Will power

I have a like-dislike relationship ('love-hate' is too strong) with George Will. He refused to submit to the bootless mercenaries who themselves submitted to the weak intimidations of an insecure psychopath, choosing instead to hold the old guard conservative line with puckered determination. While that's admirable, his scholarship in its defense is less so.

When asked which U.S. president was responsible for expanding the powers of his office beyond constitutional delineations — establishing, essentially, an "imperial presidency" — Will's answer is ... Woodrow Wilson. This is laughable. In closest proximity to the 28th president's executive brawn was Theodore Roosevelt, the 20th century's juggernaut of presidential power.

One can travel further back: certainly to Abraham Lincoln and his free-wheeling wartime authority; or James K. Polk's insidious territorial expansion; or Andrew Jackson's insufferable bullying; or, like Polk, Thomas Jefferson's unilateral act of land acquisition. For that matter, the 3rd president's embryonic political party accused George Washington of monarchical leanings.

Why does Will finger Wilson when such a rich history of preceding presidential imperialism exists? Because Democrat Woodrow was a progressive — never mind that Republican Teddy was as well — and George detests the Progressive Age.

Wilson was also a racist ass and irascible foreign policy moron who crippled America's international standing for two decades. Those are reasons enough to disfavor Wilson, but it's downright disingenuous of Will (he knows better) to argue that he was the presidential blackguard who set an authoritarian stage for ... Trump.

Hence my dislike. Not so, however, when it comes to this sort of thing — Will's latest evisceration:

As flaccid as a boned fish, Donald Trump crumpled quicker than even Vladimir Putin probably anticipated. The former KGB agent currently indicted for war crimes felt no need to negotiate with the man-child. The president’s thunderous demands — a 50-day deadline, a 10-day deadline, "severe consequences," a ceasefire before negotiations — all were just noise.

The conservative columnist transcended the absurdity of boned Donald in his conclusion, settling on the profound and imperative:

Eighty-five summers ago, the United States, which began as an emanation of Europe, was saluted by Britain’s prime minister in the House of Commons. On a dark day (June 4, 1940) he anticipated the day when "the New World, with all its power and might, steps forward to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Now it is the Old World’s turn to rescue the United States. It needs to be liberated from the chimera that it has no substantial stake in the outcome of high-intensity, state-on-state violence inflicted by a nuclear power obedient to a man who has actual beliefs: crackpot, but real, and menacing.

Unclear is how this authentic Liberation Day could be achieved. Quite clear, though, is that Old World Europe is now the leader of the free world.

Woodrow Wilson was Donald Trump's doppelgänger in at least one respect: Both men squandered America's international standing. We can only hope the "remedy" for Wilson's ineptitude, 20 years in the making, is not that of a post-Trump world.

* This piece is cross-posted at my Substack page; subscribe to be notified of new posts, no cost.

Postscript: I'm still in Quebec, contentedly so. Yet to home I must return. So yesterday I gave up on Air Canada — its $13-million-a-year-plus-stock-options CEO is incapable of competently running a taco stand — and booked an alternative airline for Saturday. See you on the other side — the dark side.