{"id":98932,"date":"2018-07-02T17:41:06","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T23:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/samuelson-why-our-neo-isolationism-will-not-work\/"},"modified":"2018-07-02T17:41:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T23:41:06","slug":"samuelson-why-our-neo-isolationism-will-not-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/samuelson-why-our-neo-isolationism-will-not-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuelson: Why our neo-isolationism will not work"},"content":{"rendered":"
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du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keep this in mind on the Fourth. Let us assume \u2013 for the sake of argument \u2013 that Trump is everything that he isn\u2019t: thoughtful, considerate, open-minded, kind, generous, civil, truthful and respectful of his adversaries. Let us further assume that this imaginary Trump is such a nice guy that his character is widely admired.<\/p>\n

Still, a big problem would remain: his policies. It\u2019s inaccurate to say that Trump doesn\u2019t have an agenda. In many ways, his agenda resonates with his campaign promises. \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d is a brilliant slogan that captures a nostalgic urge to resurrect an allegedly more glorious past.<\/p>\n

The trouble is the actual past doesn\u2019t resemble Trump\u2019s rhetorical past, which is widely taken to be America in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The country was much poorer then. Since 1960, the average income (gross domestic product per person) has roughly tripled after adjusting for inflation. In 2017, that was $59,484.<\/p>\n

Many staples of modern life didn\u2019t exist or were in short supply. Jet travel began in 1958. Color television became widespread only in the 1960s. In 1955, only 2 percent of American homes had air conditioning.<\/p>\n

There were more important deficiencies: African-Americans throughout the South remained segregated by law and custom; the situation was better in the North, but blacks still faced discrimination. Similarly, most women remained at home; career jobs for them were only slowly expanding.<\/p>\n

One accomplishment that did make America \u201cgreat\u201d then was its active international engagement, through military alliances and trade policies. These helped Europe and Japan rebuild after World War II and resist communist political pressures. This is precisely the sort of international cooperation \u2013 protecting our long-term interests despite some short-term costs \u2013 that qualifies as enlightened self-interest.<\/p>\n

It is doubtful that most Americans, when confronted with the tangible conditions of early post-World War II life, would choose to hop on a time machine and re-establish themselves in this bygone era.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump is enthusiastically repudiating, or trying to repudiate, the American-led international cooperation that was a hallmark of the period.<\/p>\n

The underlying lesson was that our power and influence are enhanced when they are exercised in conjunction with countries that, granting differences and disagreements, share our basic values and interests.<\/p>\n

We cannot isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. To the contrary, power is being drained from nation states to \u201cmarket forces\u201d or other global mechanisms that are difficult to control. This has been going on since at least the mid-19th century and reflects new communication and transportation technologies: the telegraph, the telephone, television, the internet, automobiles, planes and containerization.<\/p>\n

Obviously, no one is going to uninvent these technologies. But the globalized world that those technologies have helped foster understandably makes many, possibly most, people uneasy and fearful, because there is a loss of sovereign control over our future.<\/p>\n

Think of all the interconnections. Millions of migrants cross national borders annually (in 2017, 258 million people lived outside their country of birth, reports the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Supply chains straddle the globe. Threats of worldwide epidemics are ever-present. Cyberattacks are already common. Billions of dollars of investment funds routinely shift from one country to another. Climate change cannot be dealt with unilaterally. The prospect of a major shooting war cannot be dismissed.<\/p>\n

To this anxious litany Trump brings a reassuring antidote: more nationalism. It\u2019s a false remedy. Some of Trump\u2019s efforts to control globalization have already backfired. To wit: Harley-Davidson\u2019s decision to move some production to Europe \u2013 in response to Europe\u2019s higher tariffs on Harley bikes, which in turn were a reaction to Trump\u2019s higher tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports.<\/p>\n

As before, our global power and influence benefit when we cooperate and respect our allies, not vilify them. Trump cannot deconstruct globalization. It is too big and well-entrenched. But as noted by Wall Street Journal columnist Greg Ip, Trump can damage it and weaken it by prescribing protectionism.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Trump. Albeit without his vicious rhetoric, many Democrats share the same nationalism, proof that it represents a potent political symbol. Foreigners are convenient scapegoats. There is also a deeper problem: Economics, which is increasingly global, has outpaced politics, which is mostly local.<\/p>\n

What we had more of in the 1950s is hope and confidence. But they cannot be restored by reverting to a destructive neo-isolationism. It may be popular, but it\u2019s not practical.<\/p>\n

As noted, we\u2019ve taken a turn for the worst.<\/p>\n

Robert Samuelson is a columnist for The Washington Post. \u00a9 2018 The Washington Post Writers Group<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

du1-i-syn Keep this in mind on the Fourth. Let us assume \u2013 for the sake of argument \u2013 that Trump is everything that he isn\u2019t: thoughtful, considerate, open-minded, kind, generous, civil, truthful and respectful of his adversaries. Let us further assume that this imaginary Trump is such a nice guy that his character is widely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5758,6174],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists","category-robert-samuelson","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98932"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}