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The contrast between Bush and Trump?

I found an interesting article about the Bush legacy (centred around facilitating a soft landing for the Cold War) and what has come after.

Essentially, the argument goes that the post-war architecture served us very well during the cold war, but needed updating after it. Instead, much of the western leadership has been clinging to the vestiges of those institutions, rather than revising, reinventing or reinvigorating them.

Trump, although from the same generation of Bush, is oblivious to the origin or purpose of post-war institutions. That gives him the freedom to question them, which is good and long overdue.

On the other hand, he's so dumb, he can't ask the right questions, or provide useful answers. Which is bad.


https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/george-bush-and-our-world-order/
GlassDog · 41-45, M
You're right, it is interesting. And I agree with you that examinations of institutions past are best done by those who don't have good knowledge of them. People who do understand don't ask the right questions. It also helps to have to try to explain to someone who doesn't understand. It makes you revise your own logic and test it again to make sure it's still sound. Sometimes it isn't. Times change.
Nice piece, and really nice to hear there are still conservatives out there.

I particularly liked this part:


[quote]

Conservatives in particular should see that the need for new institutions and orders does not mean starting over, or imagining the world has changed fundamentally. It means preserving the best of what has served us in the past and applying enduring principles to some novel realities. An applied conservatism requires us to attend carefully to the actual circumstances we are living in, and that’s what we in the West have done poorly since the end of the Cold War. And it requires us not to forget our principles, as Trump’s amoral circus act invites us to do, when we do recognize that the world demands something hard.

Nothing about this will be easy. But we are in the process of a hard landing that might force us to grapple with some of the challenges that George H.W. Bush’s impressively orchestrated soft landing allowed us to ignore.

That means, in part, that the coming years will need to be a time of institution-building and rebuilding, which—to put it very mildly—isn’t exactly what our political culture is good at right now. We’re going to need to hone and appreciate the qualities of genuine prudence (the definition of which is very far from caution), [b]and we’re going to need people who—like Bush—want to invest themselves in institutions as patient insiders and not just to build themselves up as angry outsiders.[/b]
[/quote]

(Emphasis added)
MartinII · 70-79, M
Is Trump dumb? Non-intellectual, not very well-informed, plenty of other possible criticisms. But not dumb, in my opinion.
WoodyAq · M
@MartinII Yeah, it's one of those things where the outcome isn't necessarily wrong (debatable, but not obviously wrong) but getting to it requires much, much more than what has gone into it, at the level (the president) that it has happened.

There are two explanations, both unfortunately plausible: the president is as compromised personally wrt Saudi Arabia as he is with Russia; he is hopelessly out of his depth.

I've heard both arguments. In this case, my money is on the second explanation.
MartinII · 70-79, M
@WoodyAq Or the President, or at least his advisers, have thought carefully about it and decided on the present policy. Possible, if perhaps not very likely!
WoodyAq · M
@MartinII No, not likely, because his advisers are unlikely to have said "throw your intelligence services, made up of your fellow Americans, under the bus and openly trust a psychopathic Saudi prince instead."

But with the people Trump listens to, who knows. Which is part of the problem...
Ynotisay · M
A very good take even though I tend to disagree. And that's outside the fact that I've read some of Levin's pieces and am familiar with is take on the world which isn't mine. (Although I do agree with his perspective on Trump).

In my less-than-educated position on the matter, it seems to me that reinventing/updating institutions would have served zero benefit given the realities that formed at that time and continue today. Both in the U.S. and beyond.

While there have always been the rich and the poor, following Reagan, (and the growth of the 'new' Russia) in my mind it all comes down to wealth disparity. The rich got massively richer, quickly, and the poor throughout the world suffered more. Even the middle class in the U.S. got their piece of the pie drastically cut.

So when you have generations growing up dirt poor, and have a relatively realistic enemy to 'blame' for that, short of government funding you're going to have resentment. Toss in religious and nationalistic ideologies (driven in many ways by the internet which really hadn't begun during the Bush era) and you've got a recipe for chaos.
Mountainlady16 · 22-25, F
First of all if you talking about Bush sr they are not same generation
WoodyAq · M
@Mountainlady16 I think the author was lumping the first two generations after the war together.
Mountainlady16 · 22-25, F
@WoodyAq Bush sr wasn't the generations after he was part of the generation that fought in it
WoodyAq · M
@Mountainlady16 Yes, and then helped construct what came after.
beckyromero · 36-40, F
The contrast between Bush and Trump?

Grown-up and a temper-trantruming two-year old.
Xuan12 · 31-35, M
The Pivot to the Pacific is part of that post-war architecture. Which is something I fear he may endanger.
jackjjackson · 61-69, M
Joy Behar did this herself on TV yesterday.
nudistsueaz · 61-69, F
Your opinion?
WoodyAq · M
@nudistsueaz I find the argument intriguing. Not sure I agree with all of it. I do agree that Trump is a careless destroyer...
nudistsueaz · 61-69, F
@WoodyAq destroyer of?
WoodyAq · M
@nudistsueaz Name something. The constitution, the budget, alliances, the rule of law ...

 
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