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Newsweek
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
The U.S. Has Never Been a Bigger Target for Terrorism. Trump Is Why
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. In 1941, the Japanese high command was considering launching a surprise attack on the United States. Their top commander, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, handed them a plan for a crippling strike on Pearl Harbor. But it came with an ominous warning: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States ... I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success." Before Pearl Harbor, America had been willfully blind to the world burning. The anti-war arguments of the rabidly isolationist America First Committee (AFC) carried crushing support in public opinion polls. Two days after Pearl Harbor, American public backing for war had become nearly unanimous and AFC had "pledged their full support." President Donald Trump walks toward members of the media prior to answering questions before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on April 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump walks toward members of the media prior to answering questions before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on April 29, 2025, in Washington, years later, the post-9/11 rally around the flag showed that this American capacity to unify and mobilize in a crisis was undimmed. Former President George W. Bush had a bare majority of public backing, with Democrats still bitter from the 2000 election. Two weeks after the Twin Towers fell, Bush had soared to 90 percent approval, and a Congress evenly split between the parties would go on to overwhelmingly pass 48 vigorous legislative responses, while the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan would decimate the leadership of Al-Qaeda. For the past century, that's been the hidden power of this superpower: a strategic reserve of mutual trust and dormant energy which allowed us to black start from divided jumble to fearsome juggernaut. This is not an infinitely renewable resource. It requires confidence that our leaders will wield the awesome power of our shared determination to act in the nation's best interests. That confidence can be depleted. As Bush began to exchange patriotic determination for the cheaper coin of political leverage—in order to push ahead with his attack on Iraq and quixotic partisan projects like privatizing Social Security—Democrats became justifiably suspicious that they had been played, their trauma used and then weaponized not against enemies, but against them. That left cracks in our shared vessel. Over the past 10 years, President Donald Trump has shattered them wide open. Trump has repeatedly shown that for him, there is no national interest. He cares only for ever more money, vengeance, and power. Like any junkie, he continually ups the dosage, provoking his opposition with greater outrage to stoke the division that fuels his political life and the petty dominance displays that apparently feed his soul. In just the past month he has monetized the presidency to the tune of billions of dollars (crypto dinners, Qatari jets) handed out favors to those who pay him (corrupt pardons, more crypto operators) or fluff him (reality stars, corrupt right wing officials), sought retribution against opponents (law firms, New York Attorney General Leticia James, Democrats), and picked fights with everyone (NATO, China, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Denmark, penguins). Our strategic trust reserve is now dry. There is no action that this government could take in a crisis that we could rally around. And that is incredibly dangerous. We've seen why. Remember that Israel's defense establishment warned that Benjamin Netanyahu's Trumpian moves in 2023 would make Israel a target for terrorist attack. They did. As former vice presidential candidate and Congressman Jack Kemp observed, weakness is provocative. What a provocation America now presents. Consider this thought experiment (our enemies surely have): what would happen if there were even a moderate-sized terrorist attack in America tomorrow? Well, look at the reaction to last week's protests in Los Angeles. Trump's every move created only more anger and fear—likely intentionally. And that was a minor security situation. So imagine how America would respond to a major act of terrorism. Could we take border security measures at face value after Trump's multiple cries of "wolf?" In a biological attack, would anyone follow the guidance of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the thumb of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who doesn't believe that germs cause disease? If Trump launched a military response, would half of America see it as a self-serving "wag the dog" exercise? Maybe we would reach deep into our DNA and rally. But far more likely is that America would melt into lawsuits, infighting, and paranoia. The whole point of terrorism is to have an asymmetrical impact: for a small force to achieve a big effect. It is hard to imagine a time where such a vast potential effect has been on offer, where our country could be so easily broken to pieces. Our enemies undoubtedly see this, certainly can imagine what they could do now that our greatest deterrent asset has been sapped. Abraham Lincoln once warned that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Trump is daily ripping out the beams. Matt Robison is a writer, podcast host, and former congressional staffer. The views in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
American conservatives turn on Winston Churchill
Sitting in Joe Rogan's podcast studio, thick smoke from the host's cigar swirling around him, Douglas Murray did not mince his words. The idea that Winston Churchill is 'the bad guy of the 20th Century is 'horse s--- of the most profound kind,' he declared. The best-selling author's ire was triggered by an emerging trend of conservative influencers espousing 'Churchill revisionism' on their platforms. The idea, held among some factions of the US hard-Right, that Churchill ought not to be lauded for his role in the Second World War, is rooted in American isolationism. As Donald Trump extols the virtues of American protectionism, insisting the US has been 'taken advantage of' by its foreign allies, the idea is surging afresh. Despite Mr Trump being a Churchill fan, having twice restored a bust of the wartime leader to the Oval Office after it was removed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Churchill revision has taken hold among some of his most influential followers. Rogan, America's most-listened to podcaster, and Tucker Carlson, a conservative journalist and commentator, both recently interviewed Darryl Cooper, a hard-Right influencer who has described Britain's wartime leader as the 'chief villain of World War Two'. Credit: YouTube/TuckerCarlson The theory has its roots in the 1940s, with the inauguration of the America First Committee, spearheaded by aviator Charles Lindbergh, and its campaign to keep the US out of the war. Hostility to Churchill continued with Pat Buchanan, who twice ran for the US presidency, blaming Britain's wartime leader for prolonging the conflict. 'This is a very clear movement on a subset of the American right, but it's a growing movement. And that's why I believe it's important to challenge it,' Mr Murray told The Telegraph, after his tense exchange with Rogan. 'They always look like what they're trying to do is simply correct the historical narrative. What they're doing is in fact, distorting the historical narrative,' Mr Murray said. 'I think it's important that people who actually do have very large followings do not play around with very dangerous ideas [they have] encountered. And I've been worried that that's something that is happening [more frequently],' Mr Murray added. Carlson described Mr Cooper as the 'best and most honest popular historian in the United States' during his appearance on the Tucker Carlson Show last September. In the almost two-and-a-half-hour chat, Mr Cooper described Churchill as 'the chief villain' of the Second World War. 'You know, if you go to 1939, when the Germans and the Soviet Union invade Poland, as soon as that war's wrapped up on the German side, Hitler starts firing off peace proposals to Britain. France, because they had already declared war,' he said. 'Churchill wanted a war, he wanted to fight Germany. The reason I resent Churchill so much for it is that he kept this war going when he had no way to go back and fight this war. All he had were bombers. 'He was literally, by 1940, sending firebomb fleets... just to burn down sections of the Black Forest,' claimed Mr Cooper. 'It was just rank terrorism... that eventually became just carpet bombing, the saturation bombing of civilian neighbourhoods, the purpose of which was to kill as many civilians as possible.' Five months later, in February, Carlson parroted some of what Mr Cooper said, launching his own attack on Churchill in an interview with Piers Morgan. 'Well, I know he helped defeat the Nazis with his friend Stalin. I'm not defending the Nazis. I'm just saying, where is Western civilisation? What did he preserve? Where is it? I don't know where it is,' he told a bemused Morgan. Credit: Piers Morgan Uncensored According to Christopher Galdieri, professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, the theory is used to prop up the argument that modern America would be better off had the US not entered the Second World War. 'Pat Buchanan argued the US should have stayed out of World War Two and let Europe figure it out and that the whole world would be better off if that had been what had happened,' Prof Galdieri told The Telegraph. 'That's an idea that used to be at the very fringes of conservative thought that is clearly becoming much more acceptable.' Andrew Roberts, author of the widely praised Churchill: Walking with Destiny was scornful of those trying to rewrite history. 'Nothing Cooper or Tucker Carlson has said is new,' he said. He told The Telegraph: 'We've had these critiques from Alan Clark, from Professor Maurice Cowling, and also from Patrick Buchanan – and obviously also from people like David Irving. 'What it tries to argue is that the British shouldn't have fought the Second World War, we should have let Hitler take Europe whilst we kept the Empire and allowed Hitler to then have a struggle against Soviet communism. 'It takes a very, very weird world view, frankly, to believe in that kind of thing. But also it takes some ignorance of what the world genuinely was like in the 1930s and 1940s, and what the dictators were all about, and what the Western democracies were capable of doing,' he added. 'If you allow Adolf Hitler control over Europe in the second half of the 1940s, he would in fact have annihilated all of the Jews in Europe and not just 50 per cent of them.' The Telegraph has approached Tucker Carlson, Darryl Cooper and Joe Rogan for comment. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Chicago Tribune
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
John Austin: ‘America First' means an America diminished
The United States, as a strong and growing young country, broke out of its isolationist tendencies in the First World War, coming to the aid of allies in Europe and providing the push that ended its horrors. Stung by the violence and death of so many in World War I, many Americans sought to once again retreat from the world and messy conflicts in Europe. In the 1930s, the America First Committee and its rallying cry — most prominently voiced by Charles Lindbergh — embraced isolationism and organized hundreds of thousands to resist the U.S. becoming involved in a second looming European war while voicing sympathy and even admiration for Adolf Hitler and the emerging Nazi Party in Germany. But as the U.S. watched Germany's vice tighten around Great Britain and then was stunned by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt nudged and then rallied America once again to step into the fray with all its force. Roosevelt tapped Gen. George Marshall to direct the war effort. He then turned to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to organize the great Allied invasion when its time came. Together they managed, not without some frustration and difficulty, the cat-herding of Allied nations and their leaders seeking to liberate Europe from fascism and its concomitant genocide. After this war, the U.S. did not go home but stayed engaged. The Marshall Plan rebuilt economies ravaged by war and proved to residents of shattered European cities and villages that democracy delivers. More than just lifting the boot of fascism, the U.S.-led capitalist and democratic system delivered much more in the way of economic opportunity as well as freedom of thought and expression than the alternative communist model on offer to Europeans by the Soviets — which many at the time found attractive. The U.S. did not make demands on war-weary countries. In fact, the Marshall Plan was offered to all, including the Soviets! (Who refused.) More than noble charity, this investment paid off in spades for the U.S. It delivered for the U.S. a family of eager partners in protecting our own national security. It built up fast-growing economies that both served and were sold to by U.S. businesses expanding across the globe, bringing unprecedented prosperity to all sides. The U.S. first organized the United Nations, and then the great NATO alliance, a partnership that kept the peace in Europe — until Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It also made America in the eyes of the world the 'shining city on a hill,' first pictured by Puritan John Winthrop and later echoed by President Ronald Reagan when facing down the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The U.S. became a nation with tremendous moral authority and soft power in the world, to match its unprecedented economic and military might. Through these efforts, the U.S. came to be the undisputed leader of the world's family of nations, committed to fundamental values upon which our country and our alliances were built: democracy, freedom, self-determination and protection of civil rights. Now, as current U.S. leadership questions the benefits of an alliance with Europe, slaps on tariffs and attempts to bully friend and foe alike and expresses surprising admiration and solidarity with neo-Nazis in Europe and dictators such as Vladimir Putin, the U.S. risks losing its role as the leader of the free world. And its moral authority — already compromised by ill-considered escapades such as the invasion of Iraq. With President Donald Trump's insane trade war, America stands to lose its access to global markets and eager customers for its businesses and farmers, and lose well-paying jobs at home. This looks like the opposite of the Marshall Plan, when the U.S. helped the world bake an ever-growing economic pie, which delivered to America a giant slice. Today's 'America First' agenda and accompanying tariffs and transactional diplomacy will inevitably lead to the U.S. enjoying a bigger piece but of a shriveled global economic pie. But most damaging to the U.S. and its place in the world is our current leaders' apparent embrace of a 'values-free' foreign policy — a 'might makes right' approach. Attending the now-infamous Munich Security Conference, I was impressed by the articulateness of Finland's former prime minister, Sanna Marin. She noted that the so-called rules-based order created by the Allies after World War II was more one of shared values than 'rules,' the values giving rise to freedom of expression, freedom to work and travel as you want, and the protection of human and civil rights, including women's rights. Trump's America First is an abdication of American leadership in the world. The U.S. should again join leaders in the European Union, the United Kingdom and others in the Americas, Africa and Asia who share these values to lead the international coalition that stands up to the authoritarian axis — and successfully contains it— just as they did, with U.S. help, during the Cold War. Fortunately, there are more leaders who believe strongly in an international order built on and informed by freedom, transparency, self-determination and rule of law than there are might-makes-right authoritarians. Now is the time for these nations to unite in common purpose. A truly great nation would lead them, not join the other side.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mike Tyson, Ted Nugent and Russell Brand to join Trump at Mar-a-Lago gala: What's it about?
President Donald Trump is scheduled to be the "honored" guest Tuesday evening at a sold-out gala in his own club where he is expected to be joined by boxing legend Mike Tyson, actor Russell Brand and performer Ted Nugent. The Mar-a-Lago gala is hosted by America's Future, whose chairman is Mike Flynn. Flynn was Trump's first national security adviser during his initial White House term. Flynn is a far-right political figure who now resides in Southwest Florida, and the group's mission includes a focus on child trafficking through the southern border. The gathering is the final event in the president's six-day Presidents Day stay at the Winter White House, the longest of his three sojourns to Palm Beach in his new term. During his first administration, Trump spent all four Presidents Day weekends at Mar-a-Lago, but never for as long as this one. Trump is to leave Mar-a-Lago Wednesday for Miami. So what is the America's Future gala all about? Here are five things to know. The organization was founded in 1946 and its website lists its mission as to "fight to preserve American values and ideals, protect the nation's Constitutional Republic, promote strong American families, revitalize the role of faith in our society, and advance the virtues of free market capitalism." It adds: "Under a set of guiding principles, America's Future strengthens American patriotism, reinforces American greatness, and re-establishes our founding fathers' framework that America is 'one nation, under God, of the people, for the people and by the people.'" Past leaders have included retired Brigadier Gen. Robert E. Wood, a founder of the isolationist America First Committee before World War II, and conservative activist Phlylis Schafly, who vocally opposed the 1970s re-introduction of the Equal Rights Amendment. The theme of the gala at Mar-a-Lago, the website post states, is to celebrate "American exceptionalism." The term is the 20th Century successor to the 1800s belief in Manifest Destiny, the concept that the United States had the God-given mission to expand its borders to the Pacific Ocean. American Exceptionalism gained particular favor after the Spanish-American War and then in the post-World War II era. It embraced the belief in the uniqueness, even moral superiority, of the United States for historical, ideological and religious reasons. Advocates and scholars of American exceptionalism often argued that the country's exceptionalism ordained it to be a special player in global politics. That last corollary is at odds with Trump's stated "America first" guiding principles and policies toward the European alliance, the defunding of the U.S. Agency for International Development, tariffs and other foreign policy initiatives. In addition to Tyson, Brand and Nugent, others featured include former UFC champion Colby Covington and "host committee" members Mel Gibson and Kid Rock. But it's too late to buy a ticket because the event is sold-out. Tax-deductible tickets for the black-tie event ran from $5,000 to $10,000, however. The webpage also has an offer to join a presidential advisory board that grants access to "briefings" with U.S. House and Senate members and state governors. Plus an "overnight stay at Mar-a-Lago," according to the site. Flynn, a retired and respected U.S. Army lieutenant general, had a short-live tenure as Trump's top national security aide. He lasted in the important role less than a month owing to a scandal involving contact he had with Russia's ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn reportedly misled then-Vice President Mike Pence about the communications, leading to his resignation after just 44 days in the post. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his communications with Kislyak. In November 2020, Trump issued Flynn a pardon. By then, Flynn had become a vocal advocate backing Trump's unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Upon questioning by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol, Flynn invoked his constitutional right to not self-incriminate himself. He did so in a video released by the committee in which he cited the 5th amendment when asked by then-U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, if Flynn believed the violence on Jan. 6 was "justified morally," "justified legally" and also if he believed "in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America." Tuesday evening's event comes a day after the Presidents Day holiday witnessed two streetside demonstrations in Trump's home county. In downtown West Palm Beach, roughly 400 people assembled to show opposition to Trump administration policies chanting "Dump Trump!" and "Hey hey, ho ho, Elon has got to go!" 'Dump Trump!': Protestors rip into Trump at Presidents Day rally in downtown West Palm Beach Not far away, dozens of the president's supporters invited by the Republican Party of Palm Beach County gathered by the entrance to his Trump International Golf Club in a show of support. They cheered as Trump emerged from the club to wave at them and offer a thumbs up. Among those in attendance was Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader who was convicted almost two years ago by a federal jury of sedition for his actions related to the Jan. 6 violence. Sentenced to 22 years in prison, he was released after being granted a pardon by Trump on Inauguration Day. In addition to Tarrio, Trump also pardoned two other Proud Boys members, Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs. They also attended the afternoon rally. Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@ Help support our journalism. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Mike Tyson, Ted Nugent, Russell Brand to join Trump at Mar-a-Lago gala
