In 1992, Francis Fukuyama penned his famous ‘End of History’ essay in which he argued that former President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War victory had ushered in an age in which free market democracies would flourish almost by osmosis with a light, guiding American hand.
Thirty-five years on, after 9/11, after watching Communist China become a global powerhouse and Russia grow more belligerent, it is obvious that this careful management of neo-liberalism has failed. What we need is a new beginning of history, starting with President Donald Trump.
Of course, we all see the stark difference between the vibrant Trump and his immediate predecessor, Joe Biden, the first commander in chief who looked less alive in office than his Disney animatronic in the Hall of Presidents. But it’s more than that.
Every president since Reagan has essentially been a caretaker for Fukuyama’s vision of a world order in which the U.S., as the undisputed leader, puts its interests last, confident that ‘our way of life’ will inevitably dominate the globe.
The Bushes, Clintons and Obamas did not shape the world so much as they sought to preserve the shape created by Reagan’s Cold War victory. Today, we need Trump to see foreign affairs with fresh eyes, and so he is.
On Tuesday evening, the president shocked the world, and maybe even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he was sharing a press conference, by suggesting that the United States should take over Gaza and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East.
On the domestic political left, and internationally, the idea of American Gaza was met with scoffing scorn and incredulity. But given the horrible conditions under which those in Gaza live and the intolerable threat they pose to Israel, we must ask why that is.
The answer is that, while the global institutions which neo-liberals created and rely on would never agree to Trump’s Gaza solution, these are the same groups that have failed to secure peace in the Middle East for decades.
Is trying something new so crazy? After all, it is the terrorists who favor the slow and steady status quo of death and destruction. Why give it to them?
And it isn’t just in the Levant that Trump is making waves. Regarding strategically vital Greenland and the economically vital Panama Canal, the new Trump Doctrine is not just that American interests should come first, but that putting them first actually benefits the entire world.
In all fairness, it made some sense in 1992 to think that, as the world’s lone superpower, the United States should be magnanimous and put developing nations first. But somewhere along the line, that magnanimity turned to self-loathing.
In all fairness, it made some sense in 1992 to think that, as the world’s lone superpower, the United States should be magnanimous and put developing nations first. But somewhere along the line, that magnanimity turned to self-loathing.
Former President Obama took such a dim view of American moral power that he preferred our nation lead from behind.
Under these caretaker presidents, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was designed to burnish our reputation abroad, instead spent millions criticizing Western Colonialism and telling Africans they aren’t gay enough.
Reagan won the Cold War by keeping his eyes fixed on the aspirational America of the shining city upon a hill. Fukuyama mistakenly believed we had already achieved it and moved in.
Trump’s shining city on a hill may be a hotel and casino in Gaza, or a submarine base in Greenland. It might be freer passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But what it will not be is more of the same.
It was Nietzsche who wrote, ‘In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak; but for that one must have long legs.’ For too long, American foreign policy has labored in the valleys of conflict and discord, always waiting for the safest and easiest way to climb out, never quite managing to.
Like Reagan, Trump knows how to walk from peak to peak and how to ignore the naysayers who say change is impossible.
At the end of history, one can only look backwards. Perhaps this is why we are a society of sequels and franchises rather than original stories, of old well-worn foreign policy paths, not new blazing trails.
At the beginning of history, all things are possible. There is no cynical past to foreclose on innovation and new ideas.
Trump has no intention of managing the slow decline of America, nor simply standing athwart that decline yelling ‘Stop!’ No, for the first time in a long time, the American president sees new paths and visions for our nation, and under her leadership, for the entire world.