Guest Post by Haviland Smith - What is happening to the United States?

 

What is happening to the United States?

By Haviland Smith

November 23, 2020

What could possibly motivate an American president to create and promote instability here at home? Everyone seems to agree that he does it to create the conditions that would return him to office. 

In that context, some say he is motivated by money. Others say he is concerned that once he is no longer in office, numerous lawsuits will be brought against him. Or that he is simply trying to keep his base alive.   However, he is promoting policies on many issues that probably ultimately will turn his base against him.

The most curious aspect of this matter is that his policies are almost totally compatible with Russia’s goals for the United States. That goal is to see the United States seriously weakened and less involved in measures that the Putin regime sees as harmful to Russia. The easiest way to accomplish that is to create internal chaos in the United States. And that is precisely what our president has been doing in the last few months of his tenure.

It really doesn’t matter whether our president is a witting, dedicated Russian agent who is knowingly pursuing policies that support Russian goals, or simply a “useful idiot” who, for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia, happens to promote policies that favor them. Either way, the result is the same. By creating the divisive instability that we all see around us now, the president is doing precisely what the Russians would like him to do – creating chaos and thus weakening us at home and our democratic ideals abroad.

If you look carefully at his stated policies, you will see that they accurately mirror Russian policy. What he is really doing is methodically destroying the underpinnings of our American democracy. He is seeking to create a new America that is weak and divided domestically and growing increasingly incapable of maintaining the largely positive influence that it has had on world affairs since the Second World War. 

How does this manifest? 

His policies on immigration have certainly appealed to much of his base, but not necessarily to the rest of our population. Denying Muslim entry, questioning the status of the “Dreamers,” advocating the wall on the Mexican border and falsely promising that Mexico would pay for it, and the promised deportation of millions of unauthorized immigrants are all issues that have sharply divided our country.

In foreign policy, he has backed out of the agreement that inhibits Iran’s nuclear ambitions, while promoting Japan and South Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. In addition, he has questioned our commitments to NATO allies while advocating a much closer relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

In health care, he has advocated for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which would deprive millions of Americans of their health care. On one recent occasion, his administration presented an extraordinary volume of documents described as the president’s health care alternative to the Affordable Care Act. In fact, it was no such thing! It was simply a large volume of irrelevant papers.

His “tax revolution” has resulted in lower taxes for businesses and the wealthy and no significant relief for anyone else. In addition, his spending policies have raised our national debt to a frightening, all-time high.

His trade policies for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Mexico and Canada (NAFTA) and his tariff predilection have boosted his appeal with his base, but may have huge consequences for the future, including the possibility of trade wars resulting from those tariff policies. 

On climate change, he has simply denied the existence of that phenomenon, despite the fact that the scientific community was virtually united in support of climate realities. Left unaddressed, that denial will increasingly haunt us in the future.

Finally, the president recently said in reaction to a statement from a questioner in a televised session, that his followers would not be in favor and that, and as a result, they might well become violent. Could that have been an invitation to violence?

The main point here is that although the president’s policies have been approved of by his base, that base represents less than half of the population of this country. That means that it has not been accepted by the other half. That has left us totally divided on virtually every important national issue. The only thing that means is that we are as unstable as any country possibly could be, largely thanks to the conscious policies of this administration.  

Only our enemies could approve.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA operations officer who focused primarily on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.   His  undergraduate and graduate work at Dartmouth and the University of London was in Russian studies.