The Status Quo Can't Last Forever

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, against all the odds, brought home a reality that was already becoming apparent: the world is changing, and the old order of the past sixty years cannot last forever. The 2016 election has not been the only indicator: Brexit and the rise of Marine Le Pen in France are two others, which most prominently demonstrate the continuing populist surge across the West. Even the Arab Spring of several years ago could, in hindsight, be seen as a early sign of the dissatisfaction with the established order sweeping the globe.

North Korea seems to grow more belligerent by the day, faced by a United States no longer satisfied with détente and endless rounds of failed negotiations and sanctions which seem to do little good. Iran, too, seeks to become a regional power, spreading their influence in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The movement of greater European integration, begun after the Second World War, is stalled, and perhaps is in full retreat already, depending on one’s point of view. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin seeks both to cement his own power, and return Russia to the imagined glory of the old Soviet Union. And the time of Venezuela’s “Socialism of the 21^st Century” may be reaching its inevitable conclusion.

It is a tangible truth, so much so that one can almost feel it in the air: the second decade of the 21^st century is a time of great, unprecedented change, the past two years especially so. The old order is gradually giving way to something new. What ends up replacing it will not become clear for a long time yet, but its shape is slowly emerging.

All the issues we increasingly struggle with today—from North Korea to immigration and globalization, all the way to the exploding national debt—will be affected by this change. The current, decades-old balance of power in the Korean Peninsula cannot last in perpetuity. Neither can America’s current rate of borrowing and spending. Neither can the European struggle between integrationists and nationalists, and the centralization of power in Brussels. Changes across the world have been gestating for a long time, and many are finally coming to a head.

Change is in the air.

Criticism For Trump Along With The Praise

Since taking office, President Trump has done much to earn praise from those who opposed him during the campaign. His executive orders have, for the most part, been those we would have expected from a truly conservative president, and his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court was a fantastic pick.

And then Trump goes and says something as incredibly stupid and insulting as he did in the recent interview with Bill O’Reilly, when he equated America with Russia and said, in response to O’Reilly calling Putin a “killer”, “You think our country’s so innocent?”

Seriously? I mean, seriously? You’re really going to compare the United States of America, the modern birthplace of freedom of speech, press, and assembly, to Russia, led by a man who could well be a real, actual terrorist?

Ben Sasse, Republican Senator from Nebraska, had the perfect response.

Every thinking person knows very well what the GOP’s reaction would be had it been Barack Obama saying the exact same things Trump said in that interview. And it would be completely justified.

There have been many times over the past two weeks when I ask myself why I voted against Trump, particularly after his nomination of Judge Gorsuch. And then something like the O’Reilly interview happens, that makes me say, “Oh. That’s why.”

The Russian Threat

It’s like something out of a dystopian, Cold War-era novel—two major American presidential candidates, either of whom have a realistic chance at becoming the leader of the free world, and both are indebted to Russia.

On one side, there is Donald Trump, a candidate who seems unable to go more than a few weeks at a time without heaping lavish praise upon Vladimir Putin as a “strong leader”, praise that may in fact be the most consistent policy issue of the entire campaign. And the lovefest goes beyond mere words—the hiring of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort being the most notable example. Manafort, of course, had extraordinarily close ties to pro-Russian elements in Ukraine, and worked closely with pro-Russian former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for a decade. Other ties between Russia and Trump exist, as well, including evidence that Russia has significant investments in the Trump Organization—something confirmed by Donald Trump, Jr. in 2008. And, of course, Trump’s frequent questioning of the importance of the NATO alliance.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton attempts to portray herself as the Mitt Romney of the 2016 election, calling out Trump on his Russian ties and openly discussing the likely role Russian hackers had in the DNC leak from earlier this summer. But she herself has a multitude of troublingly close ties to the Kremlin, if never going so far as to openly praise Putin himself. She has been an active participant in Barack Obama’s open appeasement of Russia over much of the past eight years, from the Russian “reset” to the toothless response to the Russian seizure of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine.

Moreover, shady connections between the State Department, the Clinton Foundation, and Russia in the Uranium One deal, as well as other instances, discredit Clinton as being any sort of strong voice against Putin’s continued powermongering.

The simple fact is that in this bizarre election, a little more than two decades after the end of the Cold War, both major party candidates will likely seek to further appease Russia if elected. It is a certainty that Putin will attempt to further expand his influence in the Middle East, sow further discord in Ukraine, and tighten his grip on Crimea, and neither Trump nor Clinton will effectively challenge him on those scores. Should Putin, emboldened, begin to look further abroad, to say the NATO allied Baltic nations, there is no guarantee that either Trump or Clinton would stand firmly with our allies there as well. In this respect, both will only continue and expand on the Obama legacy.