I am currently teaching a course in Baton Rouge via OLLI/LSU on the History of Palestine. The 7th Session will be on the New World Order following WWII. To better understand that history, I am reading a book by Walter Issacson entitled “The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made”. The men were: Averell Harriman, Robert Lovett, Dean Acheson, John McCloy, George Kennan, and Charles Bohlen. They were intellectual elites that attended the best East Coast prep schools and Universities – Princeton, Harvard or Yale. In time, they would become known by some as “The Establishment”
Issacson says of them: “They shared a vision of public service as a lofty calling and an aversion to the pressures of partisan politics. They had a pragmatic and businesslike preference for realpolitik over ideology. As internationalists who respected the manners and traditions of Europe, they waged a common struggle against the pervasive isolationism of their time. Their world view was shaped by ….an unabashed belief in America’s sacred destiny (and their own) to take the lead in protecting freedom around the globe and create what Henry Luce in a 1941 Life magazine article envisioned as ‘The American Century.’”
These were the men who made America Great. And they made America Great by making America Good – exactly what de Tocqueville had observed over a century before.
My Trump supporting friends ding me for criticizing President Trump and his team before they have had a chance to really prove themselves. Why not wait and see if they are able to “Make America Great Again?”
As I was reading this book, I realized why I believe there is no possible road to Greatness for America by following Donald Trump’s lead. Every one of the men who made America great would have been immediately fired by Mr. Trump. He has near total control of the government of the United States, and he surrounds himself solely with partisan sycophants. And as the destruction of USAID indicates, he has no desire for America to be a force for good in the world and he has no interest in supporting and fostering freedom and democracy in other countries. Rather, he has a prediction for autocrats and for using America’s military might to force nations to bend to his will.
So, no matter how much richer or more powerful America might become through blackmail and plunder of other nations, we will not be better or greater; we will just be meaner and more selfish, and thereby less great than at any time in our history.
At some point, I am confident that many of my fellow Americans who love our country and want to see us again become a great nation, will realize that we cannot get there without leaders of good moral character. And therefore, they must abandon Donald Trump and find an alternative leader who will restore our goodness and thereby our greatness.
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