MAGA is primarily a personality cult, the objectives of which evolve to suit Trump’s capricious moods. Yet his pivot to new wars of conquest is not some shocking reversal. The “Donroe Doctrine,” as he calls his assertion of regional supremacy—a Trumpian extension of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which established the United States’ claim over the Americas in order to keep Europeans out—is in fact consistent with his deepest beliefs. In some ways, it represents the ultimate expression of the world order he hopes to engineer.
A desire to dominate—an eagerness to bully his counterparties into submission—is perhaps the essence of Trump’s character. Trump’s unexpected political resurrection and return to the White House have emboldened his ambitions, which have spread outward. His threats against Canada, Panama, and Greenland, and his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, have little to do with national interest and everything to do with reifying a new order in which he’s the boss and the leaders of neighboring countries are his cowering subordinates.
-Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic
No comments:
Post a Comment