It is possible to agree some things Donald Trump has said and think that he is an authoritarian demagogue who represents the worst of our nation’s impulses. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible for anyone not to agree with something Trump has said — the GOP nominee has been on both sides of nearly every major issue in American politics (and quite a few minor ones). Everyone from Noam Chomsky to Dick Cheney can find something worth seconding in Trump’s back catalogue of political musings.
This point might seem obvious to you. If so, then you are not Daily Beast columnist Jamie Kirchick.
On Monday, Kirchick wrote a piece titled “Beware the Hillary Clinton-Loathing, Donald Trump-Loving Useful Idiots of the Left.” In the column, Kirchick observes that Donald Trump once said that he was uncomfortable with the idea of American exceptionalism — and (gasp) many left-wing thinkers agree! Thus, Kirchick reasons, all left-wing critics of American foreign policy must be “Trump fans” who are recklessly “validating” a “reactionary.” That may sound like a caricature of his argument, but the cartoonishness is Kirchick’s own. After (justifiably) mocking leftists who believe Trump’s election might usefully “heighten the contradictions,” Kirchick writes:
But it is the second group of progressive Trump fans, subtler in their sympathies, who warrant the most concern. These are the so-called anti-imperialists who harbor deep revulsion at the idea of American power being used for good in the world. America, they believe, is more often than not a source of evil and disorder—a jaundiced view of our global role that they share with the Republican nominee …
“Trump is right, we are flawed messengers,” declared radical left-wing Brooklyn College political science professor Corey Robin in reaction to Trump’s Times interview. As evidence, Robin cited a United Nations hearing on American police brutality, where delegates from human rights luminaries like Pakistan, Russia, China, and Turkey denounced Uncle Sam. “No matter the DC freakout over Trump NYT interview, think his tacit repudiation of US exceptionalism is praiseworthy,” echoed Washington Post blogger Ishaan Tharoor …
… Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct,” Trump declared in his first foreign policy address back in April.
Such words are music to the ears of those on the left who paint Hillary Clinton as a “warmonger” for her mainstream foreign policy views and traditional support for the American-led liberal world order.
The only alternative to Trump’s frothy isolationism is Clinton’s liberal hawkishness,” sighs The New Republic’s Jeet Heer. Writing for The Electronic Intifada, whose worldview is exactly what it sounds like, Rania Khalek concludes that “Clinton is also dangerous to world stability. And unlike Trump, she has the blood on her hands to prove it.” Though Khalek admits that “Trump is riling up fascist sentiments,” she says that “he’s doing so by tapping into legitimate anger at the negative consequences of trickle-down neoliberal economics driven by establishment politicians likeClinton.”
It’s worth noting that all of the thinkers Kirchick cites in these passages have publicly denounced Trump, and many have indicated a preference to see Hillary Clinton elected in November. It’s also worth noting that Kirchick has expressed public opposition to the Iran deal during this campaign cycle — a jaundiced view of American diplomacy that he shares with the Republican nominee. In fact, the foreign-policy speech Trump delivered on Monday was far more consistent with Kirchick’s stated views than with those of the left-wingers he casts as closet Trumpists. Does the fact that Kirchick agrees with Trump that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq was a disastrous mistake mean that Kirchick is a Trump “admirer”? What about the fact that he, like Trump, is a raging hypocrite?
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