Neo-Con By Any Other Name
The New American Empire?
Donald Trump, contrary to all my fears and suspicions of further assassination attempts has somehow survived to be inaugurated. And so far, Trump 2.0 has proven itself to be a dozen times better than the classic version and has so far borne out none of the dissident right’s fears that he’s bought and paid for controlled opposition. Unlike the wavering, confused face he presented eight, or even four years ago, today’s Trump is focused, determined, defiant, and, somehow, more popular than ever before. While BlueSky and Reddit are submersed in liberal tears and plots of violence,1 real life has been surprisingly quiet compared to what we saw eight years ago in term one with the massive Women’s March and associated protests. The “culture”, the moment, the energy is all fully with Trump.
The first week of Trump has been beyond my every imagination in terms of pace, determination, and well, him just “getting things done.” I can’t decide what I like best about his first actions, whether it be pardons of the imprisoned pro-lifers, the literal demolition of the pagan idols of “DEI” and “LGBTQ” throughout the government, the Marine deployments to the southern border, or the renaming of the now Gulf of America.
But, one, ongoing Trump priority gives me pause. Not because I don’t like it, but because I find myself liking it too much. As Trump reiterated Saturday, the US is now as a matter of official policy aiming to be “a very substantially enlarged country in the not-so-distant future.”
This refers to Trump’s ongoing demands for Greenland from Denmark, the Panama Canal (or the whole country?) from Panama, and perhaps all of Canada from Canada.
When Trump first made comments months ago about all these “acquisitions”, something so anathema to all of our imaginations just months ago, I assumed this was merely a fun negotiating tactic as part of trade negotiations or NATO budgeting.
But, it seems he’s serious, with Trump having just made a reportedly heated call to the prime minister of Denmark demanding (and perhaps offering to buy) Greenland while Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been commissioned by Trump for a Central American trip to begin negotiating with Panama for control of the canal. Panama has already complained to the UN about the diplomatic pressure they are under from American efforts, and Trump has reiterated that he will not leave military force off the table for both “acquisitions”, justified as he says they are for U.S. and regional security needs against the encroachment of both the Russian and Chinese navies. Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly humiliated outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau while publically calling for Canadians to consider joining the U.S., promising them lower regulations, lower taxes, and well, freedom.
The unlikely just months ago, but which yet today seems to be happening before our eyes outcome, however, is that Trump is serious and we will be buying, economically coercing, or perhaps just militarily invading Panama, Greenland, and Canada within the next year or two.2
Perhaps Russia and China are encroaching. Perhaps there is some sort of justification for U.S. military intervention against its neighbors.
The problem I just noticed with myself this week, however, is that I don’t care whether there is a justification or not.
My emotions, I’ve realized, have become all fired up into this. I’ve posted images like this of U.S. territory expanded to include Canada, Greenland, and Panama, filling my mind with prideful bragging about how much of a pushover Canada and Greenland would be for the U.S. to invade and occupy, while from out of nowhere I’ve suddenly and seriously started thinking about how this “grand adventure” for seizing America’s new “manifest destiny” is something I can’t miss being a part of.
My problem is that I’ve found myself, in a patriotic, flag-waving, Toby Keith-singing way, been wanting this to happen regardless of whether or not it’s morally justified.
My mind has even twisted St. Augustine’s comments on how the Romans’ martial nature, which while a vice, was relatively speaking a virtue because it kept them from other vices for a while. I apply this argument to America in my mind, alongside the glory of a fully North American spanning gigantic American Empire, and a desire to really and truly “make America great again,” by expanding our borders for the first time in a hundred years, to feel that annexation and war with our neighbors is a great thing, a glorious thing, something I almost want to join the military to be a part of in person.3
Regardless, of the moral problems with wars and all the associated tragedy, savagery, and injustice that comes with war in general, regardless of how easy it was for me to come up with moral “justification” for something that just looks cool on a map, there’s another problem with the way I’ve been feeling this week.
Did I just become a neo-con?
Are we all being turned into neo-cons without realizing it? Is there any difference between these prospective wars of conquest and the wars of the last twenty (and really the last eighty years) of the invisible American empire around the world?
Is there any difference between invading Iraq, ostensibly for freedom and really for oil, and doing the same to Canada? Is there any difference between invading Afghanistan to keep terrorists out of power and invading Panama to keep the CCP and the Chinese Navy out of power?
These countries are at least closer, less populated, and far less armed than the ones we spent twenty years and trillions of dollars destroying the last time around. The US Coast Guard alone could conceivably conquer Greenland’s 58,000 people (we already did that once back in 1940). And yes there is another difference. Trump is being far more open and less dishonest about our intentions. Rather than Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s early 2000s lies about weapons of mass destruction and promises that we were invading countries to allow girls to go to school, Trump’s demands this time aren’t whitewashed, bejeweled, or couched with much moral justification. The honest power politics, the desire for resources, and the simple, “the strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must” argument from the Melian debate of the Peloponnesian War are all on full display.
But as some have recently pointed out on X, is this is enough to be very different from the simply put aggressive foreign policy stance everywhere policies that define neo-conservatism?
Again, at least we’re being honest about it this time, and not pretending our goals are pure universalist humanitarianism, as Darryl Cooper pointed out:
Don’t get me wrong. I like Trump 2.0 so far. I really really really like it. But perhaps those like
who fear that Trump is an establishmentarian in disguise who was forced to “make a deal” with the deep state to be allowed to be elected president, have a point. At the very least, we should be cautious lest our new imperial tone, as exciting as it is to be a part of, and perhaps capable of being accomplished through non-violent means, will be our ruin.
While I don’t like how much I like it, I can’t purge out the fact that I like it completely. Even if this is neo-conservatism-lite I yet see it at least as a move to the U.S defending its actual vital interests close to home, as in actually near our borders, Rather than defending the borders of an invisible (unmapped) empire of global influence whose borders run through Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, perhaps we are instead, as
has noted on X, now defending (and perhaps expanding) the borders of the American nation which run along our actual visibly mapped borders.It’s at least better. It’s probably not a good, moral thing. But at least it’s better. Let’s just be careful not to let neo-cons and their ideology back in through the back door even while the right is having incredible victories in dealing with our problems at home.
Ideas spread mimetically through societies, and the un-virtuous, violence-seeking, war-feverish ones, most quickly. We call it war fever for a reason. It spreads like a virus, like a demonic infection because it is one, whether it comes from a desire for vengeance like our past few wars, or as seems to be coming this time, from a desire for glory.
And I can confess that I have at least a mild case of the latter right now.
I have put out many posts this week like this one:
and this one:
This sub-Reddit is really something to behold: https://www.reddit.com/r/somethingiswrong2024/ I hope Kash Patel’s FBI will soon be watching!
And if Elon Musk is to have his way, we’ll take on the U.K. as well!
I have never ever been that type of person ever before.
Great article. As someone who for my entire adult has considered myself a non-interventionist, vehemently opposed to the neo-conservativism of the recent past and embarrassed by a lot of our "big stick" type adventurism of the more distant past, I find myself with similarly conflicted feelings and thoughts. Trump seems clearly to be advocating for a McKinley-styled Manifest Destiny Redux and all the moral dilemmas with which it is fraught. Is non-interventionism even a viable geopolitical stance in a nuclear age? Would these "moves", in addition to implementation of the Iron Dome technology, make non-interventionism at some point more viable? Even if so, is trying to reach that point worth the risks these "moves" would pose to ourselves and the world over? Would it be morally justifiable? A lot of weighty questions to ponder.
As someone of a similar bent, I've noticed how easily I've accepted the idea of a Panama canal, Greenland and even Canadian annexation too. And that's with me being highly opposed to American imperialism since the end of the cold war. It's disconcerting. Appreciate the self reflection and reminder.