{"id":181604,"date":"2016-05-07T20:08:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T01:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/05\/07\/donald-trump-at-least-recognizes-that-our-nomenklatura-is-incompetent\/"},"modified":"2016-05-07T20:08:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T01:08:00","slug":"donald-trump-at-least-recognizes-that-our-nomenklatura-is-incompetent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/05\/07\/donald-trump-at-least-recognizes-that-our-nomenklatura-is-incompetent\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump at Least Recognizes That Our Nomenklatura Is Incompetent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he recognizes that our foreign policy establishment is incompetent and corrupt<\/a>: (And Yes, the source is suspect, but it’s a “Stopped Clock Being Right Twice a Day” thing.)<\/p>\n

The National Interest<\/i>, which is a (Possibly THE<\/b>) seriously Neocon organization, is trying to explain why it hosted a Trump foreign policy speech, and is not endorsing Trump’s analysis:<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>As the hosts, we are ill suited to evaluate Mr. Trump\u2019s speech; some may find criticism ungracious or, conversely, see praise as unpersuasive. That said, we heard enough from Mr. Trump to feel that while his approach to foreign and security policy is not yet fully developed and remains a work in progress, it is quite different from the existing semi-consensus among America\u2019s foreign-policy elites. His remarks outlined a fundamental break with post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy and offered an alternative vision with considerable appeal to a frustrated public, if less to the elites who have defined, articulated and implemented policy through three administrations run by both major political parties.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I, however, do<\/span><\/b> agree with Trump’s assessment regarding the general uselessness of our foreign establishment, even while eschewing his nonsensical solutions<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>For much of the post\u2013Cold War era, experts both inside and outside the government have faced informal but powerful pressure to share in existing interventionist orthodoxies if they seek top positions requiring Senate confirmation or even regular appearances in mainstream media. From this perspective, it is predictable that an avowedly antiestablishment candidate should provoke ferocious rhetoric from not only the political establishment, but also the foreign-policy establishment (perhaps even more bitterly).<\/span>

<\/span>Pledging that he would not surround himself \u201cwith those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsibility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war\u201d has surely fueled establishment fear of Mr. Trump. This statement\u2014the functional equivalent of his signature line \u201cyou\u2019re fired\u201d directed at a number of former senior and mid-level officials\u2014ensured that not only many Democrats, but also a number of Republicans in Washington\u2019s foreign-policy community would race to the barricades. Some self-serving Trump-haters may well see this as the greatest danger he poses; ending the dominance of today\u2019s foreign policy nomenklatura could directly threaten their careers. He provokes similar reactions among the transnational Davos elites by insisting \u201cthe nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>In America, this Soviet-style foreign-policy nomenklatura system has helped the post\u2013Cold War foreign-policy elites in the Republican and Democratic parties to develop a sense of entitlement wholly disproportionate to their accomplishments. How difficult was it to run America\u2019s foreign policy during an era of virtually unquestioned dominance? Why\u2014with so many advantages\u2014have our elites produced so many failed policies? And why do they feel no shame? No matter how many individual positions he changes, Mr. Trump will never satisfy the architects of these massive mistakes or, for that matter, their ardent supporters on editorial boards and television screens. To be clear, it is entirely appropriate to criticize Mr. Trump\u2019s views or, for that matter, his temper. Both have long been important components in our electoral politics. What is not appropriate is to attempt to shut down public discussion of critical national issues.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our current foreign policy establishment, what I refer to as the Council on Foreign Relations crowd, has squandered blood and treasure, all while making us less secure and insuring that our influence will be diminished in the future.<\/p>\n

Heck of a job, Brownie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he recognizes that our foreign policy establishment is incompetent and corrupt: (And Yes, the source is suspect, but it’s a “Stopped Clock Being Right Twice a Day” thing.) The National Interest, which is a (Possibly THE) seriously Neocon organization, is trying to explain why it hosted a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[963,964,978,977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-foreign-relations","category-politics","category-presidential-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}