War at Home, 'Peace' Abroad, Truth in Neither
Disentangling Trump’s contradictory brands.
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In world affairs, Donald Trump wants you to see him as a peacemaker.
You already know that Trump’s “peace” is just a rhetorical flourish. It’s not about peace. The president is interested in a piece of Greenland, a piece of Venezuela, a piece of Gaza and of Ukraine. Short-term conquests at the cost of long-term isolation.
But he has made a real, consistent effort to turn “peace” into the brand of his second-term foreign policy. The President of Peace. The Board of Peace. The Nobel Peace Prize (Sore subject? How about the FIFA Peace Prize?).
Given how badly Trump wants to be seen as a man of peace abroad, it’s striking how openly warlike the White House’s messaging is on the domestic side.
“Invasion” crows Stephen Miller.
“Defend the homeland” the ICE recruiting ads call out.
“Domestic terrorists” the apologists in government and media sneer when agents spill American blood. The next victim will face the same posthumous slanders as Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
There’s as little integrity in those bellicose slogans as there is in Trump’s “peace” campaign. America faces complex security challenges, but the country is not beset by a domestic terrorist threat from the president’s opponents.
ICE’s ongoing operations in Minnesota look more like a foreign military occupation than a domestic law enforcement action. They are the sequel to the National Guard deployments in major cities over the last year.
Federal agents killing and brutalizing Americans is what happens when a government treats its people like enemy combatants. How easy it is to forget that the individuals wearing badges and uniforms are supposed to protect you from criminals who would hurt you, not do the hurting themselves. The administration is replacing the social contract between state and citizens with loose rules of engagement for masked troopers.
Why fight a war at home?
Trump appears committed to wrecking the alliances that elevated US power in the last 80 years. Because he has chosen retreat abroad, he needs another way to project strength. After all, a strongman must look strong in order to live up to the moniker. A demagogue needs enemies.
So the administration wages war on his own country. Authoritarians often cut their teeth on weaker opponents. Before Russia overplayed its hand in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin savaged tiny Chechnya and Georgia.
War is also an opportunity to consolidate power. Trump’s war on Americans is a manufactured crisis aimed at compromising the upcoming midterms. Demands for voter rolls and intimidation by armed men all point to an effort to influence the outcome of November’s elections. Every crime the president’s lieutenants commit opens them up to prosecution should they lose power, so each escalation in this war creates new perverse incentives to interfere in the democratic process.
After World War II, the United States built the most powerful military on the planet. You can agree or disagree with Washington’s policies in those decades, but it’s indisputable that the US largely reserved lethal force for dictators and actual terrorists, not American citizens.
This administration has flipped the script, accommodating the bad guys in foreign capitals while training the guns on Americans. We should all be asking why the president is quick to threaten civilians on US soil yet shrinks from confrontation with dangerous dictators like Putin. Donald Trump speaks enthusiastically of “peace” abroad while making war at home. There is truth in neither cause. Only compensation for authoritarian fragility.
I don’t believe that Trump is the quintessential ‘mastermind’ behind the makeover of America. I believe he is the useful idiot in all this but more than that the likes of ‘The Heritage Foundation’ has made a deal with the devil - a deal that gives Trump free reign to rape and pillage America but he must stick to the Foundation’s plan as described in Project 2025 as amended from time to time. For The Foundation, the destruction of democracy in America and the institution of a theocratic government in America is the ultimate goal. Trump is the ‘suppository’ of distraction while The Foundation does their dirty work - the cost being worth it in the eyes of The Foundation.
Two and a bit decades ago, I was working in Iraq as a humanitarian. Some of what I saw was... let's say that what was done in Americans' names was not what most Americans would have approved, except perhaps the MAGA types. It was unapologetic, however, and it was also done in the name of freedom, liberation of the people, etc. etc. "We're the good guys", they said, and they truly believed that, even when they were beating the shit out of someone (that someone might have been a quintessential "bad guy" or an Iraqi patriot, or some poor bugger caught up in the net). I remember thinking at the time that if that attitude and heavily militarised presence were to turn inwards, things would go really badly for the US. It's sad to see it play out, just as it's sad to remember the exactions committed in Iraq.