US's global reputation hits rock-bottom
And here is one reason among many as to why I don’t suffer American idiots any more. And more fool anyone who does. Stupidity, selfishness, denial of science and expertise, political manipulation, and complete lack of leadership. I’ve made my views clear in recent weeks, I’m not wasting any more time in repeating myself. Trump is hugely out of his depth, that much is obvious except to wilfully blind. It is pointless even checking his claims and statements now.
Here is an article in The Guardian
International relations expert warns policy failure could do lasting damage as president insults allies and undermines alliances.
His supporters are an offensive bunch, too. I think we have suffered this crowd for too long now.
Simon Tisdall
‘Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he once dismissed as a hoax, has been fiercely criticised at home as woefully inadequate to the point of irresponsibility.’
His supporters denied and downplayed the threat, too. And now the criticisms of culpability come, they invite us to think and pray for the leader and imagine how tough a job he has to deal with. The implication of that is that critics are acting in a treacherous way in a time of crisis. It is such poor pleading it is not worth wasting breathe on. Only the irredeemably stupid will fall for it. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of such folk about in the US after decades of grooming.
As with Johnson in the UK, Trump’s preparations were so woefully inadequate as to actually be irresponsible and culpable, there is no borderline here, it has been crossed. Hence the fierce, and totally justified, criticism. Even now I see Trump supporters spinning the facts and figures in order to show how well the US is managing the crisis. I won’t say that they don’t learn from experience, because that isn’t the issue. This isn’t about learning anything at all, it is about constantly spinning reality in order to keep power and control. Of course they know Trump is culpable, and of course they know that decades of economic libertarianism is responsible. They are now practising an anarcho-nationalism and it is implicated in rank bad government. They know it, hence their fevered activity in spinning facts and figures to argue that black is white and foul is fair. We have had sufficient time to learn this lesson about this crowd.
With respect to coronavirus, the facts are clear and simple: the US and the UK delayed, with damaging deadly consequences. As I write this I am watching a report from Ireland, in which an Irish commentator is stating how Ireland took precipitate action and closed things down quicker than did the UK. Hence its death rates are lower. It could be that the virus is hitting them later. We shall wait and see. But it will be interesting to compare the UK to Ireland in the aftermath.
The article continues that ‘thanks largely to Trump, a parallel disaster is unfolding across the world: the ruination of America’s reputation as a safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner.’
Well that is a longstanding issue. Trump’s behaviour over the Paris Climate Agreement should have made the US a pariah. The governments of the world have seemed shocked in disbelief as to how stupid America has become, showing the patience to wait until enough Americans come to their senses. That may be a dangerous game. There are some very nasty, even insane, strains in US culture and politics. There are people in that country who bend reality so far out of shape that insanity is the only word to apply to them.
The article claims that diplomatically speaking, the US is on life support. That’s the US’s problem, the rest of the world needs to act to make sure it doesn’t become their problem.
“The Trump administration’s self-centred, haphazard, and tone-deaf response [to Covid-19] will end up costing Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of otherwise preventable deaths,” wrote Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard.
That tells it like it is. But if you read the accounts and claims of ‘conservatives’ in the US, it is all the fault of everyone but Trump. They are like kids caught in the act, chocolate all around their stupid fat gobs, shaking their heads and saying we never ate it.
“But that’s not the only damage the United States will suffer. Far from ‘making America great again’, this epic policy failure will further tarnish [its] reputation as a country that knows how to do things effectively.”
Since when did the US have this reputation? I would resist the seductions of nostalgia. Seriously, the only reputation that the US has as far as I’m concerned is that of screwing other peoples and countries, and making an absolute pig’s ear of running anything. If anything, there’s an honesty to the age of Trump in that it confirms what we already know about US foreign policy.
‘This adverse shift could be permanent, Walt warned. Since taking office in 2017, Trump has insulted America’s friends, undermined multilateral alliances and chosen confrontation over cooperation. Sanctions, embargoes and boycotts aimed at China, Iran and Europe have been globally divisive.’
This is just such simple stuff. In Games Theory, the ones playing the most selfish, competitive game wins the biggest the quickest. This is the way the most greedy and most stupid play, they go straight for the big results in the shortest time. Of course, in time, the tactics breed resentment and opposition and cause withdrawal. In repeated encounters, there are fewer willing to play the game on those terms. The results dry up.
Up until now, the much maligned leaders of other nations have suffered Trump’s slights and insults silently, in the interests of preserving the broader relationship for the longer run when some semblance of intelligent life returns to American politics. As I say, I wouldn’t bank on it. ‘Trump’s ineptitude and dishonesty in handling the pandemic, which has left foreign observers as well as Americans gasping in disbelief, is proving a bridge too far.’
The same goes for his supporters and apologists. They do a very nasty line in bullying and abuse, as well as peddling the most vicious of lies. There is a cultivation of a stupidity so sheer as to be lunatic. Some of the views I hear expressed are ugly and poisonous. And these views form a normal part of discourse. Maybe it takes someone on the outside to see an insanity for what it is.
‘Erratic behaviour, tolerated in the past, is now seen as downright dangerous. It’s long been plain, at least to many in Europe, that Trump could not be trusted. Now he is seen as a threat. It is not just about failed leadership. It’s about openly hostile, reckless actions.’
I’ve been on the receiving end of Trump supporters. It is a stain on their character, such as it is. They are plainly emboldened by Trump and think they have licence to spew out their vile abuse and lies as they please.
200,000 protective masks destined for Berlin went missing in mysterious circumstances in Thailand, allegedly redirected to the US. The incident has caused a furious reaction in Germany. There is no solid proof Trump approved the heist, but the fact that people believe that this is the kind of thing he would do is the most telling thing of all. The man and all he represents is odious, and his supporters are cut from the same cloth.
“We consider this to be an act of modern piracy. This is no way to treat transatlantic partners. Even in times of global crisis, we shouldn’t resort to the tactics of the wild west,” said Andreas Geisel, a leading Berlin politician. It is significant that Angela Merkel, a woman who has suffered Trump’s insults with patient dignity, has refused to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.
‘Europeans were already outraged by Trump’s reported efforts to acquire monopoly rights to a coronavirus vaccine under development in Germany. This latest example of nationalistic self-interest compounded anger across the EU over Trump’s travel ban, imposed last month without consultation or scientific justification.’
For nationalistic self-interest read anarchic nationalism, the bastardized form that neoliberalism is now taking as it grows ever more monstrous.
US reputational damage is not confined to Europe. There was dismay among the G7 countries that a joint statement on tackling the pandemic could not be agreed because Trump insisted on calling it the “Wuhan virus” – his crude way of pinning sole blame on China.
It isn’t enough to call Trump an idiot and the politics of Trump idiotic, there is much more to it than that, something utterly poisonous and destructive. I’m not just interested in analysing the high politics of this, I am interested in the ‘low,’ as in the impact such a politics is having on persons of ‘conservative’ views. Nasty and abusive. I’ve experienced it, it is ugly and augurs ill for the future. Things may get a whole lot worse before they get any better.
US objections over terminology have also hampered international action at the UN security council. Trump has simply, imperiously, ignored impassioned calls to create a Covid-19 global taskforce or coalition. As the article comments, he appears oblivious to the catastrophe bearing down on millions of people in the developing world. Oblivious or unconcerned. Just as he was unconcerned about the effects on the poor and marginalized in the US.
“Trump’s battle against multilateralism has made it so that even formats like the G7 are no longer working,” commented Christoph Schult in Der Spiegel. “It appears the coronavirus is destroying the last vestiges of a world order.”
It appears that as the capital system implodes, it’s de facto international governing bodies, which never worked in any case, are being dissolved. The problem goes much deeper than Trump, here. Global capital has reached its limits and is now in decline. I warned of precisely this in my economics thesis at Keele University back in 1995, Industry and Europe, find volume 4 on Academia to read precisely how I saw this coming.
‘Trump’s surreal televised Covid-19 briefings are further undermining respect for US leadership. Trump regularly propagates false or misleading information, bets on hunches, argues with reporters and contradicts scientific and medical experts.’
Trump’s briefings are not simply surreal, they are bizarre. The most bizarre thing about it all is the way that reporters and commentators hang on and debate every work, as if proceedings are totally sane and sober. Can no-one see the madness? We are beyond issues of false and misleading information, words and numbers are just random. My budgerigars made more sense. Unfortunately, the routine blaming of the media seems to be rubbing off on too many people. They have their view of reality, and that view is the right and true one. Anyone who dares to deviate is condemned as a critic. It is a bullying into stupidity. And complicity.
There is a rank hypocrisy at work, too. ‘While publicly rejecting foreign help, Trump has privately asked European and Asian allies for aid – even those, such as South Korea, that he previously berated. And he continues to smear the World Health Organization in a transparent quest for scapegoats.’
If you read Trump supporters, the US is dealing with this crisis better than anyone in the world. They are working hard to turn the horror and the tragedy into a US success story, totally ignoring all that this has shown up about how iniquitous US society has become. I don’t know about America First, we could be witnessing the end of the USA:
‘To a watching world, the absence of a fair, affordable US healthcare system, the cut-throat contest between American states for scarce medical supplies, the disproportionate death toll among ethnic minorities, chaotic social distancing rules, and a lack of centralised coordination are reminiscent of a poor, developing country, not the most powerful, influential nation on earth.’
The ideological assault upon ‘government’ and collective purpose has left America weak. It plays the quick and easy game that racks up big wins, but the losses are now coming in, the moral and institutional infrastructure is rotting away, there is nothing left but bluster.
The US will not long remain powerful and influential practising this kind of politics. ‘The domestic debacle unleashed by the pandemic, and global perceptions of American selfishness and incompetence, could change everything.’ Trump supporters don’t see any of this, they are crowing about what a great job Trump is doing, denouncing all and sundry for all that is going wrong. They are in the grip of delusion. According to Walt, Trump has presided over “a failure of character unparalleled in US history”.
The article asks: ‘Do Americans realise how far their country’s moral as well as financial stock has fallen?’ Seriously, I engage with Americans who are conservatives. I am still undecided as to how many can see this, and think an aggressive America First policy will suffice to turn things around, and how many realize that the game is up for the libertarian politics they espouse, but have invested so emotionally for so long in that politics that they cannot change. Then there are those who are influenced by those who spread such a politics, who seem true believers in America. So many, so misguided, so deluded.
There may be more pressing matters to deal with before Americans may want to consider answering that question, but an answer will be required at some date in the near future, both for the Americans and for the international order that emerges from this crisis.
Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister, said he hoped the crisis would force a fundamental US rethink about “whether the ‘America first’ model really works”. The Trump administration’s response had been too slow, he said. “Hollowing out international connections comes at a high price,” Maas warned.
Lasting resentment over how the US went missing in action in the coronavirus wars of 2020 may change the way the world works.
Missing in action applies to delay and prevarication in the UK, too. It is the ideological commitment to ‘free’ markets and deregulation over government that lies behind it. Both the US and the UK are badly governed, and have been for some time. It is about time the citizens of both countries woke up to the fact.