Some people like to fly the flag claiming we are no. 1, the greatest. But nations, like companies, are what they do, not what they were. I’ve traveled in many places that cherish memories of dominance, from the Persian to the Aztec empires, and now hang on by their toenails and the forbearance of others. A succession of twenty-three Administrations built this country since the Great Depression – Republicans, including Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush; and Democrats, including Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, Obama, and Biden. We can’t stay “Number 1” by cutting the very programs that have made and kept us a world leader. Running a country takes more intelligence and devotion to the country and its people than fleecing the country to feather one’s own financial nest.
We’ve been king of the hill because of American science and American higher education which kept us strong in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But like an auto-immune disease, America has been destroying itself. Mr. Trump has been taking it all apart:
cutting the science and the staff at agencies like the Center for Disease Control, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Environmental Protection Administration;
undermining the reliability of the legal system, for which business people in the past have shown their appreciation by designating American state courts to resolve international disputes;
undermining also the protection of American workers, their access to education, and the openness and honesty of American economic data, including Securities and Exchange Commission trading information, and undermining the educational system which supported and attracted the best and the brightest to America since World War II – in all of those ways, Mr. Trump has been undermining American scientific dominance and threatening significant economic slowdown at the same time.
Trump may make deals but we are dealing with a president that banks learned to shun and refuse. He may be able to coerce them into dealing with him but the deals will be different – they will take account of all the risks that are now part of making deals with America, much as the stock market reflects risk. The deals will be different in amount and time scale because business partners will avoid tying themselves up for long-term deals that may be dishonored or become devalued. Those are the lessons that potentional international partners have learned from Mr. Trump.
So you can fly the flag but he has Trumped America by wasting our money, making us fight each other, making us put each other in jail, only to discover that we’ve arrested and held the wrong people. He’s scared people away from both business and international deals that involve America. We’ve shown the world that they can’t rely on either the president’s word or the text of formal agreements.
Trump claims that all of this will eventually, some time forth, bring investments here, but he could have done that by investing in the future instead of tearing America and its workers down, and leaving us weak and vulnerable in the interim.
Being number 1 is not about crowing about our status as if it were permanent – it requires acting in a way that countries that we need to work with can rely on.
We have to take care of Americans by building up, not tearing down.
Arrogance is no substitute for intelligence. The arrogance of ignorance is no substitute for knowledge, experience, planning and trustworthiness.
I’d prefer to laugh but I feel like crying.
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran. He enjoys the help of his editor, Jeanette Gottlieb
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