A recent speech by George W. Bush made headlines for its pointed criticisms of Donald Trump, but there was something else he said that I found far more compelling. As soon as he finished his thank-yous and his little jokes, Mr. Bush dived immediately into the heart of the crisis confronting Western democracies today:
“The great democracies face new and serious threats, yet seem to be losing confidence in their own calling and competence. Economic, political and national security challenges proliferate, and they are made worse by the tendency to turn inward. The health of the democratic spirit itself is at issue. And the renewal of that spirit is the urgent task at hand.”
I was hardly a fan of how Mr. Bush sought to renew that spirit as president. But I was impressed with these words. They show an understanding of the grave stakes that challenge the United States and other Western democracies.
The problem is not simply one of Mr. Trump’s coarseness and divisiveness and extremism. The problem, from Brexit to Mr. Trump’s election to the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, is how the liberal order responds to a crisis that threatens its erasure in favor of a reactionary, authoritarian alternative.
Those are pretty high stakes. I’m glad Mr. Bush understands them, but given that he’s retired, not much hinges on whether he grasps them.
Much hangs, however, on whether the Democrats understand them. And if they expect to recapture the White House in 2020 and take the lead in restoring and reforming the postwar democratic framework, they — or, at least, one of them — absolutely must.
I haven’t seen much evidence that the party and its crop of potential presidential candidates are up for it. I was disappointed, for example, that after the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., while Democrats duly denounced President Trump’s reaction and the rally’s white supremacism and the right’s defense of Confederate statuary (tough calls!), no one who purports to want to lead the party — and country — out of this darkness stepped forward to offer broader reflections on that grim episode.
Bah! It’s too early for that, some will say. The Democrats are an opposition party right now, and their main job is to oppose. And under the leadership of Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, they’re doing that quite well. But I don’t think Democratic reluctance here is just a matter of timing.
The Democrats are undergoing a historic transformation, from being the party that embraced neoliberalism in the early 1990s to one that is rejecting that centrist posture and moving left. There’s plenty about this to cheer — the neoliberal Democratic Party didn’t do nearly enough to try to arrest growing income inequality, among other shortcomings.
There will be necessary internecine fights, and they boil down to loyalty tests on particular positions demanded by the vanguard. Consider the debate within the party on Senator Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” bill, which most (though not all) 2020 contenders rushed to attach themselves to. To fail to sign on to that legislation is to open oneself to criticism, even abuse, although it’s less a piece of legislation than a goal.
Forget about who’s right and wrong in these debates. Time will sort that out.
My point is that they tend to consume a party experiencing a shift. The Democratic Party, because it is an amalgam of interest groups in a way the Republican Party is not, has always had a tendency to elevate the candidate who can check the most boxes. The current internal dynamics exacerbate that. It’s also worth remembering that no one besides party activists cares.
So when the party’s leaders tussle over this or that policy, they also need to take a step back, to see the direction the country — the West itself — is heading, and take a stand on it. This isn’t just a matter of high-minded idealism; it’s what separates great politicians from merely good ones.
History tells us that the transformative politicians, the ones who can change the country’s direction and will really matter in the history books, are the ones who can do both. I think there have been four of them in the past century: Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Why Roosevelt and Reagan should be obvious. I know some would dispute my choice of Mr. Clinton, but he rescued a party that had lost three presidential elections in a row and was being read last rites by some pundits in 1991 (the extent to which he changed the country’s fundamental direction is debatable). Mr. Obama made history and redrew the electoral map. All four were able to speak both to their base and beyond it by identifying the challenge of the moment and persuading majorities that they had some answers.
The future of the Western democratic project is the fundamental issue of our era. It’s under attack from Vladimir Putin and Steve Bannon and many people in between (and to the extent that he backs Mr. Bannon’s purge of the Republican Party, from the president himself; think about that).
Democrats can’t duck this question and expect the broader electorate to see them as prepared to lead. To his credit, Mr. Sanders did talk a bit about all this in a foreign-policy speech in late September at the same Missouri college where Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech, noting an “international order” that is “under great strain.”
The Democrats were the party that created this order after World War II. They must now be the party that fixes and saves it.
Michael Tomasky is a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.
I wonder if we could love passionately, if ecstasy would be possible at all, if we knew we’d never die.
—Abraham Maslow
“Where is wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
—T.S Eliot
The mind learns by doing. The heart learns by trying.
—Unknown
Take what you want, said God, and pay for it.
—Spanish Proverb
Sex without love leaves the body cold. Love without sex leaves the soul empty.
—Linda Goodman
Don’t judge a man by what he has. Judge a man by what he gives.
—Unknown
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, otherwise what’s Heaven for?
—Robert Browning
Genius begins great works. Labor alone finishes them.
—Unknown
“What we are aiming at when we fall in love is a very strange paradox. The paradox consists of the fact, that when we fall in love, we are seeking to re-find all or some of the people who we were attached as children. On the other hand, we ask our beloved to correct all of the wrongs that these early parents or siblings inflicted upon us. Love contains in it the contradiction; the attempt to return to the past and the attempt to undo the past”
—From the film, Crimes and Misdemeanors
“Perhaps the most one can say is that the normal artist at his easel goes from his normality out to the edges of his personality and approaches madness. Meanwhile, the psychotic artist goes from his craziness out to the edges of his personality and approaches the normal. They come from different directions, but they meet in a no man’s land we call art.”
—Unknown
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
—Emerson
“Science is the remedy to feeling at odds with employees over getting more work out of them.”
—Taylor
two shall be born…the whole wide world apart
and speak in different tongues…and have no thought
each, of the other’s being…and no heed
and these same two
o’er unknown seas, to unknown lands, shall cross
escaping wreck, defying death
and all unconsciously
shape each act, and bend each wandering step
to this one end…
that one day, out of darkness
they must meet
and read Life’s meaning in each other’s eyes
and these same two
along some narrow way of Life shall walk
so nearly side by side
that should one turn, ever so little space
to left…or right
their needs must be acknowledged, face to face
and yet…
with wistful eyes, that never meet
and groping hands that never clasp
with lips, calling in vain, to ears that never hear
they seek each other all their weary days
and die unsatisfied
…and this is Fate
—unknown
“Until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what am I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”
—Stephen R. Covey
“You have to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.
—Yogi Berra
“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
—John Ruskin
“Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
—Alexander Smith
“The deepest hunger of the human soul is to be understood. The deepest hunger of the human body is for air. If you can listen to another person, in depth, until they feel understood, it’s the equivalent of giving them air.”
—Stephen R. Covey
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
If you trap the moment before it’s ripe,
The tears of repentance
you’ll certainly wipe;
But if once you let the ripe moment go
You can never wipe off the tears of woe.
—William Blake 1791
“You fall out of your mother’s womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave.”
—Quentin Crisp
“Next to a circus there ain’t nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.
-Kin Hubbard
If you can find something everyone agrees on, it’s wrong.”
-Mo Udall
An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it.
-Don Marquis
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
-George Bernard Shaw
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be,
-Paul Valery
Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions.
-Robert Ardrey
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
-Mark Twain
Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; for another thing they die earlier
-H.L. Mencken
Lying is a way of taking personal responsibility for reality.
-Garrison Keillor
Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.
-Alfred Hitchcock
Government is too big and important to be left to the politicians.
-Chester Bowles
Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.
-H.L. Mencken
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
-Schopenhauer
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
-Lily Tomlin
Ours is a world where people don’t know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.
-Don Marquis
You can have what you want or what you need, but not both.
-Unknown
The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals. Whether you are dealing with the question of who does what at work, how you communicate with your daughter when you tell her to clean her room. or who feeds the fish and takes out the garbage, you can be certain that unclear expectations will lead to misunderstanding, disappointment, and withdrawals of trust.
Communication is primarily a function of trust, not of technique. When the trust is high, communication is easy, it’s effortless. it’s instantaneous, and it’s effective-it works. But when the trust is low and the Emotional Bank Account is overdrawn, communication is exhausting, it’s terribly time-consuming, and it’s like walking around a minefield.
-Steven Covey
“Listening to your heart, finding out who you are, is not
simple. It takes time for the chatter to quiet down. In
the silence of “not doing” we begin to know what we feel.
If we listen and hear what is being offered, then anything
in life can be our guide…Listen.”
-Unknown
“I’m not who I was twenty years ago and I won’t be who I am now in the next twenty years.”
-FM2030 (From Optimism 1)
“Conventional names define a person by his past.”
-FM2030 (From Optimism 1)
“There’s far less mystery to human behavior than there are problems.”
-Anonymous
“House guests are like fish. After two days they start to smell.”
-Unknown
“If you want to sell something to everybody, make sure it has a big bust line.”
-Unknown Advertising Executive
“Life is a game. You’re either playing yours or you’re playing somebody else’s.”
– Michael Bailey
“If you want to know where the country is heading. Look at the Congressman.”
-Michael Bailey
“There’s no such state as formless. Some boundaries are further away, but they are always there.”
-Michael Bailey
“I like lesbians. They’re like really cool men.”
-Michael Bailey
“Problems cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created them”
-Albert Einstein
“Men are made both fools and heroes by women.”
-Michael Bailey
“Money is like sex. You think of nothing else if you don’t have it.”
-James Baldwin
“Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
So many citizens of this great country voted for this Bull-in-a-China-Shop President. The substantial forces of racism and xenophobia, sadly contributed greatly to this train wreck election, but many of the other Trump supporters hold self defeating tendencies by underestimating the complexities of government in a Democracy.
Well, it took almost a year, but we now have the “Trump Doctrine.” It’s very simple. And, as you’d expect, it fits neatly into a tweet. On nearly every major issue, President Trump’s position is: “Obama built it. I broke it. You fix it.”
And that cuts right to the core of what is the most frightening thing about the Trump presidency. It’s not the president’s juvenile tweeting or all the aides who’ve been pushed out of his clown car at high speed or his industrial-strength lying.
It’s Trump’s willingness to unravel so many longstanding policies and institutions at once — from Nafta to Obamacare to the global climate accord to the domestic clean power initiative to the Pacific trade deal to the Iran nuclear deal — without any real preparation either on the day before or for the morning after.
Indeed, Trump has made most of his climate, health, energy and economic decisions without consulting any scientists, without inviting into the White House a broad range of experts, without putting forth his own clear-cut alternatives to the systems he’s unraveling, without having at the ready a team of aides or a political coalition able to implement any alternatives and without a strategic framework that connects all of his dots.
In short, we’re simply supposed to take the president’s word that this or that deal “is the worst deal ever” — backed up by no serious argument or plan about how he will produce a better one.
I’m open to improving any of these accords or institutions. I’m even open to the possibility that by just tipping over all these accords at once, and throwing away his steering wheel, Trump will get people to improve the Iran deal or Obamacare out of sheer panic at the chaos that might ensue if they don’t.
But I am equally open to the possibility that unraveling all of these big systems at once — health, energy, geopolitics — without a clear plan or a capable team will set in motion chain reactions, some of them long term, that Trump has not thought through in the least. Moreover, when you break big systems, which, albeit imperfectly, have stabilized regions, environments or industries for decades, it can be very difficult to restore them.
Question: We’re told by our secretary of state that he’s been engaged in some secret contacts with North Korea, exploring the possibility of a diplomatic solution that might dramatically reduce North Korea’s nuclear arsenal in return for U.S. promises of regime security. If, at the same time, Trump unilaterally pulls out of the deal we’ve already signed with Iran to prevent it from developing nukes — and Trump moves to reimpose sanctions — how does that not send only one message to the North Koreans: No deal with the U.S. is worth the paper it’s written on, so you’d be wise to hold on to all your nukes?
Question: Iran controls tens of thousands of Shiite militiamen in Iraq and Syria who were our tacit allies in defeating ISIS. Tehran also has huge influence over Iraq’s government and over certain regions of Afghanistan as well. Can we stabilize Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan — post-ISIS — and keep our troop presence low and safe, without Iran’s help — and will that help be coming after Trump rips up the nuclear deal? If you think so, please raise your hand.
And since our European allies as well as Russia and China have indicated that they will not follow us in backing out of the Iran deal or reimposing sanctions, Iran would have all the moral high ground and money it needs, and the U.S. would be isolated. Are we going to sanction E.U. banks if they deal with Iran?
Trump came into office vowing to end the trade imbalance with China — a worthy goal. And what was his first move? To tear up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the trade deal that would have put the U.S. at the helm of a 12-nation trading bloc built around U.S. interests and values, potentially eliminating some 18,000 tariffs on U.S. goods and controlling 40 percent of global G.D.P. And China was not in the group. That’s called leverage.
Trump just ripped up the TPP to “satisfy the base” and is now left begging China for trade crumbs, with little leverage. And because he needs China’s help in dealing with North Korea, he has even less leverage on trade.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord and, at the same time, restricted U.S. government funding for birth control both at home and abroad. Question: What is driving so many immigrants and refugees in Africa, the Middle East and Central America to try to get out of their world of disorder and into America and Europe and the world order?
Answer: It is a cocktail of climate change, environmental degradation, population explosions and misgovernance in these countries. So Trump’s policy is to throw away every tool we have to mitigate climate change and population growth and try to build a wall instead, while also trying to bully Mexico’s unpopular president into trade concessions, which could help elect a radical populist in next year’s Mexican election — a successor who would be anti-American — and destabilize its economy as well.
At a time when China has decided to go full-bore into clean tech and electric cars, at a time when all of the tech giants are building data centers that they want powered by clean energy, at a time when solar and wind power are growing increasingly competitive with fossil fuels (and America still has a technological lead in many of these areas), at a time when climate change may be stimulating bigger hurricanes and forest fires that are costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, Trump’s central energy initiative is to reverse Obama’s and bring back coal-fired power.
None of these dots connect. And we will pay for that. “Whiplash” was a great movie. But it’s a terrible organizing principle for our foreign or domestic policy.
