The Donald Trump Attitude

Dear Dr. Hurd: Is it only me who sees the craziness of the US position over Syria? The USA is at war with ISIS. ISIS is at war with Assad (and Putin) in Syria. Why is the USA at war with Assad?

Wouldn’t it be a good idea to: (1) Hold our noses and support Assad; or (2) Just keep out of it, and leave it to Assad and Putin to end that war; or (3) Actively support Putin to get it finished?

Yes, the use of nerve agents was a war crime, on Assad’s watch, and should not go unpunished. However, the USA should not be suckered into acting for ISIS, who is the greater enemy. Putin will deal with Assad in his own time.

Valid and astute points!

The premise of your question is that America should act on its own interests, first. As wretched as Assad is, ISIS is even more barbaric and the greater threat (by far) to the United States. So we should eliminate ISIS, not worry about protecting Syrians from their own wretched government — something we cannot do anyway, short of yet another invasion and permanent occupation.

President Trump’s contradictions arise from not having a philosophy or ideology. Most presidents don’t, although they do have a general attitude. Trump’s attitude is a mixture of two themes: “Don’t tread on me” and “We are the world’s keeper.” So far, the dominant theme appears to be “Don’t tread on me,” as illustrated by his statements and actions toward North Korea and ISIS, two actual threats to American liberty and safety.

Trump’s Syrian action was an instance of, “We are the world’s keeper.” He’s wrong about that. We are not the world’s keeper. If we were, we’d collapse in despair from bailing out every disaster presently inflaming the world. It would be the end of America, militarily and fiscally, if we tried to fix and protect the entire world. And we wouldn’t fix any of the disasters either. It’s neurosis, it’s self-sacrifice, it’s futility. But people without consistent ideologies tend to be all over the map with their attitudes. Trump felt sorry for the Syrians, as any compassionate person would. He got distracted. Then he woke up and got back to what he promised, going after ISIS and reining in North Korea. Philosophically, this back-and-forth thinking is called pragmatism.

There’s arguably some “don’t tread on me” in the bombing of Syria. Trump hinted it was partly to show ISIS and North Korea he’s a president who means business, since he’s new in office. We’ve had a do-nothing, worse-than-worthless president for the last eight years (Obama), preceded by a very flawed president (George W. Bush) who made tons of errors, blowing the rare national unity following 9/11 by settling an old score of his father’s (Iraq) rather than going after the real enemy, which at that time was primarily Iran. Some of Trump’s Syrian action suggests a valid motive, although the strategy is debatable. Why not just use force against the actual enemies, rather than someone not directly relevant to our concerns?

The basic issue here is whether we are the world’s keeper, or we’re not. I say we’re not. Many Americans agree, although most are afraid to say it because they fear the opinions of others and don’t want to seem “selfish”. Conservatives and liberals tend to agree on being selfless. No, they’re not that way in their own private lives, but they expect foreign and economic policy to be conducted on that premise. That’s why, as Trump said in his campaign, America is continuously losing. All we do is sacrifice and give up, instead of asserting what’s legitimately ours.

Obama had an attitude, too, verging on an ideology. Obama’s attitude was, “America Last, America is bad, America is always wrong”. Virtually everything he did, from letting the military go to pot, to doing everything for Iran except building the nuclear bombs they will someday use against America and Israel, to insisting that America is not, and never has been, “exceptional” are all hard proof of this attitude. Obama would totally agree with Trump on sacrificially taking care of the Syrians, precisely because America has nothing to gain by doing so. That’s what self-sacrifice means, after all: Acting against your interests because it’s against your interests.

I’d still take Trump overwhelmingly over Obama, at this point. Trump’s attitude is basically and literally “America First,” when it comes to self-defense. Although many Americans do not seem to understand or value liberty like they once did, it’s still the only place on earth where individual rights and freedom have any remote chance of making a comeback. No doubt, it’s part of the reason Trump supports the Second Amendment.

Donald Trump grasps, on an emotional if not a consistently ideological level, that people have a right to defend themselves. It’s a major reason why I voted for him. He has already kept his promise to place on the Supreme Court a justice who will likely uphold the Second Amendment. The right to self-defense is valid whether you’re an individual defending your own life and property, or whether you’re a free country trying to keep the dictatorships that dominate the world from obliterating what remains of your liberty and freedom. Self-assertion — not self-sacrifice — is the attitude that defeated the Nazis, the imperial Japanese, the Soviet Communists and it’s the only way we’ll ever defeat militant Islamo-fascism. Up to now, we have been losing badly. Europe is slowly going under because of Islam, and America is next in line. How can anyone disagree?

Will Trump’s strategies work? That remains to be seen, assuming he has at least 4 or maybe 8 years in office. Is he consistent? No. But that’s all America has: An inconsistent attitude with overall love for America, on the one side; or the Obama-progressive-leftist attitude that America is basically bad, deserves what it gets, and so as a result we do absolutely nothing to defend ourselves when we are attacked again, and again, and again. While I wish for a consistent America-loving attitude, with any hint of self-sacrifice removed, I will absolutely take Trump’s mindset over any progressive Democrat’s or any slimy, lying Republican career politician’s any day of the week.

Ideology is important. I’m a cognitive therapist, and I grasp how a person’s underlying ideas determine his emotions, attitudes, and actions both in daily life and matters of life-and-death importance. But attitude is the next-most important thing. Attitude is the emotional expression of an ideology, hopefully a true and rational ideology in favor of individualism and freedom. It’s Trump’s attitude that so appeals to many of us who voted for him. And it’s precisely why the leftists, the RINOs like Paul Ryan, the apologists for Islam, the socialists and the totalitarians at our universities so wildly despise him. Their reasons for despising him fuel me to support him more.

Here’s hoping Donald Trump’s attitude never changes.