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SharonAnn

(13,767 posts)
Sun Feb 19, 2017, 02:16 AM Feb 2017

Quit calling Donald Trump an isolationist. Hes worse than that.

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by NancyBlueINOklahoma (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Washington Post

...
The problem is, Trump isn’t an isolationist. He is a militarist, something far worse. And calling Trump an isolationist isn’t an effective critique.
...
Scholars define militarism, broadly, as the excessive use and veneration of force for political ends, or even for its own sake, extending at times to full military control of the state. (Trump has appointed two Marine generals, Jim Mattis and John F. Kelly, to his Cabinet.) Militarism, the pioneering historian Alfred Vagts wrote in 1937, promotes values “associated with armies and wars and yet transcending true military purposes.” Militarism can be a policy and an ethos, corrupting the pursuit of rational goals.
...
Facing a vicious world, Trump promises to turn the tables, not turn his back. He talks of grabbing wealth from other countries, most vividly in his mantra to “take the oil” in Iraq. “Maybe we’ll have another chance,” he said in a speech at the CIA. Trump may be posturing, but the posture is militaristic. To announce a lust for oil, to chest-thump about torture, to envisage military parades down Pennsylvania Avenue — these do not achieve strategic objectives so much as exalt brute force. “I’m the most militaristic person there is,” Trump said in the primaries. Perhaps he was telling the truth.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/02/17/quit-calling-donald-trump-an-isolationist-its-an-insult-to-isolationism/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-c%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.d113bb95679b

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Quit calling Donald Trump an isolationist. Hes worse than that. (Original Post) SharonAnn Feb 2017 OP
Good piece. Hoyt Feb 2017 #1
Good article, but it is an opinion/analysis - Locking OKNancy Feb 2017 #2
 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
1. Good piece.
Sun Feb 19, 2017, 03:05 AM
Feb 2017

OKNancy

(41,832 posts)
2. Good article, but it is an opinion/analysis - Locking
Sun Feb 19, 2017, 06:11 AM
Feb 2017

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