As we’ve been noticing, various media, including our own regional daily, have featured right-of-center columnists making the case that too many of us have been remiss in not giving the Trump Administration a chance. It actually means well, however untraditional, unprepared, untruthful and unnerving it has seemed these first six weeks.
We have to “come together” is the common-purpose theme. We have to be country first. We have to be fair. Agreed. And, BTW, who the hell wouldn’t want to be great again? We’re being encouraged to view Trump through a less judgmental lens. In short, we should see a pathologically narcissistic, existential threat no differently than we would see a Barack Obama or a Mitt Romney. This gives disingenuous a bad name.
But let’s give President Trump his due. He’s on the right, make that arguably correct, side of some important issues. But he apparently gets no credit beyond his fan base, just because his modus operandi is too off-putting to too many. Here are a couple.
First, “radical Islamic terrorism” is neither inaccurate nor offensively inclusive. It’s accurate and specific. But in the name of prioritizing security, vetting immigrants and working to defeat jihadists, do we have to be insensitive, stupid, illegal and, ultimately, counterproductive in the process?
Do we have to traffic in paramilitary-whispering rhetoric and heavy-handed policies? Do we have to alienate both global and local Muslim communities whose help we obviously need?
Second, we need some kind of working relationship with Russia. It’s been a priority of Trump’s since the primaries, and he’s not wrong. Russia is, like it or not, the other major nuclear power in the world. It is, however diminished since its Soviet days, still an important global player. It is a permanent member of the United Nation’s Security Council. And, yes, it is, alas, run by a corrupt, oligarch-sniffing, former KGB punk.
But, yes, you do have to talk to your adversaries–such as Russia–and prevent them from morphing into mortal enemies. We have the worst kind of enemy–unhinged religious zealots looking for apocalyptic weapons of mass destruction–in common. And you have to work with Russia on a range of other common causes–from NATO encroachment to weapons treaties to environmental issues. There was a reason why Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had wanted that much-criticized re-set button with Russia.
Trump is right to want Russia as a practicable partner. But he was alarmingly wrong to have countenanced the past Russian-related affiliations of former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And he’s beyond wrong to have celebrated and encouraged WikiLeaks and allowed his campaign to play election politics with Kremlin-friendly operatives. And it’s been unconscionable to have accused former President Obama of wire-tapping him. He classlessly called Obama a “bad (or sick) guy.” We won’t even get into what leverage that Russian “dossier” might contain.