Share
Save
PDF
Gift
Argument
An expert's point of view on a current event.
Calling Trump an Anti-Imperialist Is Nonsense
The anti-war left shouldn’t fall for this dishonest pitch.
By Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a 2023 forum in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a 2023 forum in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Scott Olson/Getty Images
My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In
April 18, 2023, 1:02 PM
View Comments (2)
There’s a song on the Lemonheads’ underrated 1996 album Car Button Cloth that I love for very personal reasons. “The Outdoor Type” is a jangly pop tune in which the narrator admits that he had earlier misled his partner about his true interests:
I can’t go away with you on a rock-climbing weekend;
What if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again;
Trending Articles
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair on Canada's relationship with India
World leaders congregated in Washington last week to mark the 75th anniversary of NATO, the world’s largest security…
Powered By Trackerdslogo
It’s just as well I’m not invited, I’m afraid of heights;
I lied about being the outdoor type.
I love this because I also misrepresented my enthusiasm for rock climbing to someone I very much wanted to spend more time with. And I was thinking about the lies we tell people we’re trying to lay because of the spate of recent articles trying to convince us that former U.S. President Donald Trump is an anti-imperialist.
Sen. J.D. Vance claimed in January that the most important part of Trump’s legacy is his foreign policy. “My entire adult lifetime has been shaped by presidents who threw America into unwise wars and failed to win them,” Vance wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “In Mr. Trump’s four years in office, he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration.”
Trump “has done more to restrain the US imperium than any politician in 75 years,” Christian Parenti wrote in Compact recently. This, Parenti claimed, is the real cause of his prosecution by the Manhattan district attorney. “Trump has been investigated, impeached, and indicted not because of the crimes of which he is accused,” wrote Parenti, “but because he has dared to oppose the imperial foreign policy favored by elites.”
Sohrab Ahmari, a former neoconservative now aligned with the Trumpist right, and one of the founders of Compact, followed up with a piece hailing Trump as “the one figure who in my lifetime has meaningfully rolled back the self-righteous imperium” scolding the anti-war left for not embracing Trump as its true hero. “The left suddenly turns ultra-principled when it comes to judging Trump’s record as an anti-imperial president: He wasn’t a total pacifist! He talked about ‘taking their oil.’ What about Yemen? Come on.”
These pieces foretell a larger effort to seduce the anti-war left with the idea that Trump, despite all evidence to the contrary, is an attractive partner for the project of reining in the American empire—that he really is the Outdoor Type. (Although for Vance, who went from outspoken Trump critic to cravenly falling in line when his political ambition required it, a better tune might be Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With.”)
These pieces all rest heavily on the claim that Trump launched no new wars. That’s true as far as it goes. But it was certainly not for lack of trying. Trump might not have started any wars, but he massively inflamed existing ones—and came close to catastrophic new ones.
Let’s review the record. Despite inveighing against “endless wars,” Trump massively escalated the country’s existing wars in multiple theaters, leading to skyrocketing casualties. In Afghanistan, he substantially upped the amount of airstrikes, leading to a 330 percent increase in civilian deaths. In Yemen, he escalated both U.S. counterterrorism activities and support for the devastating Saudi-led war against the Houthis. According to the United Kingdom’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 2,243 drone strikes in just the first two years of Trump’s presidency, compared with 1,878 in the entire eight years of the Obama administration.
Share
Save
PDF
Gift
Argument
An expert's point of view on a current event.
Calling Trump an Anti-Imperialist Is Nonsense
The anti-war left shouldn’t fall for this dishonest pitch.
By Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a 2023 forum in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at a 2023 forum in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Scott Olson/Getty Images
My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In
April 18, 2023, 1:02 PM
View Comments (2)
There’s a song on the Lemonheads’ underrated 1996 album Car Button Cloth that I love for very personal reasons. “The Outdoor Type” is a jangly pop tune in which the narrator admits that he had earlier misled his partner about his true interests:
I can’t go away with you on a rock-climbing weekend;
What if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again;
Trending Articles
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair on Canada's relationship with India
World leaders congregated in Washington last week to mark the 75th anniversary of NATO, the world’s largest security…
Powered By Trackerdslogo
It’s just as well I’m not invited, I’m afraid of heights;
I lied about being the outdoor type.
I love this because I also misrepresented my enthusiasm for rock climbing to someone I very much wanted to spend more time with. And I was thinking about the lies we tell people we’re trying to lay because of the spate of recent articles trying to convince us that former U.S. President Donald Trump is an anti-imperialist.
Sen. J.D. Vance claimed in January that the most important part of Trump’s legacy is his foreign policy. “My entire adult lifetime has been shaped by presidents who threw America into unwise wars and failed to win them,” Vance wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “In Mr. Trump’s four years in office, he started no wars despite enormous pressure from his own party and even members of his own administration.”
Trump “has done more to restrain the US imperium than any politician in 75 years,” Christian Parenti wrote in Compact recently. This, Parenti claimed, is the real cause of his prosecution by the Manhattan district attorney. “Trump has been investigated, impeached, and indicted not because of the crimes of which he is accused,” wrote Parenti, “but because he has dared to oppose the imperial foreign policy favored by elites.”
Sohrab Ahmari, a former neoconservative now aligned with the Trumpist right, and one of the founders of Compact, followed up with a piece hailing Trump as “the one figure who in my lifetime has meaningfully rolled back the self-righteous imperium” scolding the anti-war left for not embracing Trump as its true hero. “The left suddenly turns ultra-principled when it comes to judging Trump’s record as an anti-imperial president: He wasn’t a total pacifist! He talked about ‘taking their oil.’ What about Yemen? Come on.”
These pieces foretell a larger effort to seduce the anti-war left with the idea that Trump, despite all evidence to the contrary, is an attractive partner for the project of reining in the American empire—that he really is the Outdoor Type. (Although for Vance, who went from outspoken Trump critic to cravenly falling in line when his political ambition required it, a better tune might be Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With.”)
These pieces all rest heavily on the claim that Trump launched no new wars. That’s true as far as it goes. But it was certainly not for lack of trying. Trump might not have started any wars, but he massively inflamed existing ones—and came close to catastrophic new ones.
Let’s review the record. Despite inveighing against “endless wars,” Trump massively escalated the country’s existing wars in multiple theaters, leading to skyrocketing casualties. In Afghanistan, he substantially upped the amount of airstrikes, leading to a 330 percent increase in civilian deaths. In Yemen, he escalated both U.S. counterterrorism activities and support for the devastating Saudi-led war against the Houthis. According to the United Kingdom’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, there were 2,243 drone strikes in just the first two years of Trump’s presidency, compared with 1,878 in the entire eight years of the Obama administration.
Wow, you are rewriting history with Ritchies version. You are really losing your mind in that hole eh?? Ukraine asked to join NATO as ANY COUNTRY has the right to do and US said NO because of Crimea being at odds and issues with Russia but hey, you make up your bullshit to fit your silly narrative .
Trump was pissed at Zelensky because Zelensky wouldn't help him cheat to win his election. Unlike Russia which released Clinton's emails to help your cult leader.
Dude, read a book man.
It was a Republican president called George Bush after the September 11 attack or was that fake too? Admit it, you know jack shit and Jack is still laughing at your posts.
I love it how he takes trunps lies and exaggerates them even more to trillions. What a tool.