Quote:
Originally Posted by rymack
Anyone ever listen to Mearsheimer ? Gives a “realist” perspective on what’s happening w world politics. Doesn’t seem to stand too much on one side of the other but I suppose if you don’t like his take ( not realism) then he might not be your cup of tea.
Hearing him talk about the US vis a vis Ukraine/russia/Europe and Israel/palestine has made me reconsider my positions somewhat.
Bannon is quite intelligent ( albeit flawed )and has a definite populist position that I don’t know exactly lines up with conservative views . Which seems to me what trump is as well. Clearly not a Regan/Bush/ or even Romney conservative. Perhaps that’s why he can cut across traditional lines at times.
|
I haven't listened to him specifically but am familiar with Realist politics - I generally subscribe to a lot of the theories of realist politics (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realis...onal_relations)). Nations are inherently self interested and should behave as such. I'm really rusty on the specifics though as I haven't studied it since the 90's.
I think Liberals/Left believe too much in altruistic benevolent foreign relations while Conservatives (who are more realists) are overly short term in their thinking - isolationism doesn't lead to being a world power. What Trump and his criminals are doing now with foreign relations will undermine American power for decades and likely will spell the end of America as the world's greatest power. The path for China to become the next great power is being cleared by Trump (even if he's actually working for Russia - Putin doesn't have the resources to be the next great power).
I think American global power peaked in the 80's under Reagan and subsequent Presidents either were too weak (Bush I, Bush II, Trump) or too idealistic (Clinton/Obama) to continue that expansion (much less maintain it) as China rose.
It's sorta amazing that the smart Cons aren't in a bigger rage about what Trump is doing to American power - this is their wheelhouse, this is the stuff they know matters - they're letting Trump destroy 80 years of being world's great power in a matter of weeks and not doing anything about it. The external destruction will be even worse than the destruction of their society domestically. Edit: I haven't followed what Bannon has said too much as I just think of him as a Nazi but he is a smart guy and one of the few Cons who can make a coherent argument about Conservative policy (even if I disagree in many cases) - I should probably read up on his ideas more.