Gunboat Diplomacy: 2.0

Sadly, President Trump exhibits all the negative characteristics of President Theodore

Roosevelt, and none of the positive ones.

Trump is a racist (“Shithole Countries”), a warmonger, an Imperialist, and a Nationalist, who believes “might makes right.”

Republican President “Teddy Roosevelt” is similar in his early 20 th Century attitudes. His, The Winning of the West Four Volumes, provides the philosophical justification for “Manifest Destiny” retroactively justifying the conquering or subduing of a “savage people” for their own good. As an aside, John Locke was not that much better in his property rights and governmental authority arguments in his, Second Treatise on Civil Government. Which posited that ‘Ownership of land depended on improvement of land’ as God made nothing to ‘Go to waste.” (OK, from memory, I couldn’t take all 5000 books to Portugal.) That is an accurate paraphrasing. I taught it for 38 years.

What Trump lacks is: Principles, Integrity, Virtue, Honesty, Courage, Compassion, Knowledge, Interest in the past, present or future, and Curiosity. And that is the short list of his inadequacies.

In contrast, President Theodore Roosevelt embodied all of the previous paragraph virtues at historic levels. Despite his prejudices. (Common in his time).

It is the difference between Roosevelt a ‘sickly child’ who insisted on self-improvement

throughout his life, and ‘an entitled child of a real estate multimillionaire’, who just wishes to continue the scam of his family traditions.

Now that President Trump has invaded Venezuela, captured their leader and his wife, begun auctioning off oil rights to established US corporations and cowed the remaining Venezuelan leadership into cooperation (or else); threatened Cuba, Columbia, Mexico and Denmark – not to mention executing ‘suspected drug runners’ without trial and capturing foreign flagged oil tankers including a Russian flagged one. It appears, that ‘Make America Great Again’ means “Make America Expansionist and Imperialistic Again.”

President Theodore Roosevelt is guilty of more than a few moral crimes. But at least he could read and write. Personal testimony of former employees and evidence from televised speeches prove Trump is not capable of either. Nor is he capable of Reason, which may be why he consistently makes outrageous claims and demands, in order to ‘see what he can get away with’ as opposed to ‘what is beneficial for nations and the planet.’ Trump has no moral center, which makes his Trump Bible all the more offensive.

President Theodore Roosevelt Positive Achievements:

• The Panama Canal. His tactics were not ideal, he sent the US Navy to threaten the

  “Columbian Isthmus” of Panama, where the French had failed to build the canal as an invest construction project – sold heavily to French families of means. When the US ships showed up, Roosevelt quickly declared Panama to be ‘a sovereign nation’- declared a French local to be the mayor/governor and forced a contract with said individual for ownership of Panama. All before Columbia had any opportunity to move it’s military through the jungles to protect its own territory. And the US signed a 99-year lease for the canal – which the US built.

• Thus the term “Gunship Diplomacy”. Columbia was beaten before it had time to react.

• Not the first time. Roosevelt did so also in the Spanish – American War, or as the

  Spanish call it, “The War of American Aggression”. As war broke out in Cuba as a result of the tragedy of the USS Maine (later proven to be to mis-stored gunpowder) one Friday, the President was home for the weekend and the Secretary of the Navy was also out. Teddy Roosevelt – Vice Secretary of the Navy – took it upon himself to wire Admiral Dewey harbored in Hong Kong to sail to Manila Bay and sink the decrepit Spanish fleet. Which he did – easily as most were immobile.

• Spain was fighting against a Philippian independence insurgency led by Emilio Aguinaldo for national freedom. When the US showed up, they assumed we were here to free them. Until they figured out, we were not. Thus the Philippine-American War, killing 100,000 Filipinos before they surrendered to the US in exchange for the promise of ‘independence at some later date when they were prepared for it.’ A bit of a preview of Viet Nam jungle warfare. Before International Communism existed.

• The pro-invasion calculus, was that if the US did not take out Spain, the German Navy – also in the area – would take the Philippines for themselves. The islands themselves being strategic for refueling naval fleets between the Americas and Asia. The US maintains a base in Manila to this day.

• President McKinley stated, “educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

• “A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect. Following the U.S. victory in Manila during the War of 1898, McKinley doubted Filipino civilizational capacity to self-govern, believed that a U.S. departure from the Philippines would cause chaos and great power war, and believed that U.S. governance could forestall that outcome. Because he had already deployed troops to the Philippines, McKinley also felt ownership over them, and this endowment effect inflated his valuation of the archipelago. Together, these mutually reinforcing beliefs produced the meddler's trap and the United States’ largest annexation outside its hemisphere.” https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article/48/2/49/118109/The-Meddler-s-Trap- McKinley-the-Philippines-and

• The US granted independence to the Philippines on July 4, 1946 – perhaps for their

  support through World War 2. For better, and sometimes for worse.

• Theodore Roosevelt established five national parks.

• Roosevelt created The Pure Food and Drug Act and Meat Inspection Act after reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle documenting the horrendous conditions where US meats were processed.

Trump’s non-violent accomplishments:

• His endorsement and promise of financial profitability to pharmaceutical companies to expedite Covid vaccines. He was following steps President Biden had already begun. Some credit is warranted. Except the whole ‘What if people drank bleach?’ remark.

• He gets zero credit for “Solving eight wars.” None of them are solved. At most they are on pause. He is the least worthy world leader for the Nobel Peace Prize. He only wants one because Obama has one.

• BTW: He did not write the Art of the Deal. Of course it was ghost written. As was Barry Goldwater’s The Conscience of a Conservative. Which sadly, opened the door to the likes of the amoral Trump.

• At least Goldwater had a conscience…