriotism and national pride in countries other than his own.
This serial miscalculation has undermined Trump’s trade wars and military adventures, aggravated the cost-of-living crisis, weakened the Republican Party and battered Trump’s bonds with the global right….
…
It should not surprise any nationalist leader that Iran’s generals and clerics preferred months of American bombing over quick subjugation.
So why does Trump seem lost in these political currents?
Somewhere between railing against OPEC in the 1980s, applauding Brexit in 2016 and winning the presidency in 2024, Trump started blurring the difference between a right-wing politics that insists on putting national identity above international institutions, and a purely American variant that wants to replace resolutions from the United Nations with edicts from Truth Social.
His sometime admirers have noticed. In a thoroughly revealing interview with POLITICO’s Marion Soletty, Jordan Bardella, the likely presidential nominee for France’s far-right National Rally, lamented that second-term Trump was very different from the first-term version.
These days, he said, the United States was acting more like an “empire.” Trump himself was “extremely unsteady and constantly shifting,” Bardella said.
Bardella disavowed interest in Trump’s endorsement in Danielle Smith-like terms: “We don’t need to accept or open the door to any form of interference.”
Trump’s rough strong-arming has worked well enough in a handful of countries. He endorsed the winning candidate for Poland’s presidency last year. In Latin America, Trump and members of his administration have helped anoint election winners in Argentina and Honduras — politically unstable, economically distressed countries that rely on U.S. assistance. His decapitation strategy succeeded in Venezuela.
Meanwhile Trump has continued to toy freely with European Union and NATO leaders. He all but ignores the UN and pays no political price for it….
…
Trump’s appreciation for the special force of national pride and patriotic sentiment used to be one of his political superpowers. It remains one of the few things holding the Republican Party together.
After all this imperial thrashing-around, Trump may never recover the clarity of purpose of his “Mr. Brexit” era. He has left a political space for someone else to fill.
And so Americans will soon look to Trump’s potential successors in both parties for a new version of U.S. nationalism. The world has only grown more confusing and dangerous since 2016, and voters still want to take back control….
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