Trump’s China Conflict Is Destroying Us | Historian Michael Brenes joins Sam Osterhout

The thing about Trump’s domestic policies is that they, well, suck. But you know this already. Mostly they are intended to address problems that don’t actually exist using overwhelming force that ultimately causes more disastrous problems that didn’t exist before. There’s inefficiency! Fire EVERYONE.

At best, it’s intentionally confusing. At worst, Trump really believes the fake problems exist and that his catastrophic actions will solve them. At actual worst, the people behind him understand our Democracy to be the problem that needs to be solved, and these actions bring us closer to ending it once and for all.

Either way, we’re all feeling the effects of terrible policy.

And, according to

Michael Brenes

, the co-author of the book, The Rivalry Peril: How Great Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy, Trump’s fixation on fighting China is both a distraction AND a policy that could have lasting, disastrous effects on the United States, both at home and with our standing globally.

In other words, his domestic policy is making us weaker domestically, and so is his foreign policy. We are expending a huge amount of resources — both time and money — toward something unachievable. That is, “defeating China.” What does that actually mean? Does Trump think that at some point, China will bend the knee? Give up their weapons and economic engine? Disband? What is the actual objective here? According to Trump, it’s something something trade deficit. But his policies — tariffs or otherwise — don’t address those exactly.

But for Trump, winning the war — whatever that looks like — isn’t the objective. Having an enemy, however, is. There are many problems with this. First, he’s picking an imaginary fight with an enemy he can’t beat. Again, does he expect there to be a day when we just stop trading with China because…we won? Another problem is that it’s an expensive distraction happening at a time when potentially millions of us right here are losing Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits, when our Department of Education is being functionally shuttered, when masked thugs are roaming our streets, grabbing brown people because they look suspicious.

Trump is making massive problems abroad when we’ve got very real, very pressing problems right here.

Of course, these are problems that Trump, himself, has caused.

Watch the video for a more in-depth, perhaps less-confusing discussion of the forces at work here, along with some historical context. And then leave a comment. We love to hear from you.

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