Back when Saul Alinsky was being promoted, I read his book “Rules for Radicals” and even attended a daylong session in the heart of the beast put on by his acolytes.
Undoubtedly, some of my strategies in advancing policy positions were assisted by his approach.
Now comes historian Dr. Richard Davis Hansen in The Daily Signal with an analysis of how Donald Trump is setting up the pins prior to participation in a worldwide bowling tournament, so to speak.
I first heard of Hansen on an NPR review of his book “The End of Everything, How Wars Descend into Animation.”
The concept so fascinated me that I read the book.
He tells of how various civilizations just disappear after military action. Think of the Aztecs (a particularly fascinating chapter including such details of how Cortez bult ships and brough them to the capital to obtain the height advantage over the natives in their canoes on the canals and lakes).
The only disappointment was his last chapter. I expected him to lay out the similarities of ancient lost civilizations with what we are facing in the United States. It wasn’t there.
Today, Hansen speaks of what Trump is doing concerning establishing the terms of foreign policy debate, “framing the issues” as a campaign consultant might put it.
“So, in the case of the Panama Canal: It’s similar to Greenland and Canada and the Gulf of Mexico controversies. The Chinese have intruded into an American domain. We built the canal. We operated it effectively for one century. And Panama is now flirting with Chinese capital in a way that hurts our national interest because China’s interest in the Panama Canal in times of crisis would be to shut it down and prevent our fleets from redeploying, either east or west. We, we all know that.
“Donald Trump is saying to the Mexican government: If you look at the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, 1,700 miles are U. S. coastline; 1,700 miles are Mexican coastline. Why is it called the Gulf of Mexico? But here’s the key, and we are in an age of left-wing renaming things…
With regard to Greenland, Trump’s “trying to tip the left-wing argument from Denmark: Oh, the United States is a bully, upside-down. That you’re the bully, you’re the colonialist.
“In the case of Canada, it’s the same thing. You don’t want us to intrude, but you want freebies. You want us to d efend you while you pose as you’re an anti-militaristic, left-wing, pacifistic, utopian society.
“But if you examine things, you would be scared to death about Chinese and Russian intrusion into your airspace or sea space, if it wasn’t for the United States.
“So, when you look at this, what Trump is saying is, I am using left-wing arguments—
- colonialism,
- changing names,
- imperialism,
- inviting in communist, autocratic governments that don’t reflect the will of people in the case of China,
and I’m flipping them and putting them in your face.
“And the whole point is to reexamine the status quo across the board.
“It’s kind of an anti-woke argument, isn’t it?
“Everything is up for grabs, and if the woke people think they can rewrite the history and traditions of the United States, maybe don’t.
“Trump can, too.”.
