Requiem For The West
Trump and Vance have put a stake in the heart of the free world.
Feb 21, 2025
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.
Control, plunder, gloat. This is the
Trump way.
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