It's Even Worse Than You Think by David Cay Johnston

Author:David Cay Johnston [Johnston, David Cay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Trade

One day before the G20 meeting of leaders of the world’s largest economies began in Germany in July 2017, Donald Trump stopped briefly in Warsaw. He delivered a speech to an enthusiastic crowd organized by Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, a populist, nationalist, and rightist movement not unlike the one that had provided his margin of victory in America. The crowd was unified in its support of Trump. That was not because all Poles loved Trump, but because police kept protesters far away to foster the impression of solidarity between the new American president and people of Poland.

Poland was in fact torn by conflict because the Law and Justice Party was moving toward authoritarian rule. Jarosław Kaczyński, the party chief and the de facto leader of the government, made Trumpian calls to prosecute political opposition leaders, though with more subtlety than the “lock her up” chants at Trump rallies. Kaczyński also spread wild conspiracy theories and attacked Muslims, saying they spread parasites and disease.

What television viewers saw was reality political television, not fair and balanced news.

Trump’s speech served another purpose. It diverted the attention of American news organizations from something much more important, something of enduring economic significance, that was taking place the same day. Had that event been the focus of the news, it would have highlighted the growing disconnect between Trump’s inaugural promise to always to act on behalf of the forgotten men and women who work and his conduct on trade.

Trump spoke of how beautiful Poland was, how beautiful his wife was, how beautiful Krasiński Square was. His speech even put the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and beautiful in the same sentence. All this was prelude for a sudden turn into his dark view of the future, an extension of his inaugural remarks less than six months earlier about “carnage” in America and his promise to restore law and order and always to champion working people.

“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive,” Trump declared.

That line came out of the blue with no context. It also dominated the news that day. It was not preceded as most grand pronouncements are by a buildup to prepare people for a jarring or monumental observation. Nor did it turn out to be the first step in a campaign to save Western Civilization from imminent or even possible extinction. That’s because its purpose was something quite different, something that distracted from much more important business taking place that day eight hundred miles to the west in Brussels.

Trump ticked off a long and eclectic list of challenges. It began with a theme of aggression without reconciliation, a theme in many Trump speeches when it came to racial, ethnic, and religious matters: “We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values.”

To many people around the world the idea that Western Civilization faces extinction seemed not just surprising, but paranoid. But this speech was not aimed at people with a rational and fact-based view of the world.

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