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THE STATE OF THE USA ANALYSIS BY DAVID FRUM Amanpour and Company: America’s Lonely Future: David Frum on Trump’s “Predatory” Foreign Policy \| Amanpour and Company PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIeUigGZktk Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Prime Minister Gladstone in the UK was of the opinion that 'Democracy' would not work well especially the idea that every person (at that time every man) should have a vote in elections. His argument was simply that the majority of people had no idea whatsoever about either what a vote was and why it mattered. Fast forward a century and a half, and I think we have been seeing the Gladstone perspective play out! Prime Minister Winston Churchill had similar views to Gladstone but was more pragmatic. Appenerntly Churchill's view was the democracy was a pretty poor system, but it was the best system there was! So where are we in 2025? I gave up on the simplistic idea that politics was about 'Left' and 'Right' a long time ago and was much more to do with which 'level' of society should get the 'benefits' from political decisions. I have started to think through and document how a modern state needs to be structured in order to function in a 'desirable' manner. It certainly is very different from the structure that Trump has been working towards but is reasonably compatible with the vision of the American Founding Fathers some 250ish years ago. Hopefully Trump's ideaology will not prevail, but rather serve as a 'wake-up call' for people of true goodwill to band togather for the greater good! Peter Burgess
America’s Lonely Future: David Frum on Trump’s “Predatory” Foreign Policy \| Amanpour and Company Amanpour and Company Dec 4, 2024 517K subscribers ... 1,213,273 views ... 14K likes #amanpourpbs With Trump's inauguration on the horizon, conversations continue about the impact of the President-elect's policies both at home and abroad. David Frum is a political commentator and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. In his latest piece for The Atlantic, “America's Lonely Future,' Frum warns that the U.S. could become a global bully. He joins Walter Isaacson to discuss. Originally aired on December 4, 2024 Major support for Amanpour and Company is provided by Jim Attwood and Leslie Williams, Candace King Weir, the Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism, the Leila and Mickey Straus Family Charitable Trust, Mark J. Blechner, the Filomen M. D’Agostino Foundation, Seton J. Melvin, the Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, Charles Rosenblum, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, and Jeffrey Katz and Beth Rogers. Subscribe to the Amanpour and Company. channel here: https://bit.ly/2EMIkTJ Subscribe to our daily newsletter to find out who's on each night: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-... For more from Amanpour and Company, including full episodes, click here: https://to.pbs.org/2NBFpjf Like Amanpour and Company on Facebook: https://bit.ly/2HNx3EF Follow Amanpour and Company on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2HLpjTI Follow Amanpour and Company on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3SaTUhk Watch Amanpour and Company weekdays on PBS (check local listings). Amanpour and Company features wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports. Christiane Amanpour leads the conversation on global and domestic news from London with contributions by prominent journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan from the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center in New York City. #amanpourpbs Transcript 0:00 well with Trump's inauguration on the horizon pressing conversations continue around the president-elect's policies both at home and abroad David frm is a political commentator and former speech writer for President George W bush and in his latest piece for the Atlantic America's lonely future he warns that the US could become a global bully he joins Walter Isaacson to discuss and David from welcome to the show thank you 80 years ago at the end of world War II the United States helped set up a world order that was involved with economic cooperation coming out of the Breton Woods agreement it was a defense alliance against tyranny like NATO and international order as in the UN now in your Atlantic piece you say all of that is threatened what worries you the most well Donald Trump is often described as an isolationist but that's not really true and that's not the way he's different from all of his predecessors from Frank Roosevelt 1:00 through Ronald Reagan forward Trump isn't an isolationist in the sense that he's indifferent to the rest of the world or he doesn't have business dealings in aeran he's very much involved with the rest of the world the difference is since the second world war since the Great Depression American leaders have understood that America Finds Its Own prosperity and its own security by cooperating with strong allies the Trump view is essentially predatory it's a predatory view of the world not an isolationist view um allies the United States should have S not allies but subject Nations they should pay tribute instead of cooperating he's very clear he talks to other countries I want you to pay me um and of course instead of free and open trade we should have high tariff walls uh protecting American markets in order to forcely force move industries of the future from friends to the United States but part of that notion as you say with having high tariff walls and move Industries back to 2:00 the United States it does seem that a CR criticism of this world order was that globalism gutted the manufacturing in the jobs of this country you say in your piece that trade mutually benefits All Nations but it sometimes it doesn't it seems to me that after China gets into the WTO we lose our industrial base why am I wrong on that well uh first um China is let's bracket the China case a little bit because the argument that was used about China was used before that about NAFTA trade with Mexico about um trade with the Eastern Rim uh with countries like Taiwan and South Korea through all the years since World War II there have been constant complaints we're losing things because we trade freely with others and yet over that time the United States has become astonishingly richer in all kinds of ways um and we have become richer in tandem with others because they have become richer too well let me help there because you say we're astonishingly richer but a lot of people got rich and 3:00 the finance Industries and everything else but people who went to the early morning bus to go to work they got left out of this you know I don't think people have good memories of how poor this country was until very very recently we didn't become poorer when Americans left the farm for the factory and we don't become poor when people leave the factory for the office and we don't become poor because Americans are not mining coal underground Donald Trump often one of the reasons he appeals to older voters is um vision of the economy is from 50 years ago it's tires it's rubber steel cars um those are the industries that are always most present to him that's one of the reasons he's so mad at Germany um is because Germany totally dominates nowadays in the industries of the 1970s and 1980s now if you talk to actual Germans they will tell you our biggest problem as Germans is we are totally dominant in the industries of the 1970s 1980s we're not doing so well at Medical Imaging and uh artificial intelligence but we you know we're all there for 4:01 whatever it was that made Henry Ford Rich um and I think one of the things that we are all in danger of in the PO in the aftermath of the Trump shock is indulging myths that Donald Trump has sold and when we try to tell people these myths aren't true we'll be told well many people believe them and you can't contradict the myths that people have that the United States is poor and going backwards and um and that there's something magic There's Something Magic about making steel ingots and a country can only be prosperous if it if it is prosperous in the way it was prosperous in 1975 then explain to me why there's been a backlash a populist backlash not just uh represented by Donald Trump but around the world against this system of globalism that left a lot of workers behind um again I don't agree with you at all and I I I won't take time with facts and figures about why it is not true that workers are left behind but there's you are certainly right there's been a backlash against globalism across the developed world so one of the questions you have to ask and I I 5:01 challenge people all the time if you're trying to understand why in every country there's this backlash you need a cause that is common to every country Germany which has been a Powerhouse of exporting manufactured goods also has a reactionary populist movement so if exporting a lot of manufactured goods was the way to prevent having a national nationalist populist movement you'd expect there wouldn't be one in Germany but there is one a powerful one what all the developed countries have in common are I think three things um first the Aging of the baby boom generation that huge generation born after the second world war they began entering their 60s in 2010 which is exactly when uh this these movements began to get going because these people came to the retirement force and then here's the second cause they came into the into retirement at exactly the moment there was a global financial crisis that left many of these baby boomers poorer in their 60s than they thought they would be before the financial crisis and the last thing and this is a thing that we have in common unlike the trade balance in common with 6:01 every developed country is migration on a scale that has never been seen in the history of the world um that is started again in 2010 and that's a product of global Prosperity too the reason so many people are on the move is not because there are so many more desperate people it's because there's so many more people who can afford 10,000 20,000 $30,000 to pay a human trafficker to bring them to a place where they could as a rational investment try to get a better life and if a few of these highly motivated people come it's better for them and better for the re receiving country but if a lot of them come it becomes very stressful and that's the thing that the United States Britain Germany Canada France all all the countries have in common is the migration experience not the trade experience which varies so much from place to place then do you feel that maybe we let in too much Asylum seekers in migration whether it be in France England the United States for sure I think one of the reasons that U the Democratic party in particular has turned toward protectionism and stress that while Joe Donald Trump was the most 7:01 protectionist president since Herbert Hoover Joe Biden was the second most protectionist is because democ when Democrats confronted the real problem immigration they didn't want to face it so they chose they chose a problem that made them much more comfortable trade because trade allowed them to this the remedies for trade were things that many Democrats liked a much more staus Economic Policy more protection more government investment they love doing that um and so if that if that was the problem then they had the answer if the problem was immigration they didn't like it let me read you something from your piece you say that other great Powers China India Russia face suspicious and even hostile coalitions of powerful enemies and then you say the United States is backed by powerful friends and yet as I look at it now uh we've done something that we've avoided for 50 years which is push Russia and China into more of a partnership and India seems to be leaning in that direction 8:00 and Iran we have some of the biggest countries in the world aligned against us now so why has this order something that Donald Trump should protect well the India Russia or Soviet Union Military Alliance goes back to the 1960s um this it is not a new thing that there's been a lot of Defense cooperation between India and Russia or this predecessor of the Soviet Union and that has very little to do with the United States and a lot to do with the fact that India and China fought a War in 1962 and the Indians lost and ever since then they have looked to China's other powerful neighbor first the Soviet Union and now Russia as India security partner um and it's an example of all these countries have very unfortunate geography India has Pakistan it has China next door um China is surrounded by of course there's no country in the world the same size as China but countries that mistrust China from Vietnam to the uh on its Naval borders the Philippines Japan of course the Soviet Union and Russia above um and it's not true that the United States 9:01 pushed India sorry China and Russia closer together Russia decided all by itself to engage in a massive Act of aggression against its neighbor Ukraine the worst act of aggression on the European continent since 1945 vastly bloodier than even the Yugoslavian Civil Wars of the 1990s um that aggression has been checked not completely successfully but surprisingly successfully and in desperation Russia has turned to another great power adversary of the United States China what all of this demonstrates is the ever greater importance of the relationships that the United States does have you talk about the need to protect this International order you were an adviser to George W bush and uh you've been a long time part of that Republican Wing that was very internationalist and in the sense of President Bush the younger in favor of promoting democracy as part of it and yet got us into Wars like Iraq and other 10:01 places that some people especially voters these days are saying well they calling them forever Wars explain to me uh how you would defend that you know you will never come up with a valid judgment on anything if you only do look at one side of the books if you only look at the debits and never the credits so the most important achievement of the United States in the past in foreign policy in the past three decades has been something that not a person thinks about until I remind you right now when George HW Bush came to office in 1989 his over as the Soviet Union was cracking up his overwhelming overriding concern was that the 50,000 nuclear warheads in the Soviet Union would come loose and would end up in the hands of Rogue States or terrorists or be used by a desperate failing Soviet Union or Russia and the United States with allies used an enormous amount of resources to to create a post Soviet regime that was so secure that not one not one of the 50,000 Warheads went astray it was the 11:00 most astonishing success in American foreign policy since the Marshall Plan um the former so weapons of the Soviet Union were converted into fuel for nuclear power plants not just in the United States but in France and other Allied Nations too and they and the and the Allied Nations wrote the checks to employ those scientists and to to secure those nuclear weapons and it's completely forgotten after 911 the United States embarked with many allies to try to bring security to Afghanistan and Iraq and those Endeavors were not successful and that's uh you know that's true and that's and that's something that you know we should study why it wasn't success were we over ambitious did we underd deliver what exactly went wrong and it's it's really worth pondering and I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about those questions the fact that some of our International commitments did not go well should not make us forget the other International commitments that went so well that they are the most important things in American history since the Marshall Plan you uh posted recently on acts that we are headed toward a US 12:02 constitutional crisis vastly bigger than Watergate why do you say that well the score the center of the Watergate crisis was that PR president Richard Nixon um got involved in a political Scandal uh either he ordered or people working for him burglarized uh the Democratic party headquarters now this is not something that had never happened before in American politics it had happened before uh but when the Nixon people were caught Nixon's response was to try to mobilize the FBI and CIA to shut down the investigation of the burglary that was Watergate not the burglary itself other presidents had done similarly bad things uh but the this mobilization of CIA and FBI for political ends but it failed it completely failed not neither agency would cooperate um when Nixon tried to install a stoe as uh head of the FBI the agency rejected him then um and uh that the the deep throat leaks came from people at the FBI who said you can't put a sto director in at the top of this 13:00 agency to protect you from your own wrongdoing uh Nixon was unsuccessful Nixon never got to see the uh taxs of people he wanted to see he asked for them he never got them the a the agencies refused to deliver them so when I say it's bigger than Watergate what Trump wants to do is take control of especially the FBI but also other security agencies and use them as arms of his personal power uh Nixon bail Trump is on the way to succeeding ni did it secretly Trump is doing it publicly Nixon was opposed by his own party Trump is supported by his own party so it is the same predicament we faced in the 1970s but this time bigger and more dangerous and more likely to succeed you talk about in your pece the personal con uh Corruption of Trump's family or the money that may be going to them uh but explain to me now is that undermine that argument by by President Biden's 14:00 pardoning of his son Hunter Biden it's not the argument is not undermined but its credibility has hurt for sure um because when I'm trying to explain to people why it's wrong that the president own a hotel in the CER of Washington and ask every guest uh who comes into his Oval Office did you stay in my hotel last night and when the president refuses the FBI request to demolish its obsolete headquarters and replace it because there was a risk that the FBI headquarters would be replaced by a hotel that would compete with his I can explain all of that but it doesn't help when the people defend Trump and say yeah but what about Biden and his son right yeah you can say look that's not as bad um it's a blot on otherwise very honest career but it doesn't help and that's why it was so wrong for President Biden to do it your peace in the Atlantic is about something even larger than the things we've just discussed it's about what the idea of America is and you talk about the great metaphor of a city on a hill it comes from Jesus's 15:00 Sermon on the Mount but it's also John Winthrop when the pilgrims first come to America he gives a sermon of we shall be a city on a hill and then it's Ronald Reagan's Trope throughout his presidency and to the end of his presidency I think in his farewell address you quote him as saying how stands this city on a hill how would you answer that question for millions of people around the world Whenever there America is criticized all the time all kinds of things about American life that people don't like from you know fast food to Mickey Mouse to you know many mistakes in American foreign policy there are a lot of things to criticize And yet when the chips are down and people are in trouble all over the world they look to the United States as the answer it is this Golden Light of what is possible even if we don't always live up to it because even when we don't live up to it we believe we should and that's um Reagan's metaphor rean s suddenly changed the meaning of the city on the hill when Jesus used it when John 16:00 winr meant it they meant because the city was on a hill it was very visible and therefore everyone had to be on their best behavior at all time Reagan had that suggestion of Pride and Beauty um but Donald Trump very much sees the United States as like other nations only maybe worse when his friend Bill O'Reilly in a TV interview asked him is Putin a killer Trump answered we're not so innocent either now in some very very deep way that's true we're not so innocent in the United States sometimes to protect the things that Americans have to protect American presidents have done some rough things and some of those rough things do not stand up to scrutiny other rough things do stand up to scrutiny and yet we still say they were rough um but they the belief has always been when we depart from our ideals we understand that we're doing it and we don't compromise the ideal itself and maybe we apologize later maybe we make an excuse but we understand this would this is where we fell short because this is over here is where we're supposed to be Donald Trump is the first president since roselt maybe for a long time 17:01 before that who has no sense of the United States is owing anything to the rest of the planet no sense of it being an example no sense of it being something that should be admired he wants to dominate through force and power and the problem is no one no one is that powerful to dominate the whole world the United States has been strong because it is trusted the United States is strong because it has friends and if you become just another big Empire like China like India like the way Russia was before Putin wrecked it in the Ukraine war um people may fear you but they won't respect you they won't trust you David from thank you so much for joining us thank you [Music] [Music]

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