Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan listen to the American national anthem at Kensington Palace Gardens after his arrival for the G7 summit on June 4, 1984. (Bryn Colton/Getty Images)
“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest … The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny,” - Ronald Reagan at Pointe du Hoc, France on June 6, 1984.
It is a fascinating moment, isn’t it, when Reagan’s vision of the West is finally swept into the dustbin of history by a Republican president.
And that is the only solid conclusion one can make after this week of astonishing incompetence and madness. We only saw Donald Trump’s foreign policy darkly in his first term — constrained, as he was, by a handful of white-knuckled Republicans in the executive branch. Now we see it face to face. It’s a vision where international law disappears, great powers divide up the planet into spheres of influence, and the strong always control the weak. It’s Trump’s vision of domestic politics as well. And of life.
And to give the madman his due, something had to happen. Neoconservatism is long since dead — by suicide, of course, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the global position of the US after 1945, and then after 1989, is over and never coming back. There is simply no threat in the world that is equivalent to the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Maoist China. Islamism was never going to replace them.
And so a retrenchment of the US position was inevitable at some point: a more judicious approach to interventionism, a greater balance with the allies, a pivot toward Asia and away from Europe and the Middle East: responsible, realist re-positioning. In fact, failure to do so when our debt payments now exceed our military budget would be asking for trouble.
Obama tried: deleveraging us from the Middle East, avoiding traps like Syria, focusing more on China. His position on Ukraine was instructive in this realist recalibration: “[T]his is an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.” What we are witnessing now — as Washington’s support for Ukraine crumbles — is what happens when US promises run way ahead of its core interests and US public opinion, and we get caught funding an unending, unwinnable, unspeakably bloody war.
On this much, Trump is right. The Ukraine conflict is at a stalemate; the human toll is vast, unimaginable, and mounting every day; there’s no chance of repelling Russia from its current occupation — but there is some chance of driving a hard bargain to ensure a stable, new border and an independent rump Ukraine, with security guarantees against any future invasions from Russia.
And so I’ve always been in support of a tough peace negotiation that would have to reflect the facts on the ground. I was prepared for concessions from the West in the end, alongside some guarantees against future aggression. Even if it was realistic to understand that victory was impossible, we could still find a way to protect Ukraine’s fledgling democracy and remaining territory, keep the democracies aligned against Putin, and maintain the broad structure of the post-war settlement, alongside international law.
But that is not, it now seems obvious, the Trump position at all. What he is doing is not about making a tough peace deal with Russia, recalibrating NATO, or protecting Ukraine’s democracy. He is merely setting the terms of a new alliance and relationship with the criminal Russian dictatorship — directed against the European democracies.
More TDS from yours truly? But what other conclusion can one draw when the president cuts the Ukrainians and their European allies out of the dealmaking, has already conceded Ukraine’s conquered territory before any talks, insists that Ukraine started the war, that Zelensky, and not Putin, is the dictator, and is demanding reparations in advance ... from Ukraine, not Russia! The reparations amount to a US claim on 50 percent of Ukraine's mineral deposits forever. It’s the equivalent of “We’re gonna take Iraq’s oil.” It’s a form of imperial pillage. But it’s vintage Trump.
And notice that this isn’t part of full negotiations with Russia. Trump wanted Zelensky to sign away half his country’s mineral rights to the US in perpetuity before he had asked anything of Putin. And he gave Zelensky three hours to read and sign it. Trump, of course, was incensed when Zelensky refused. This is how a Trump official described the mood: “We created a monster with Zelensky. And these Trump-deranged Europeans who won’t send troops are giving him terrible advice.”
Zelensky is a monster but Putin is our friend. As for concessions from Russia for its unprovoked violation of an internationally recognized border? None that I can see, apart from stopping the war. (If you want to read Vance’s underwhelming defense of what’s going on, check out his reply to Niall here.) Then the Russians get American sanctions lifted, re-entry to the G-7, vast new oil revenues, and a chance to take all of Ukraine next time.
At the same time, the vice president went to Europe to tell the democracies that they were suppressing free speech and needed to stop if they wanted to continue to be friends with Washington. Vance is right about Europe’s free-speech problem. But let’s just note this is not a condition Trump has ever placed on Putin in order to be friends.
In fact, Vance’s speech and Trump’s remarks make it clear that the US is no longer in alliance with Europe at all, but with Russia against Europe, and Europe’s liberal elites. The goal now is to replace those elites with Moscow-friendly governments, bent on repatriation of illegal migrants. Hence the stunning endorsement of the AfD by Elon Musk — the second most powerful man in the Trump administration.
After what the president and vice president have said this week, it’s fair to say, I think, that NATO is effectively over. No one can even faintly believe that the US under Trump would abide by Article 5 to defend another member state. Trump has just told the Baltic states: you’re on your own now. If you resist Russian control, you’ll deserve what you get.
It’s not just the end of NATO, but a new doctrine of US power. That doctrine now reflects Trump’s deepest conviction: that might is right, that weak countries should surrender to strong ones, and that this is in America’s interests, because we are the strongest. Trump’s aggression toward Canada, Panama, Gaza, and Denmark is not just trolling the libs. It’s of a piece with his view that the strong should always control and bully and plunder the weak. This is Ukraine’s real crime to Trump. They dared resist absorption by a bigger, stronger neighbor. That’s why Trump had contempt for the protestors at Tiananmen Square:
When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.
Or, as he said on another occasion: “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time.”
The logic of this might-makes-right worldview is why Trump believes that the US should now own Gaza. By which authority? he was asked. “By US authority,” he answered — meaning, of course, not US authority (we have none in Israel) but US power. Trump is clinically incapable of understanding any system of mutuality, because he cannot tolerate being anyone’s equal.
The replacement of international law with spheres of influence based on power alone means, in turn, that the US will have no case against China’s future absorption of Taiwan, Russia’s re-occupation of all of Ukraine and the Baltic states, or Israel’s looming ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank. My own view is not that the US could have continued its current course indefinitely; but that any retrenchment should have kept the architecture of international law and support for liberal democracies, as much as we could. Trump has effectively thrown in the towel; and handed large swathes of the world to Putin, Xi, and, to a lesser extent, Netanyahu — the only world leaders he respects and understands.
This means, it seems to me,that the idea of the West is now over. By the West, I mean the idea that the democracies that beat the Nazis and outlasted the Soviets were and are instinctively America’s friends — “We were with you then; We are with you now,” in Reagan’s words — that the world is divided between autocracy and democracy, and that although we need to deal with tyrants realistically, and accept limits on our power in this new multipolar world, we are still emphatically the leader of “the free world.”
Those three words — “the free world” — mean nothing to Trump and never have. And he has now fatefully told the entire world, including our former allies, that this is America’s position now as well. He has updated Reagan with these words: “We were with you then. We see no reason to be with you now. In fact, we’re siding with a dictator who threatens you.”
This is a Rubicon, I’m afraid, that cannot be fully uncrossed. But I have a feeling that the American people, including many who voted for Trump, will see this new alliance with Putin against a beleaguered, little democracy with the same disgust and nausea that I do.
This is who Trump is. But it isn’t who Americans really are. I have faith that the West, now mortally wounded, can yet survive Trump and Putin, and re-emerge at some point. But it may be a dark, dark few years before the dawn’s early light breaks out again.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my talk with Yoni Appelbaum on the history of mobility in America; listener debate over Christianism on the right and left; more reader debate over DOGE; 10 notable quotes from the week in news, including three Yglesias Awards from both the right and left; 21 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; a Mental Health Break of a Coldplay collab; a patriotic window from Philly; and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a new subscriber:
I’ve been a reader since the TNR days and when your blog was on the navy screen with white type. I don’t always agree — I’m probably closer politically to Yglesias or Chait — but your opinion is always worth taking seriously.
Another newcomer:
I used to follow your podcast pretty religiously a couple years ago. I came across John Gray through Sam Harris’ podcast and wanted a bit more Gray, then I noticed you also talked with him. So I decided to sign up for your substack so I could hear you two lovely gents chat.
New On The Dishcast: Yoni Appelbaum
Yoni is a journalist and academic. He used to be a lecturer on history and literature at Harvard, and also taught at Babson College and Brandeis. He subsequently served in many editorial and writing roles at The Atlantic, where he’s currently a deputy executive editor. He just published his first book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity. It’s an engrossing account of how zoning in America — yes, zoning — evolved from the Puritans onward. I was unexpectedly fascinated.
Listen to the episode here. There you can find two clips of our convo — on the racist origins of zoning, and how progressivism is keeping poor people in place. That link also takes you to commentary on our episodes with Jon Rauch on Christianism, Ross Douthat on the supernatural, and John Gray on Trump’s foreign policy. Plus, more reader debate on the dangers of DOGE and the dismal state of the Dems.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Chris Caldwell on the political revolution in Europe, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Nick Denton on China and AI, Francis Collins on faith and science, Michael Lewis on government service, Ian Buruma on Spinoza, Michael Joseph Gross on bodybuilding, and the great and powerful Mike White, of White Lotus fame.
Please send any guest recommendations, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com. A listener writes:
I am an emergency physician who trained in medical school in NYC at the turn of the century. While triple therapy had come out a couple of years before I started, we still cared for many patients with AIDS. I vividly remember performing my first spinal tap on an emaciated gay man in the Bellevue ER, whom I diagnosed with cryptococcal meningitis. I followed him for several days until he died, alone.
One of the biggest challenges in emergency medicine is burnout. Part of that is compassion fatigue; we care for so many sick patients in a broken system and have only a small amount we can do to help, so it wears on you. I have found that exploring grief and loss more deeply has helped me maintain some compassion. Your conversation with Anderson has refreshed it for awhile.
You criticize the Bush administration for “huffing its own fumes” about the Iraq War, and while you’re not exactly huffing your own fumes on Trump’s “wanton cruelty for the sick, destitute, and hungry,” you’re certainly inhaling the exhaust from the Democrats.
USAID does do a lot of good, and PEPFAR is one great example. But is it possible — just possible? — that 20 years on, with many generic HIV meds and prevention, that it doesn’t need the full $6.5 billion a year it’s been getting? Or that there are programs within USAID that aren’t living up to expectations, and could be eliminated? Does the CFPB really do what Elizabeth Warren promised? I don’t know. But who even asks?
USAID as a whole comprises about 0.3% of the budget — but then every program comprises some small or fractional part of the budget. And while just about every president in my lifetime has promised to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” out of the budget, we have a $1.8 trilliondeficit and a $36 trillion debt.
Maybe the 77 million Americans who voted for Trump did have something like this in mind: breaking through the suffocating, small politics of emotion that the Democrats, and even some congressional Republicans, can’t ever say “No” to? That tear-stained path one is the thing that’s led us to the massive, duplicative, and sometimes dysfunctional federal bureaucracy we’ve burdened ourselves with, and I don’t see anyone but Trump who’s politically invulnerable enough (right now) to do something about it.
I didn’t vote for Trump — or Musk, for that matter — but they’re moving fast and breaking things, and some of the things they’ll break need to get broken. We’ll be able to clean up the rest once they’re gone.
Read my response here, along with two other dissents; and more are on the pod page. As always, please keep the criticism coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. And you can follow more Dish discussion on my Substack Notes feed. I wrote this week:
“He who saves his country does not violate any law,” - Donald Trump, yesterday in a pinned tweet.
I have always avoided the term “fascist” with Trump because it’s not entirely accurate from the point of view of history. But this is unequivocally a fascist statement, almost a perfect distillation of the view that a great man should command the state and the rule of law should be set aside as outdated or too corrupted to continue.
We are used to these provocations. But I can’t see how anyone supporting Trump at this moment who endorses this sentence can plausibly deny the fascist label. There is absolutely nothing conservative about this; and nothing more repellent to the Founders of this country. If this is not a rhetorical red line — explicitly fascistic statements, attacking the very meaning of America — what on earth could be?
To which a reader replied:
As you recall, Nixon said “if the President does it, it’s not illegal”. Is that so very far away from this? Seems quite nearly identical to me. Was he a fascist? And was he not proved wrong?
Peter Capaldi’s Dr Who is really underrated. I think he’s second only to Tom Baker.
A reader responded:
I haven’t seen any of Capaldi’s episodes, but I consider Peter Davison’s interpretation very underrated. Coming right after Tom Baker meant he had big shoes to fill, and I thought he really hit the mark with his almost-but-not-quite completely human Doctor. Honestly, he was probably the only Doctor I’ve seen who projected enough decency that I could actually believe others would willingly sign up for the endless risks that come with being his companion!
Here’s a supercut of Capaldi, as a bonus Mental Health Break:
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about 20 of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection covers subjects such as abandoning Ukraine, congestion pricing, and the struggling Tories. A few examples:
New research suggests that a huge portion of “Long Covid” patients are actually vaccine-injured.
Here’s a list of the substacks we recommend in general — call it a blogroll. If you have any suggestions for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The deadline for entries is Wednesday night at midnight (PST). The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month sub if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the VFYW). Contest archive is here. Happy sleuthing!
The results for this week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today. From a sleuth in last week’s contest:
I didn’t discover any facts about Luxembourg that I found particularly interesting, except for one: the legend of Melusina the mermaid. You can see a purple statue of her — sculpted using 3-D printing — along the Alzette River, one kilometer from the Hotel Le Royal:
The legend involves Count Siegfried I of the Ardennes, who founded Luxembourg in the year 963. According to most versions of the legend, Siegfried got lost during a hunting trip and ended up in the Alzette River valley, near rocky cliffs containing the ruins of an old Roman castle (the site of present-day Luxembourg City). He heard someone singing and discovered a beautiful girl sitting among the ruins.
That girl was Melusina. Enchanted by her singing and beauty, Count Siegfried asked her to marry him. She agreed but only on the condition that he would never ask to see her on Saturdays, when she wished to be alone. Unbeknownst to Siegfried, his wife was a mermaid whose legs turned into a fish tail when they were submerged in water. The count kept his end of the bargain for many years, but eventually succumbed to curiosity. One Saturday, he peeked through the keyhole to see what his wife was doing and saw her lying in the bath with her lower body transformed into a fish tail.
At this point, the various versions of the mermaid legend diverge significantly. My favorite is this account from the website of the Luxembourg Pavilion:
When Melusina noticed Siegfried had broken his promise, she fell into an abyss that opened up beneath her [and became trapped in a rock below ground]. Melusina reappears every seven years and waits for someone to free her. She has taken the form of a fiery snake and to free her, you’ll have to use your mouth to take a key out of her mouth and throw it into the Alzette River. If the curse remains unbroken, Melusina continues weaving a shirt, adding one stitch every seven years. The day she finishes the shirt, she will be delivered from her spell, but all of Luxembourg and its people will vanish into the rock with her.
Yikes. Let’s hope that shirt remains a work-in-progress.
