Hall of Mirrors — Why Trump’s Strategy of Distraction is Working
Travelling carnivals were the highlight of community life for poor children in 1930s and 40s America. Rural schoolchildren would save their money and, when the carnival pulled in and set up in a dirt field just out of town, they were ready for the dubious delights that would await. The two headed man! The house of mirrors! Games of chance.
The success of any con game depends somewhat on distraction and somewhat on the gullibility of the subject. At the old time carnivals, the games of chance were rigged against you. The sweet treats were sweet only for a moment, cotton candy that lasts for a second on the tongue before it evaporates. As for the dangerous monkeys, the extent of their terror depended upon what you didn’t know about monkeys in the first place.
Donald Trump’s foreign policy is much like the carnival that pulls into town, dependent upon the short view of a subset of the American people for its success. If you are a student of history, if you understand the role that the long game plays in geopolitics, if you know the geographic hot spots of the world and can identify their meaning to the United States both politically and economically, you are far less dazzled by the shell game perpetrated by Trump and his aggressive, belligerent, propagandistic gang of cronies.
In the mid-2000s, my husband and I travelled 3,000 miles along the Silk Route of Pakistan from Karachi high into the Himalayan mountains. At one point, we still on a small platform in the little village of Jaglote. There, in the distance, is the juncture of the three greatest mountain ranges in the world: the Himalaya, the Karakoram, and the HinduKush.
The Silk Route is a road of conquerors and legends. It is of great geopolitical significance, as Pakistan and India skirmish over the control of Kashmir and China makes inroads that will establish a warm-water port in the Pakistani seaport of Gwadar, a short for Chinese trade that will circumvent the Russians. The United States brought engineers to the area in the mid-50s to survey the economic potential and decided to leave well enough alone. The modern Chinese, with their interest in global trade domination, did not see it that way and have invested millions in what will be one of the most pivotal deep sea ports in the world.
The stereotypical, isolationistic world view is myopic and ultimately destructive to the best interests of the American people. It is a fiction, built on the fantasies of wild west movies and the dubious mythology of personal independence and the feeling that we have everything we need without the influence of the world.
The uneducated among Trump’s voter base, the ones who cannot name the capitals of the states in the United States, much less identify the members of the United Nations Security Council, love this sort of fiery rhetoric at the expense of facts. The ‘big stick’ approach appeals to their sense of vanity and the stereotypical symbols of patriotism that pay nothing more than lip service to the notion of American ideals; it’s an approach that is far from the considered, research based, long game of foreign policy that actually has a chance of accomplishing the ideals we supposedly covet as Americans — the rule of law, a clean environment, a better life for the citizens around the world.
Trump has made the long game all about economics and the bottom line. Who cares if the people of Syria, so desperate to leave, risk everything? Who cares if innocent children die in bombings in Afghanistan or if thousands of children in sub-Saharan Africa die as a result of disease and a lack of clean drinking water.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley visited the UN Headquarters in New York in 2017, delivering a fiery rhetorical speech that talked a lot about America “getting its money’s worth,” one of the key talking points of the Trump Administration.
She said,
At the UN, we’re constantly asked to do more and give more — in the past we have. So, when we make a decision, at the will of the American people, about where to locate OUR embassy, we don’t expect those we’ve helped to target us,” Haley wrote on Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday evening. “On Thursday, there will be a vote at the UN criticizing our choice. And yes, the US will be taking names.
Taking names is more of the province of 6th grade narcs than it is the leader of the free world. And yet, here we are, pitted against almost every nation in the world, dropping out of the World Health Organization as a global pandemic has killed more than 170,000 Americans and infected millions throughout the world. At a moment when the concepts of global cooperation actually affect the well-being of American families and the lives of millions, Trump’s tunnel vision focuses not on the good that can be done and the ways in which we can alleviate the suffering from COVID-19, but the almighty dollar that could possibly be made.
At a press conference touting supposed positive job growth, just a few weeks after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, Trump even invoked the spirit of the murder victim, surmising that even George (who, let us be clear, had been murdered and was cold in the ground, hardly the place to enjoy the benefits of a growing economy) would appreciate the positive numbers.
In White House remarks that folded digressions within digressions, Trump declared: “Today is probably, if you think of it, the greatest comeback in American history.”
Speaking after the 10th night of mass anti-racism protests across the country, Trump suggested that Floyd, who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes, would be happy about the figures.
Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this a great thing that’s happening for our country,” he said. “There’s a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody. It’s a great day for everybody. There’s a great, great day in terms of equality.
No, Ringmaster Don, it’s not a great day for everybody. A great day for everybody is when no one of any color is bullied or dies at the hands of a corrupt system. George is not looking down like some sort of ebonized angel, smiling on the country that he left behind when his head was crammed underneath a patrol car and a corrupt police officer held his knee on his neck until he drew his last breath. A great day would be when people are listened to and have meaning work. When children can play in safety without needless gun violence. When people don’t worry about where their next meal will come from or how they will pay for their medicine this month. There are no ethnic angels hovering above, the sweet departed souls of the members of the Mother Emmanuel Church, for instance, guiding the good people of America in the happy construction of well-baked pound cakes or nicely mown grass.
This comment, like almost every comment out of this snake oil huckster’s mouth, is making an idiot of you, just in the same way that the carnival barkers at the old time country fair had you convinced that ghosts would jump out of mirrors or that you could really win a teddy bear by paying close attention to a game of chance.
This country, based on hopes and dreams, needs more than wishes to make a fair society a reality. It needs an educated electorate, a group of voters who consider their lives in this country a privilege and voting a duty. It takes schools that abandon nonsensical testing and parental pressure for the good work that the teachers of this country could do if they had the resources from the federal government to educate all children. It takes people who can find China on a map and don’t buy in to whimsical conspiracy theories that a global pandemic that has killed millions is a hoax or the vague, benign notion that the opposing political party is ‘coming for your guns’ and ‘want to keep you from gathering in church’ despite their own best advice.
