After the fall of the Iron Curtain the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) embraced the concept 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. A few weeks ago, CFR started distributing essays criticizing Trump as an isolationist or as a populist. Some of these essays are new, some are old. CFR resurrected essays published previously in Foreign Affairs. Some of these, such as Robert Gates’ The Dysfunctional Superpower, were originally a general criticism of recent U.S. 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 is also the only U.S. 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 their concept of the world was 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 CFR, the 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.
Definitions of Populism are varied and vague. Populism generally arises when a large part of the population realizes the elites they empower are running things for their own benefit, not for the people who elect them, and decide to make big changes. The elites in power naturally object to changes and thus disparage Populism. As does CFR.
The U.S, reached that point a few years ago. Today, 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 free of penalties for their actions.
- Huge government expenditures (EV charging stations, subsidies, Internet connectivity, infrastructure, etc., etc.) - with no benefit.
- Government mandates that stifle efficiency of corporations and the people who work for them.
- A military with DEI generals and admirals, ships that cannot get repaired and new ones cannot get built, airplanes unfit for service, insufficient ammo, and low morale.
- Financial institutions that mismanage themselves into a meltdown, then reduce interest on savings to zero, mismanage oil supplies, fail to recognize inflation when it starts and cannot decide what to do about it when it does.
- Hurricane help that does not show up.
- A politicized FBI which cannot protect them from Chinese spying or foreign gangs infiltrating through our 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, isolated, people in charge who are disconnected from the general population, are contemptuous of them, 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, Populism does not arise because the people have suddenly changed their values and expectations. It arises because a self-serving, disconnected group of elites have abandoned the people’s values and expectations. Those conditions are now prevalent in the U.S. Trump comes from outside the system and relates to and recognizes these dissatisfactions among the people. The people respond to this. Yes, he is a populist.
The CFR, a member of the elite group, uses “Populist” as a pejorative. CFR does not seem to realize that, as a member of the bureaucrat–think tank-academic–political–media group responsible for the mismanagement and bad policies noted above, it is part of the problem and the real threat to democracy.