(Oil & Gas 360) – After the fall of the Iron Curtain the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) embraced the concept that the world would be run by a group of benign democracies forevermore as a basis for foreign policy. It was a fantasy; the world did not work out that way – it is a dangerous place with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and pending conflict in many other places.
Because Donald Trump, as a businessman, saw the world more realistically, he never subscribed to, or implemented policy based on, CFR’s beliefs. Therefore, they are attempting to portray him as an isolationist. As noted previously, several weeks ago they started publishing a series of essays on the weekends called On the Ballot. Over the past few weeks, they expanded their effort to sway the election against Trump.
Not only does CFR offer 3 or 4 essays in its On the Ballot series on the weekends but is now offering essays during the week. Some are new, some are old – they are resurrecting previous essays from well before Biden dropped out and Harris became the candidate. Some of these, such as Robert Gates’ The Dysfunctional Superpower were originally a general criticism of recent US foreign policy including and particularly that of the Biden-Harris Administration.
The attack on Trump is deceptive. Many of these essays do not mention him by name. In introductory comments CFR describes Trump as a “populist” and an “isolationist”. Many of the essays, such as those by Condoleeza Rice or Robert Gates, which are critiques of isolationism or populism do not mention Trump. They target him by implication.
Trump negotiated the Abraham Accords to get Arab countries to recognize Israel, negotiated an exit deal from Afghanistan with the Taliban (under which no Americans were killed for over a year) and retained possession of Bagram Air Base. Why would he want to retain Bagram if he were an isolationist? He also negotiated new trade agreements with Mexico, South Korea, Vietnam, and Japan and convinced Europeans to increase military expenditures. He also is the only US President who had several hundred Russians killed. Trump obviously is not an isolationist.
CFR, and the foreign policy establishment in general, have policy preferences indicating they still do not quite realize they were wrong. All the years of conferences, discussions, essays, policies, globalization, and free trade were based on a false concept of the world. Many of us working in the real world saw something quite different than the international globalized system of democracies envisioned by the CFR, Davos crowd, academia, think tanks, and the European welfare paradises who made themselves irrelevant in world affairs. That concept is not the world we are in. Nevertheless, the CFR wants to label Trump an isolationist because he never believed in their view of the world.
Calling him a Populist is probably valid although definitions of Populism are varied and vague. Populism comes about when the people realize the elites they empower are running things for their own benefit, not for the people who elect them. The people then decide to make big changes.
The US reached that point a few years ago. The people see:
- an educational system with falling test scores used to indoctrinate students in sex and strange concepts of history.
- rising costs.
- an open border admitting criminals, terrorists, and welfare burdens for generations to come.
- a corrupt court system.
- media used for propaganda which distorts and edits material for propaganda purposes.
- incompetent university presidents and rioting students with no penalties for their actions.
- huge government expenditures with no benefit.
- government mandates that stifle efficiency of corporations people work for.
- a military with DEI generals and admirals, ships that cannot get repaired and new ones cannot get built, airplanes not fit for service, low on ammo, and low morale.
- financial institutions who do not know inflation when it starts and then cannot make up their mind what to do about it.
- hurricane help that does not show up.
- a politicized FBI which cannot protect them from Chinese spying or foreign gangs infiltrating over the open border.
- prosecutors who do not prosecute criminals.
- a health system bogged down in procedures and regulations.
- mismanagement of the currency leading to foreign attempts to replace it.
- a system, institutions, and government that do not work for their benefit.
- a group of elite, self-absorbed, disconnected people in charge who have betrayed them and have been doing so for decades.
The people do not trust the system anymore and they want a change. No matter what definition of Populism one accepts, the historic causes of populism are conditions now prevalent in the US. Trump comes from outside the system and relates to and recognizes these problems. The people respond to this. Yes, he is a populist.
The CFR, a member of the elite group, does not understand this and uses Populist as a pejorative, but a Populist candidate is a natural outcome of the failure of a system of which CFR is a part. CFR is running a full blitz of essays and commentaries directed against Trump on subjects now including China relations and policy, climate, the Middle East, and international trade.
The CFR essay attack makes no mention of Kamala Harris, her expected policies, or how her policies will be an improvement over Trump’s. It paints Trump with a false brush and attempts to disparage him. She is the missing mystery and seems to be exempt from all criticism. She does not have the intelligence, experience, principles, or moral basis to form policy on her own. She will be a laughing puppet. Of whom? The geniuses of CFR? Think tanks? Campaign donors? These are the same people running things so badly now. None of them seem to have ever functioned in the real world of building things, farming, ranching, making things, producing things, moving things around, or anything else useful. They are all part of the politician – bureaucrat – academic – think tank echo chamber that passes laws, regulations, and taxes and mismanages the largest debt and budget in the world.
By Dr. Charles A Kohlhaas for oilandgas360.com
