Introduction
Welcome to The Cameron Journal Newsletter! This week, it’s all about Trump Tariffs and the reverberations around the world from what can only be described as an economic reset.
The World is Hard, This is Not
Each week I send out the latest headlines, the latest videos from The Cameron Journal and commentary about the week’s events. If you’re new here, my name is Cameron Lee Cowan M.A. MFA, and I’m the Creative Director here at The Cameron Journal. You can learn more about me on the about page. I do research and commentary on politics, culture, and the world around us. Remember, The World is Hard, This is Not.
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Updates
May is disappearing like water in a desert. I can’t believe it’s the 17th already, and I’m already writing this week’s newsletter. I thought I had just sent it out, but it’s Saturday. Welcome to the weekend, everyone! It’s been warming up lately, and I finally got my A/C installed in my office. The sun is a nice contrast to those dreary grey days of January and February. New England can be so pretty when the weather is enjoyable!
I had a great time with Michael Anderson this week doing a special live event (you can watch at the end of this message) and we discussed the first 100 days of Trump and much more, so please check that out and share around too!
I’m not going to get into the situation, but the DNC managed to undo the election of David Hogg this week. David Hogg rose to national prominence after a mass shooting at his high school in Florida and his election to the party represented a major shift change in the party towards, younger more progressive voters. It did not last long. Between his threats to fundraise for candidates running against the party for which he is co-chair and his statements about why Democrats need to win back young men and not shame them for being horny, liking sex or just being normal men, they drummed him right out of town. The fundraising part is more important than his statements about young men. You can’t really have your officials undermining the electoral chances of candidates. Given that the party has an image problem with young men and the brand is so toxic right now, this is still a mistake.
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The Latest
The Media and Trump
When I came across this post, it stopped me for a moment.
“The media’s running out of ways to downplay Trump — choking on good news through gritted teeth, still whining about his ‘lack of policy.’ But while they cling to managed pessimism, a clear U.S. strategy is emerging in plain sight during this GCC tour.
Unlike the 60s (when colonialism unraveled) or the 90s (when the USSR collapsed), most countries today, if given the choice between the U.S. neocon playbook — nation-building, grant-fed ideological conditioning, and the Washington Consensus — or a commercial approach with real economic impact, it’s not much of a choice. One delivers. The other lectures.”
I’m going to address the Foreign Policy end of things in a moment (keep reading for that) but at this moment I want to address the media and Trump. I sort of agree about the media and Trump. As we’ll see in a moment, not everything that glitters with Trump’s tour is gold (although the aircraft certainly does) and it certainly represents a shift in policy. But then there’s the media coverage. As I always say, there is a delta between the reality of things and how we talk about them. Often, the narrative around a given story is far worse than the reality of it, and that is certainly true with things like the recent Trade War.
The media has never learned to cover Trump, despite the 10 years of practice they have had. Trump loves chaos, but the only thing he loves more is making sure that his name stays in the press. He likes people to be chattering. That is why it is always hard to tell what he just “says out loud” for the sake of getting on the news and what he really intends to do. That’s why I tend to wait for what they really do rather than what they just say. The mainstream media has not learned that lesson, and instead they report on every single syllable that elicits from the White House. That worked for coverage before Trump, but it is no longer the way to cover politics at a national level in this country and the media has never figured it out.
Here’s the other reality, because of his toxic statements and behaviors, anything Trump does will be distasteful to a strong 20-40% of the country. That dynamic is just built in, regardless of what he does. As I said on an event with David Breckemeyer, if Trump had given a bone to Democrats back in the first term or even more recently, he could have avoided this dynamic. But he would never do that because the reality is that he enjoys this antagonistic dynamic. He controls the dynamic, and he doesn’t care about what most people think. He is the living embodiment of the internet troll.
Stay Mad.
Trump Resets Foreign Policy
And it’s not about international relations, it really is foreign policy in the 19th century set of the world. This week, President Trump was on a tour of the Middle East. Some twitter folks mentioned that he knew how to talk to Middle East dictators. It was a full court press everywhere he went, from Saudi Arabia to the UAE.
In Saudi Arabia he gave an interesting speech advocating for “no more bombing each other, we don’t want that.” His foreign policy pivot was about working with countries regardless of their own governance, culture, or their own perspective on human rights. It is in sharp contrast to the principled view we have taken of the world. As Armand Bertrand put it in the tweet I linked to the speech, “I’ve been arguing for close to a decade that the single biggest reason for the growing divide between the West and ‘the rest’ was the West’s inability to accept diversity (the genuine kind, not the fake ersatz of it sold to you under liberalism). Diversity of cultures, traditions, civilizations, governance systems, etc.”
I can’t say I’m opposed to that idea. I had written an article awhile entitled, “Why we Should Do Business with Dictators” where I made the same argument. We can’t reshape the world in our image like we thought we could in the 20th century. The Wilsonian idea of “making the world safe for democracy” is just out of sync with the 21st century. Trump certainly has the view that our values are not in conflict with other countries who have other values. Trump is embracing a criticism, often leveled at the U.S. that we are in other’s business too much, we lecture too much and rather than just leaving people alone to develop their own country and society in the way that they see fit without our unwanted input.
If the 20th century was about exporting American values, the 21st century is merely about collecting the check in a new trade deal (with a solid tariff agreement). As someone with a background in international relations, I realize that this is the practical solution and I’ve written as such. As a liberal person with idealistic views on the world and being mindful of human rights violations, human trafficking, and development problems; I am disappointed that we are stepping away from being that shining city on a hill. Not advocating for our values seems unAmerican somehow. Trump has embraced the world, angered allies like Canada as part of his big reset. Is this view the future of our country?
The Qatari Plane Deal?
While Trump was on his tour of the Middle East this week, he picked up a rather….large gift from the Qatari government. They have gifted him a 747-8, but it is not just any old airframe, oh no, this plane is an opulent palace fit for a sultan in the skies. The plan is to use it as Air Force One during his time in office, and then it will be gifted to his Presidential Library for his private use after he leaves office. I’ll just say it right now: this is illegal.
As The New Republic remarked, the Constitution is not in great shape. Between Stephen Miller floating the threat to suspend Habeas Corpus (your right to have a trial for accused crimes, to know who is accusing you and have that take place in public) and then a clear violation of the Emoluments clause (government officials can’t use their public position to enrich themselves) this week has not been a great week for the Constitution. Congress is authorized to suspend Habeas Corpus, not the President and government officials can’t accept gifts above $400 and gifts to the President are not owned by them privately, but they are owned by the Federal government and must be turned over to be kept in archival storage.
Then there is the security implications. Air Force One (the one provided for him by we the taxpayer) is a secure location that is secured by the Secret Service and other security apparati of the Federal government. This new plane from Qatar is already a security threat on that basis alone. What listening devices could be inside it? What tracking? We could never know. This cartoon sums up the situation perfectly.
Articles of Interest:
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Special Live Event with Michael Anderson:
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