Dear America,
Given Republicans' commitment to the notion that the United States is exceptional, I find myself wondering what they think about the international image of the United States projected by their candidates for president. I suppose Kasich doesn't diminish our prestige, although he is reputed to be nothing like the benign persona he is attempting to sell on the campaign trail. He is reported to have a temper that shows in vitriolic response to those who disagree with him, and his constant touting of accomplishments that are creditable not just to him, but to the bodies in which he served, like the House of Representatives, or to the passage of budgets by the legislature that his only roll in was to sign while governor of Ohio, seems like undignified self-promotion. And self-promotion is unsavory no matter whether Kasich does it or Donald Trump does.
And speaking of Trump and self-promotion, which is practically Trump's middle name, he is still rambling on about the size of his hands, and even then he can't forego self-promotion, his latest comment on the subject being that when he buys gloves, he buys them just smaller than large...in other words, medium. And to go with such crass attempts to convince his female constituents that he can satisfy them not just politically by in other ways as well, there is his new war with his closest Republican rival, Ted Cruz, about their respective wives. It started with a super-pac publishing an old photo of Trump's wife, and ended with Trump blaming Cruz for it and threatening to "spill the beans" on Cruz's wife. No one knows what beans Trump is talking about, but Cruz had the good sense not to prolong the exchange by simply decrying it as impolitic. And then there's Cruz.
This guy claims not to have a temper unless seriously provoked, but he wants to carpet-bomb Syria and Iraq in order to destroy ISIL. I guess he has abandoned the "kinder, gentler" credo espoused by some of his predecessors in favor of Ronald Reagan's strategy of swaggering through the world showing everyone looking in his direction a "big stick." To listen to the current Republican candidates is to be transported back to the high school cafeteria to watch a food fight. I am used to leaders who demonstrate at least some semblance of sophistication and restraint--though he demonstrates them to a fault, Barrack Obama does so--but if the Republicans have their way, the world will see our puling, boasting, worst side every time it looks toward the White House. I don't believe in pride; I was taught that it is a sin, though in this putatively Judeo-Christian country it seems now to be not just a virtue but a measure of patriotism. But I am embarrassed that the world can see the worst of us every time a Republican gives a speech.
I remember what I was thinking when Silvio Berlusconi, then the Prime Minister of Italy, got in trouble in Italy with his invitations to minors to come and participate in his cocktail parties and his consorting with both movie stars and young women of suspect profession. He was such a caricature...such a buffoon. He smiled as he was being convicted of tax fraud, and he seemed to revel in the exposure of his constant indulgence in escapades worthy of frat boys, but to be eschewed by politicians seeking to project respectability in any other country. What would constitute a scandal anywhere else in Europe was a badge of distinction to him, and on that account, it seemed that the whole world was laughing at both Berlusconi and Italy for reelecting him at the peak of his profligacy. But he is gone from the scene now, and the world needs someone new to laugh about, so in walks Donald Trump. But this time, it won't be a hapless country like the one that lost a war to Ethiopia during the World War II era, it will be the United States. And while we lost wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, and we're still in the process of losing one in Afghanistan, we had allies in each case who thought it was a good idea to fight them. It is not the country that makes the Fiat, but the one that makes Cadillacs and Corvettes. But it also won't be the country that makes fine silk and designer suits; it will be the country that used to. It won't be the country in which the leaning tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower were constructed, it will be the one in which the Trump Tower was built to memorialize out own Ozymandias, who unfortunately might wind up being as prominent as Berlusconi was, and maybe some day will be so for some of the same reasons.
Maybe we need a Trump presidency to demonstrate to our collective satisfaction that we are not superior to every other nation by dint of American Exceptionalism. Maybe President Trump could teach us that all nations are exceptional...just sometimes for all the wrong reasons.
Your friend,
Mike
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