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Is Europe's powerhouse going off the rails?

SULLIVAN: Requiem for the West...

Trump and Vance have put a stake in the heart of the free world.

Requiem For The West - by Andrew Sullivan 

The Weekly Dish - Substack

2 days ago

Andrew Sullivan

Feb 21, 2025

“The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge — and pray God we have not lost it — that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest … The strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe’s democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny,”

--------- Ronald Reagan at Pointe du Hoc, France on June 6, 1984.

It is a fascinating moment, isn’t it, when Reagan’s vision of the West is finally swept into the dustbin of history by a Republican president.

And that is the only solid conclusion one can make after this week of astonishing incompetence and madness. We only saw Donald Trump’s foreign policy darkly in his first term — constrained, as he was, by a handful of white-knuckled Republicans in the executive branch. 

Now we see it face to face. 

It’s a vision where international law disappears, great powers divide up the planet into spheres of influence, and the strong always control the weak. 

It’s Trump’s vision of domestic politics as well. 

And of life.

Control, plunder, gloat. This is the Trump way.

[...] 

This means, it seems to me, that the idea of the West is now over. By the West, I mean the idea that the democracies that beat the Nazis and outlasted the Soviets were and are instinctively America’s friends — “We were with you then; We are with you now,” in Reagan’s words — that the world is divided between autocracy and democracy, and that although we need to deal with tyrants realistically, and accept limits on our power in this new multipolar world, we are still emphatically the leader of “the free world.”

Those three words — “the free world” — mean nothing to Trump and never have. And he has now fatefully told the entire world, including our former allies, that this is America’s position now as well. He has updated Reagan with these words: “We were with you then. We see no reason to be with you now. In fact, we’re siding with a dictator who threatens you.”

This is a Rubicon, I’m afraid, that cannot be fully uncrossed. But I have a feeling that the American people, including many who voted for Trump, will see this new alliance with Putin against a beleaguered, little democracy with the same disgust and nausea that I do.

This is who Trump is. But it isn’t who Americans really are. I have faith that the West, now mortally wounded, can yet survive Trump and Putin, and re-emerge at some point. But it may be a dark, dark few years before the dawn’s early light breaks out again.

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(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a paid subscriber, click here to read the full version. 

This week’s issue also includes: 

my talk with Yoni Appelbaum on the history of mobility in America;

listener debate over Christianism on the right and left; 

more reader debate over DOGE; 

 

10 notable quotes from the week in news, including 

three Yglesias Awards from both the right and left; 

21 pieces on Substack we recommend on a variety of topics; 

a Mental Health Break of a Coldplay collab; 

a patriotic window from Philly; 

and, of course, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. 

 

Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)

 

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