Who Are America's Friends?

America has flourished partly on the basis of our identification and partnership with nations whose values are similar to ours. A commonality of social norms shapes the foundation of this partnership.

The youngest school child and the most recent immigrant can probably list these values, and so can you. Shut your eyes and name the first five that come bubbling up. Here is my list, and it is similar to one that most Americans might produce: freedom, liberty, equality, human rights and democracy. When we have been confronted by nations that did not share these values and threatened to engulf the world in a catastrophic war, we joined hands with those whose interests paralleled ours. I speak here of World War II, where we were united with England and scores of other like-minded nations.

At the conclusion of that conflict something unusual happened. Having demonstrated the overarching values for which we fought, we unleashed both the wisdom and the good will flowing from our democratic government and rebuilt the very nations that had been our enemies! Now Germany is Europe’s lynchpin, and Japan is Asia’s model of the values we have cherished from the beginning of our national history.

More recently we have gone halfway around the world to support the people of Korea who were threatened by an incipient dictatorship backed by the despotic Chinese regime just across the Yalu River.

It took us far too long to recognize the legitimate claims of millions of our Latin American neighbors whose nations were in the hands of fascist dictators. While many tyrants were subsequently replaced in democratic elections, we continued to support others by training them at the infamous “School of the Americas” located in Georgia’s Fort Benning.

Try as we might, we have spent the last decade and a half in a futile effort to make possible democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even more recently we assisted in supporting the hunger for democracy in a series of North African nations caught up in the Arab Spring. Down came despotic regimes and their tyrants, and governments of the people emerged in their places.

Following our commitment to democratic ideals, we now live in a world where governments of by and for the people are widely popular. While we still have maintained our traditional friends in Europe and North America, around the globe freedom is increasingly possible. It is not that our values have been imposed, but that we have offered freedom to populations long hungry for it.

In view of this amazing history, currently America’s shame rests on the election of a president with a very different agenda. Turning his back on the nations that have shared our values, his admiration has turned to regimes and their leaders who hold the very opposite. I speak of Putin of Russia, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Trump has made no secret of his admiration for strong men—including the very sort of tyrants we have opposed. What is more, he hungers to be one. If following the path these tyrants have produced is what he means by making America great again, the democratic dream is headed for disaster, and what we have traditionally honored has been summarily jettisoned. What is as frightening is the unwavering support of Trump by millions of Americans who will follow him no matter what he does or says.

So dangerously absurd is Trump’s notion of greatness, that when the President praises his own his record at the General Assembly of the United Nations, they laugh at him. And blinded by his arrogance, he thinks they are laughing with him. How sad for America, for our core beliefs and our love of democracy. There is an ugly stain now being painted on America. The whole democratic world knows it. Only Trump and his “lock her up” contingent do not.