From Turmoil to Tribute: How the Trump Presidency Will Ultimately Fortify the Status Quo

Michael Orion Powell

If you grew up in the United States as a Millennial or in Generation X, many of the historical names seem like a natural part of our environment. A main street is named after Martin Luther King, Jr. in close to every major city in the country, while New York's busiest airport is named after John F. Kennedy, parks and streets in major cities like Washington D.C. are named after Malcolm X, an airport in Kansas is named after Dwight Eisenhower, and a major stadium in Washington D.C. is named after Robert F. Kennedy.

It's normal for monuments to be named after leaders, but the process where it becomes finalized often occurs after a tumultuous period. The 1960s and 1970s were just that. Deemed "a long national nightmare" by President Gerald Ford (who also has an airport named after him in Michigan), that period started off with promises of "a new frontier," only to go through an unpopular war, multiple assassinations, the resignation of a president, inflation, an oil crisis, and social, class, and racial tension and conflict throughout the country.

Currently, we are passing through a similar phase. The eulogy of John McCain last week signaled a bipartisan group of former American heads of state coming together to actively spurn the sitting president, Donald Trump, while simultaneously building up a legacy for the Arizona Senator they were mourning.

Several comments seemed directed at Trump. One was from George W. Bush, who said, "Perhaps above all, John detested the abuse of power. He could not abide bigots and swaggering despots. There was something deep inside him that made him stand up for the little guy - to speak for forgotten people in forgotten places ... We are better than this. America is better than this."

Barack Obama added on by saying that "so much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse, can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It's a politics that pretends to be brave and tough, but in fact is born of fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that."

Trump is going to go down. At least every few days is a strange new accusation, departure, or friction between him and someone else, including people within his own administration. A few weeks ago, it was the departure of political aide Omarosa Manigault. As of this writing, it is bizarre accusations from veteran political journalist Bob Woodward of Trump behavior in the White House, including calling Attorney General Jeff Sessions "mentally retarded" and "a dumb Southerner" while imitating his accent in a Foghorn Leghorn manner. Woodward also claimed that he was told by an inside source that Trump wanted to "fucking kill" Syrian leader Bashir Assad, a strange accusation for someone who "colluded" with Russia, given Russia's decades-long support for Assad and his father.

And now, in perhaps one of the most shocking moments in modern political history, an anonymous op-ed published by the NY Times titled, " I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration ," whereas a reported "insider" goes on to talk about an organic resistance that has developed within Trump's own circle in an effort to "thwart Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office."

With the eventual exit of Trump will be a gift for his predecessors, who will be hoping to shore up their legacies as America's "legitimate" statesmen. Donald Trump, the Alt Right, Russia, and whatever other far-right elements are associated with him, will be pinned with the nadir of American society that the country now sits in, instead of the destructive policies that led America toward Trump in the first place.

The true legacy of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, no matter what role they are playing now, was war and decline.

Bush talked of a "humble foreign policy" while running for president, while one of Obama's first political appearances was at an anti-war speech in Chicago. The only change that Obama brought was changing how theatrical war appeared. Instead of relying on "troops on the ground," to coin a phrase from Secretary of State John Kerry, special forces and drones were used to maintain American supremacy in Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and elsewhere.

Bush's policies promised the end of terrorism, only to create a breeding ground for Al Qaeda to transform into ISIS and then Boko Haram. The invasion of Iraq touted democracy and the rule of law, but created so much chaos that people whose ancestors had lived in the Lavant for generations fled for Europe by the millions.

Obama promised "post-racialism," a phrase used often upon his election, only to see a small (and mostly one-sided) war between police and the black community escalate, as the federal government distributed military equipment to the nation's police departments.

All of this will be forgotten as the erratic housing tycoon-turned-president Donald Trump eventually falls, however. In the mainstream imagination, Trump will represent the treasonous forces of darkness that usurped those who wanted progress. Just as Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and the like were venerated in the aftermath of Nixon's resignation, national holidays, monuments, and buildings will be memorialized after the establishment figures who stepped up against him - all with the purpose of whitewashing recent history and fortifying the status quo.

The reality of what all the last American presidents, Trump included, really is stands beyond what a theater of difference they stage. As Vladimir Putin put it in an interview with Oliver Stone, "It's very curious. Your presidents change but the policy never changes." The truly powerful people who run the United States only change the face of the United States every few years. If we go through difficulties, it's their doing and not the spokesperson they pick. This reality, while tested by the tumultuous Trump, will only be strengthened in his ousting.

Trump In Helsinki: A Trip Back to the 1970s

By Michael Orion Powell

The climate in the United States in 2018 is portrayed as inexplicable and unprecedentedly bad. And, despite a sense of uniqueness, it is full of precedent.

During the early 1970s, the United States was shedding away from the world. The Vietnam War, a protracted invasion by the U.S. war machine, left with the Vietcong victorious. It was one of the United States' most obvious defeats - despite a bombardment with superior technology, 58,220 Americans died in Vietnam and, to this day, Saigon remains Ho Chi Minh City, in honor of the Vietnamese revolutionary.

Military withdrawal was not the only mark of defeat. Then President Richard Nixon, in the midst of the 1972 election that led to the Watergate scandal that brought down his presidency, convened with the Soviet Union in the Moscow Summit of 1972, meeting with General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. The meeting came after meeting in China with Chairman Mao Zedong earlier that year; much like how Trump's meeting with Putin was preceded by a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Paralleling Nixon's series of agreements that seemed like capitulation to many Americans caught up in a Cold-War frenzy, Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, where he expressed an agreement with the Russian president's claims that he had no involvement in interfering in the 2016 election, has the appearance of capitulation. During his own tour, Nixon signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, and the U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement, in effect enabling the policy of detente that enabled the Soviet Union the space to invade Afghanistan in 1979.

There is much speculation about what motivation Trump had to be so passive and deferential in Helsinki, with the New Yorker arguing that he is somewhat compromised. There is a culture of corruption in many "Eastern Bloc" countries (an outdated term that suddenly seems back in vogue) that may be hard to shed oneself of once they become embroiled in it. As Eric Trump said, the only color that his father sees is green. Therefore, most likely some sort of investment, business move, or debt is imploring Trump to give Russia a benefit of the doubt that he is unwilling to provide many others.

Beyond Trump as an individual is a world that has been led to a very similar situation as the early 1970s. The place the United States (and the world, largely) is in is so similar to four decades ago that it makes one wonder if we are in some sort of self-repeating simulation; long wars in the Middle East, disenchanting liberal political figures, and economic stagnation have led the United States to American retreat, racial tension, and many of the other problems that made the 1970s a hard decade for most.

As mentioned earlier, the Soviet Union took the space of American retreat to invade Afghanistan, a poor move that resulted in the dissolution itself of that country ten years later. Vladimir Putin's Russia most likely has its sights on the Muslim world once again, with Russia providing support for Khalifa Haftar, a Libyan general who would act as a "regional strongman" that would preside over a country left largely leaderless since Muammar Gaddafi was taken out of power by a US-backed coup in 2011. Gaddafi's own son Saif is poised to run in an upcoming election in Libya, as well.

Russia's attitudes toward Africa are strange. Despite racist incidents occurring regularly in the country (especially at soccer events), Moscow has long sought open relationships with many African countries. The murder of Gaddafi has been reported to have upset Putin deeply, with him developing a fear that NATO would attempt that same fate on him. Russia has provided visa free travel to Moroccans, provided arms to Cameroon to fight Boko Haram, and has made economic investments in Ethiopia. Russian intervention in Libya would provide access to the surprisingly large reserves of groundwater that the country provides in its interior.

The repeat of the 1970s would only complete in analogy if it reached a similar conclusion, as well. The Soviet Union overstayed its hand in Afghanistan and was vulnerable to its own compromise when political winds shifted. Putin may be a very deft and intelligent leader, but he is a mortal man who will not be around forever. His country has a history of instability when regimes provide vacancy. Something very unpredictable could happen if he ever resigns from or dies in power.

Likewise, with the development of an "enemy list" and bizarre relationships with celebrities (Nixon gained the friendship of Elvis Presley and James Brown), Donald Trump is really shaping into a Nixonian figure. If he were to meet a similar fate as Nixon, which is increasingly likely if a planned second summit with Putin has a similar reception to the first, a much more seasoned and mainstream American leader could find their place on the American stage, making countering Russia in the world his or her chief sales pitch.

Michael Orion Powell-Deschamps is a writer living in the Bay Area. He also has a music project called Tilhas, which can be seen at Tilhas.org.

Vladimir Putin and the Return of Russophobia: Symbols of a Changing World

By Michael Orion Powell

Something peculiar has happened in modern geopolitics. Russia, a country that arose nearly as a fractured version of the much larger Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, has arisen in our time as one of the most powerful and feared power brokers in the world.

President Vladimir Putin's role in Russia's rebound has led to his vilification in the United States and much of the Western world. He has been featured numerous times on the cover of mainstream Western magazines, whether leading a rebellion of nationalist leaders on the cover of the Economist or being accused of attempting to subvert American elections on the cover of Time. Some covers have even gone as far as picturing him with enhanced, evil green eyes.

Putin is a chameleon. American progressives see him as a white nationalist, while leftists such as Venezuelean leader Nicholas Maduro award him peace prizes. American conservatives see him as a "KGB thug," as Adam Taylor of Business Insider put it, while America's new Trump-style crop of "Alt Right" nationalists see him as an icon. Putin somehow gets a warm reception in Bejiing, Caracas, America's Rust Belt, and even Jerusalem.

Putin's decade-plus-long ascent comes at the time of America's great decline from global control, and his combination of power and charisma is timed just when much of the world, including the United States itself, is looking for alternatives to the Western order. A general alienation from American command is the uniting facet from the quite disparate leaders that have attracted to Putin's rise, be it Nicholas Maduro, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Rodrigo Duterte, and the various groups that they represent.

Wide Appeal

Putin is popular in Latin America. In early October 2016, only a month before the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, Putin was awarded the 'Hugo Chavez Prize for Peace and Sovereignty' award in Venezuela. Speaking emphatically of the Russian president, Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro said of Putin that he was "a leader that I believe is the most outstanding there is in the world today, a fighter for peace, for balance, and a builder of a pluri-polar, multi-centric world."

Venezuela is not the only country that sees Putin as a peacemaker. In 2011, Putin was awarded with China's 'Confucius Peace Prize.' Whereas the Venezuelans saw Putin as a leader in creating a world of more diversified power, the Chinese praised Putin for his toughness and leadership in fighting terrorism, citing the conflict in Chechnya especially. Translated to English, the accompanying document stated, "His iron hand and toughness revealed in this war impressed the Russians a lot, and he was regarded to be capable of bringing safety and stability to Russia. He became anti-terrorist No. 1 and the national hero."

Pope Francis, the widely popular pontiff, has said that Vladimir Putin is the "the only one with whom the Catholic Church can unite to defend Christians in the East." Francis has also made outreach to the Eastern Orthodox Church a priority for his papacy, a move that the Economist has said is akin to "kissing Putin's ring."

Adding to Chinese and Latin American appeal, and perhaps drastically contrasting to, Putin has been praised by figures within the rising Alternative Right, the once fringe element of American conservatism - widely seen as a "white supremacist" and "fascist" movement -- that has been credited with propelling Trump in to the White House.

Matthew Heimbach, a widely known American white nationalist and leader of the Traditionalist Worker's Party, said quite simply when asked by the New York Times, "Russia is our biggest inspiration. I see President Putin as the leader of the free world."

Sam Dickson, a former Ku Klux Klan lawyer who speaks often at "alt-right" events, said of Putin, "I've always seen Russia as the guardian at the gate, as the easternmost outpost of our people. They are our barrier to the Oriental invasion of our homeland and the great protector of Christendom. I admire the Russian people. They are the strongest white people on earth."

For a white supremacist to claim Putin's Russia as the "barrier to the Oriental invasion of our homeland" while China simultaneously rewards Putin for his "iron hand and toughness" is truly fascinating. Groups that do not like, trust, or respect one another have somehow found a common admiration of Vladimir Putin for the same characteristics.

While Alan Feurer and Andrew Higgins, in their New York Times report, accounted Trump's admiration for Putin as "a dog whistle to a small but highly motivated part of his base," the reality may be much more daunting. Russia's leadership has managed to win over even the most trusted and reliable of American allies. For example, while relations between the United States and Israel declined, Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly reached out frequently to Russia.

While the US-Israeli bond is likely to be strengthened with incoming president Trump, who has pledged various itinerary that Israel has sought for years, such as approving Israel's West Bank settlements and the recognition of Jerusalem as the Jewish capital, the trend of Putin winning over countries alienated during the Obama years was still very striking, especially with the internationalist image Barack Obama himself ran with when he campaigned for president.

The popularity and admiration of the Russian president, coming from so many very different audiences, tells us of the increasingly tumultuous and inconsistent state of the world in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

A Post-American World

In 2008, right as Barack Obama was cascading toward his first term as president, American journalist Fareed Zakaria published the book "The Post American World," where he postulated that the policy decisions of Western powers were leading to a world of declined authority for American and other Western powers.

Zakaria primarily saw the economic heft of India and China as the major players in a post-American world. China has a GDP of $9.4 trillion while India has a GDP of nearly $1.9 trillion. With growth rates that exceed the US, both countries represent fierce competition for the American leviathan, which incurs $16 trillion annual GDP as of 2013. Russia, on the other hand, has only $2.1 trillion annual GDP, putting it ahead of India but well behind China and the United States.

For all of their economic weight, China and India have not yet taken on military obligations of the level superpowers usually do. Putin's Russia has taken the lead in the various chaotic situations left behind by America's interventions in the Middle East and North Africa. From Duterte in the Philippines to white nationalists in the US, Putin seems to appeal to people who once looked to the United States military as a source of global dominance.

This in effect explains some of Putin's wide-spanning appeal. In contrast to Obama, who won the more traditional Nobel peace prize in 2008, Putin's prizes from Venezuela and China represent an emerging global culture, breaking the shell of the old world signified by the Nobel -- a world that has been dominated by Western interests for roughly the past half of a millennium. The prize was set up in 1898 in the name of Alfred Nobel, a repentant industrialist and arms profiteer. The peace prizes that Putin received enjoyed him as one of the inaugural recipients.

The 2016 American presidential race especially illustrated how Putin had stepped in to the power vacuum of a declining United States. Russia is being routinely accused of interfering in the elections, much as the US itself boasted of doing in the election of Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. In response, Putin has asked rhetorically if the US still was a "great country" or if it now was a "banana republic," a term used to malign the unstable governments that riddled Central America in the early twentieth century.

Ironically, the phraseology once reserved for so-called "Third World" countries which invariably found themselves within the realm of western dominance, too chaotic and disoriented themselves to be powers of their own, and almost always exploited into oblivion, is now being directed at the US. In this time, with a bevy of countries like the US eroding from within while being spread thin throughout, we may begin to associate terms like "developing country," "banana republic" or even "Third World" with the once great Western powers, which have failed to adapt or aide their people in meeting a changing world. Putin's role in history specifically may be as the man who symbolized the decline of America's superpower role and the ascent of many other soon-to-be stronger nations in a rapidly changing world.

Michael Orion Powell-Deschamps has been published by the Blue Ocean Network, the San Francisco Examiner, the Heritage Foundation, Tikkun and Talking Points Memo. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from California State University - East Bay and maintains a website, Radical Second Things, which is dedicated to exploring liberation theology and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Notes

Bearak, Max. "Vladimir Putin Just Won an International Peace Prize." The Washington Post. WP Company, 11 Oct. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Cohen, Harry Zieve. "Israel Pivots to Russia?" The American Interest. The American Interest, 08 June 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

"Did the Pope Just Kiss Putin's Ring?" The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 15 Feb. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Feuer, Alan, and Andrew Higgins. "Extremists Turn to a Leader to Protect Western Values: Vladimir Putin." The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Dec. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Sputnik. "Pope Francis Sees Putin as 'Only Man' to Defend Christians Around the World." Sputnik International, 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Taylor, Adam. "7 Remarkable Stories Of Vladimir Putin Being One Of The World's Most Brutal Thugs." Business Insider. Business Insider, 17 June 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.

Wong, Edward. "For Putin, a Peace Prize for a Decision to Go to War."

The New York Times

. The New York Times, 15 Nov. 2011. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.