U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, New York, U.S., September 24, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Project Syndicate: Is Trump a Turning Point in World Politics?
Will Donald Trump’s presidency mark a major turning point in world history, or was it a minor historical accident? Trump's electoral appeal may turn on domestic politics, but his effect on world politics could be transformational, particularly if he gains a second term.
CAMBRIDGE – As the United States enters the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election campaign, and with neither party’s nominating convention featuring much discussion of foreign policy, the contest between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden apparently will be waged mainly on the battleground of domestic issues. In the long run, however, historians will ask whether Trump’s presidency was a major turning point in America’s role in the world, or just a minor historical accident.
At this stage, the answer is unknowable, because we do not know if Trump will be re-elected. My book Do Morals Matter? rates the 14 presidents since 1945 and gives Trump a formal grade of “incomplete,” but for now he ranks in the bottom quartile.Top-quartile presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt saw the mistakes of America’s isolationism in the 1930s and created a liberal international order after 1945. A turning point was Harry S. Truman’s post-war decisions that led to permanent alliances that have lasted to this day. The US invested heavily in the Marshall Plan in 1948, created NATO in 1949, and led a United Nations coalition that fought in Korea in 1950. In 1960, during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the US signed a new security treaty with Japan.
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WNU Editor: Disagree with much of what the above commentator is saying. But I do agree that if President Trump does win a second term, he will accelerate his policies to prioritize US interests over "global interests", continue the withdrawal of US military forces from the forever wars that are raging in places like Afghanistan and the Middle East, and focus on bilateral relations over multi-relations. I always like to say that Washington did not change President Trump, but President Trump has certainly changed Washington DC. Will a second term result in President Trump changing the role that the US plays on the global stage? My gut tells me yes.
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McCain was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, who volunteered for service during the Vietnam War and was captured as a prisoner of war in 1967 when his plane was shot down. He was brutally tortured for years, enduring injuries from which he would never fully recover. During his captivity, he rejected an offer for his early release because his father was a high-ranking commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, fearful that accepting that privilege would violate the military Code of Conduct, which said that prisoners of war should be released in the order they were captured, with no favoritism for special status. McCain was finally released on March 14, 1973, after five-and-a-half years in captivity.
Trump’s birthday of June 14, 1946 was assigned a draft number that was “almost last” in the 1969 lottery, meaning that without a deferment he would have been highly unlikely to avoid serving in Vietnam. He had received four student deferments while in college, but that would not protect him once he graduated, but he was then able to obtain a medical deferment claiming a “bone spur” in one of his feet. In 2015, he was asked about the bone spur and said that he could not remember which foot.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his efforts to exert his personal influence around the globe and meddle in American democracy and is accused of using a nerve agent to poison one of his main political opponents, President Donald Trump broke his recent silence on Russia and the attack on Alexey Navalny, calling it "tragic" but emphasizing that he has a good relationship with the Russian leader.
"I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic. It's terrible; it shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look," Trump said on Friday in a news conference at the White House. In response to further questions on the matter he attempted to deflect to his favorite opponent, claiming that what China is doing is "far worse." And as he had done the night before at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, he stressed, "I do get along with President Putin."
The times are changing. What Truman did was in a different era. No comparison. We were on top after WWII. Korea saw the beginning of a change that continued until the Soviet Union came apart. Vietnam intervention did it's share of weakening the country's economy.
Bush the second started a downhill slide of our financial strength with his Mideast and Afghanistan fiascoes.
Obamma was and is a flopping fish.
I see Trump slowly cleaning up ragged edges by getting us out of or changing involvements that are no longer needed. We can pretty much take care of ourselves these days. The fed should be reigned in after this current situation with the virus and the economy destroying well intentioned responses to it by one particular political party.
This is how I see things for my 3/4 of a century.
Multilateral sounds really, really good. If you have relatives overseas, lived overseas, or extensively traveled overseas, multilateral sounds really good.
However, multilateral does not mean that the USA is 2nd fiddle. or even last fiddle. It means that we get to pick up 25%, 40% or more of the tab, get denounced by authoritarian regimes, whose people run the UN bureaucracies and for little result.
Bilateral relations might mean more work for diplomats than multilateral agreements, but we pay them to work not to push an easy button collect 200 passing Go, and letting America be a punching bag.
MID ALL THE FURIOUS responses to the Atlantic article alleging that President DONALD TRUMP had called American troops “suckers” and “losers,” one thing leaps out: You didn’t see Republican members of Congress leaping to defend the president’s character.
SOME OF THIS may be the late summer recess talking. But I’m told telephones and the internet still work outside of Washington -- and Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill did not exactly rally to his defense. Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.), for one, managed to praise the president for saving the military publication Stars & Stripes, but said nothing directly about the big story White House aides and loyal alumni were scrambling to discredit. Other prominent GOP members ignored the subject altogether.
IF FOREIGN POLICY SCHOLARS were analyzing the TRUMP government like they do those of other countries, they’d note all this. They’d comment on how much the president relied on his family members during the Republican National Convention. They’d point to all the defections from former officials, the proliferating Republicans-against-Trump groups, and the Chamber of Commerce’s recent endorsement of 23 House Democrats. They’d talk about a narrowing of the government’s elite base of support.
“These mail-in ballots are a disgrace, and they know it,” he scoffed.
But Trump isn’t alone in trying to undermine faith in absentee ballots. U.S. officials say a Russian disinformation campaign is pushing the same disruptive message to Americans four years after the Kremlin sought to help Trump win the White House.
A Homeland Security intelligence bulletin issued hours before Trump spoke in Latrobe, Pa., warned that a Moscow-backed operation involving state media and proxy websites had “denigrated vote-by-mail processes, alleging they lack transparency and procedural oversight, creating vast opportunities for voter fraud.”
U.S. officials say Russia’s operation includes false allegations that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s health is failing and that he acted improperly in Ukraine when he served as vice president. Trump has made the same allegations.
Clerk is going full throttle now.
He is so mad, he cannot see straight. He forgot to copy and past the 1st letter of the 1st word of his 1244 post.
What a buffoon.
I've been making fun of the little parrot, aka Fred for years.
But do I think he's real?
Not really.
I've talked to many online, none and I mean none have been wrong so often and impressed by themselves so frequently as this porn website operator/ Democrat.
And the irony in it all. A 90 year old guy who has been running a smut website for nearly 2 decades now, lecturing us on how bad and sexist we Republicans are.
And as you all know and witnessed in your own lives, those who point the fingers... Fred Lapides, Pelosi, Weinstein, Epstein, Wiener, Schiff, all these ghoulish people judging us while half of them are in jail, break laws constantly or are just intellectually and morally disgusting.
But. Their vote counts too. In fact sometimes 2-3 times more than your or my vote. We are the poor, dumb rednecks in flyover states. What do we know. Leave the big picture issues to the likes of Fed Lapides and Pelosi and Wiener and Clinton. THEY are so much better , in every way, than you or I.
Regardless of what Lapides is, he now admits to liking accusations from unnamed sources. But everyone knows about his affair with the male student.
So I wouldn't put any credence in what he says. In the end as someone said he's just a loser.
I just appreciate the blatant irony. It's always the same. Democrats call Republicans the most evil people. And then they say they are inclusive. Unless you don't share their view, of course. Then they stomp your head in or make u kneel, all in the name of social justice.
Humans in 2020.
2:24,
I am going to say you are a foreign trol.
Truth hurts doesn't it Lapides?
Lololololololo, don't forget the second l!
No, what I am saying is that we do not know what you allege. What you allege is not something you should allege unless you have proof and you have none. I am going to believe the opposite of what you say.
@3:21 Gosh you've mistaken me for someone who cares what you think. You are so obvious. You want proof but you believe in anon sources, lololo.
Loser
The male student knew it.
The 4:03 person has it. There's been confirmation of the anon sources story of Lapides relationship with one of his male students.
Is this guy (Lapides) a real person?
I will say this for Lapides:
He has enough guts and manhood to use his real name from time to time and not like the sissies here who badmouth him and hide behind Anon...little femmes afraid and gutless and so hide.
and, no: I never lectured gop folks on moral matters.
ps: no source on a fake relationship. If you are so concerned: I married a former student, a lovely woman, and we have been married some 37 years with two great children. So blow your bullshit out of your mother's asshole
Clerky he's got confirmed sources about you girly boy!
PS. Never lectured lololol, you have to lie better than that.
Lapides,
Come on man, it's fun using anon sources, you do it all the time.
Unfortunately Warnewsupdates is being blacklisted by google. I am using the command
SITE:warnewsupdates.blogspot.com
as I have in the past to narrow a search just to WNU's blog and Google is giving me anything but WNU's blog.
Someone is giving different numbers than in the past and I wanted to check it.
"...and, no: I never lectured gop folks on moral matters.
ps: no source on a fake relationship. If you are so concerned: I married a former ..."
Was there a shift from 1st person to 3rd person to 1st person?
At least someone comes by their GOP hate honestly. It is all in the family.
As for myself , I have been converted to the liberal sacrament of abortion for everybody and his brother. I believe every city of 500,000 or more should have an abortionist/vivisectionist and double so if the mayor is a Democrat. I also believe that Planned Parenthood should go public and be traded on the Dow Jones Stock Exchange. Parts is parts.
That anon who has an obsession about this Lapides dude clearly is lacking some mental faculties.
Not really. You're being obvious again.
You better look out the clerk is on to you!
I'm not worried, I admit I'm a little surprised by his "relationship" with his student. But worried no.
Anonymous sources also told me that Fred Lapides likes the boy students.
But hey... we are not like Democrats who do that anonymous sources and whistle blower shit. That's for demonic ghouls like them.
We just tease our intellectual enemies. Fred. It's all fun and games. But don't pretend you're better than any of us.
Think of how vile Democrats are
This is not Parrot.
You need proof before saying anything like that. Parrot does post many articles without links. Based on the sentences themselves that are copied and pasted, one can find the website and link. Parrot is just lazy or stubborn in not posting a link. So his/her sources while not linked are not anonymous. They are just hidden and we know they come from the usual journalistic rags like WaPo and NYT. Again, I will take you for a troll.
and, sir, all you post are snotty childish attacks on the guy but nothing to refute what he has posted. That makes you even lower than the person you would demean. Grow Up
Trump said Obama got into Harvard Law because of 'f***ing affirmative action': Cohen says in book
Mine are confirmed " girly boy"!
You're the Mr. Big Intel and you fall for anything especially YOUR own tactics, loser.
Author of BLM Book “In Defense of Looting” Is An Occupy Wall Street Transgender with Connections to the NYTimes, China and Obama
Daddy worked for President Barry Soetero.
Sonny was arrested for blocking traffic on Brooklyn Bridge during OWS in 2011. Charges were dropped. With so much white privilege Sonny decided to push the limits and explore the wold side as a tranvestite.
Daddy is so proud.
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