Why Trump was right

By Deauwand Myers

Please, before the deluge of emails, hear me out.

Venal, cruel, racist, sexist, corpulent (and like a lot of unattractive men, has much to say about other people's appearances, when they themselves could use a gym membership and makeover), a malignant narcissist, dangerously ignorant about domestic and foreign affairs, Trump is frightening.

And though I stand by my earlier assertion we've had worse American presidents, Trump's psychological instability is worrying because he has complete control of America's nuclear arsenal.

All that being said, on key topics, Trump was right.

Probably the most salient point Trump made in his unorthodox and improbably successful campaign was America's self-imposed role as global cop. Neo-conservatives, former President Bush and Vice President Cheney principle among them, were aghast to hear the cold, hard truth mediated through the flawed vessel of Mr. Trump:

The Iraq War was a colossal failure. Immoral, illegal, illegitimate, ill-conceived, poorly executed, and costly in both American and Iraqi lives and American treasure, the Iraq War will go down as one of the most destabilizing events in modern world history, giving rise to ISIS and helping to metastasize the evil ideology of fundamental, apocalyptic Islamism across the world.

Trump said as much, though in blunter terms. More broadly, his "America First" policy, though problematic for lots of reasons, holds in it a cornel of truth.

America has overextended itself in geopolitical affairs and supplied wealthy Asian countries like Japan and Korea, and most of Europe, with military protection worth billions, annually.

The idea that America should be everywhere and do everything via the barrel of a gun is dangerous and expensive. While America supplied Europe, Japan, and Korea with defense, those countries were able to use their own resources to create generous social welfare programs, universal healthcare chief among them.

There are real, tangible opportunity costs to spreading our military might across the globe, particularly after the fall of the Soviet Union. America's military expenditures (over $600 billion, more than the next 10 countries combined, depending on the fiscal year), provides a stark contrast to our lack of a sustainable, humane, and effective universal healthcare system modern infrastructure.

With a great deal of help from the USSR, America helped free the world from fascism. Great. That triumph does not mean we have to live in the faded glory of being humanity's savior, with the odd and dangerous belief that America has a divine, perpetual right and obligation to solve conflicts and impose our beliefs wherever and whenever possible. It's nonsense.

When Trump first won, I, like much of the world, was shocked and saddened. But what bemused me just as much was the reaction of friends and associates from other nations, like France, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Korea, even Russia. You'd think they voted in the American election. I asked a very smart French friend of mine why he was so invested in the American election, and he said "because of America's place in the world."

And I wondered, besides for investment in the American economy via U.S. bonds, how has America benefited from this unofficial role as global arbiter? How has the world benefited from this arrangement? We have little to show for so much treasure and blood spent (and often misspent) on being said arbiter.

Worse, such a position fuels hubris (one of the main reasons America has involved itself in so many geopolitical shenanigans). Iran? We did that. Osama Bin Laden? We did that. Saddam Hussein? We funded that. Freedom and justice have seldom been the goals of American intervention post-World War II. What the world is left with is an unstable geopolitical environment, not to mention the human death and misery such entanglements create.

Oddly, this hubris crosses political lines. Democrats oversaw the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Republicans orchestrated Operation Ajax, overthrowing the democratically elected government in Iran, leading directly to the Iranian theocracy we now have to deal with. The disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco was thought up by JFK, a Democrat, precipitating the near destruction of all humanity in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Vietnam War spanned Democratic and Republican administrations.

Though I like Secretary Clinton, her foreign policy principles closely trace those of hawkish Republicans. She doesn't believe American intervention has been a net negative for the world. As smart and educated as she is, I wonder what history books has she been reading?

Of course, Trump is a big, empty suit. He performs as a staunch conservative because that's what his base and his advisers are. Worse, his rhetoric is vapid and innocuous, as he doesn't have the will or intellectual curiosity to actually find out how to do much of what he promised in his campaign.

Still, a broken clock is right twice a day.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.