The commentariat seems agog that Trump has done nothing to stand up for the democratic aspirations expressed by protesters in Hong Kong and Russia. The best he could offer was to call the former “a very tough situation. We’ll see what happens. I hope it all works out.” Ho hum.
He also echoed the moral blindness of Charlottesville in suggesting an equivalence between those seeking freedom and those trying to deny it. Churchillian he is not — a spectator rather than a participant at best, a collaborator with the dark side at worst. If there are sides to take abroad he is in favor of brute force against victims’ rights every time. Like all wannbe be tyrants, protest of any kind is anathema to Trump.
And at home he has hardly compiled a pro-democracy record. Trump took Putin’s word rather than that of American intelligence services regarding Russian subversion of a democratic election. He has done nothing to halt the Chinese theft of American intellectual property. He ran as a friend of a struggling middle class but his policies have not improved their lot. Rather they have favored the oligarchy he belongs to.
His isolationist tariffs have done more to hurt American consumers, farmers, and manufacturers than their intended target, and though he has paid lip service to fighting the opioid epidemic, he hasn’t acted forcefully nor has he punished the Chinese for flooding America with the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. This in the equivalent of chemical warfare and can be seen as exacting a long-delayed revenge for the Opium Wars of the 19th century that reduced China from the largest economy on Earth to a state of subservience until the last 30 years.
On immigration, race, equal justice and a host of other issuesTrump has promoted anti-democratic policies that favor cronies and entrenched power and discriminate against the average American citizen, particularly minorities. He has persistently attempted to pack the judicial branch with partisans and to diminish the power and prerogatives of the legislative branch, the better to concentrate control in an imperial executive.
He has even gone so far as to encourage an ally, Israel, to refuse entry to members of Congress who oppose his policies. This sort of lèse-majeste would be bad enough in ordinary times, but around the globe we are seeing a generation of vipers take power. In many cases they share Trump’s taste for populist rhetoric as a smokescreen for anti-democratic policies. Often, he has been their enabler rather than their enemy.
For 70 years, the postwar order — erected to prevent the authoritarian forces that created two world wars from returning — protected the West economically and politically. Trump, working from a playbook authored by people like Putin and Xi, has treated important stabilizing institutions to malign neglect when he hasn’t actively undermined them. These include the United Nations, NATO, the EU, trade and arms treaties, banking regulations and on and on.
The crumbling of these bulwarks and Trump’s blatant enthusiasm for autocracy has given license to murderous thugs like Erdogan in Turkey, MBS in Saudi Arabia, the Iranians and of course Russia, China, and North Korea. It has even tempted putative democratic allies, like India, to act recklessly at the risk of provoking open conflict with Pakistan. When the cop is not on the beat, mischief makers are undeterred.
Once an American president, armed with a big stick, would have been a voice for reason, order and democratic values. No more. Now a drift to the authoritarian right in Europe, the possible unraveling of the EU, and the American president’s refusal to step up in favor of traditional allies and democratic values has emboldened tyrants, especially those in Russia and China. Seeing weakness, they are trying to seize a long-awaited opportunity to advance their project — nothing less than 21st Century global dominance, at the expense of the democratic order, and to do so by any means necessary.