Two U.S. presidents, and America’s decline

“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” — Abraham Lincoln in his Cooper Union address, given in New York City in 1860.

“When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60 per of the oil in the world. So it’s perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils.” — U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to the United Nations on Tuesday. (And a point of clarification — combining U.S. and Venezuelan oil would amount to 22 per cent of global oil reserves.)

It is quite the juxtaposition: Lincoln speaking in one of his strongest speeches, making the case that slavery should not be extended to the Northern Territories of the U.S. It was a sentence — the closing line in his speech, in fact — which argued that moral truth and justice will prevail against brute force, and that moral behaviour will, in itself, become power.

Donald Trump essentially argued that the obverse is true: that brute force justifies all behaviour — saying that might is right. The end of seizing control justifies the means, the means in this case being an invasion of Venezuela and the end being gaining de facto control of an independent nation’s resources.

If anyone doubts that the United States is now in a moral vacuum, the president just confirmed it in front of representatives of close to the entire world at the UN General Assembly.

If Trump’s comments about Venezuela weren’t proof enough of his intentions, you could also consider his threats — at the same UN General Assembly — about Iran.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump opined. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

No hope of future generations? What on Earth does that sound like?

Remember, the UN was created after the Second World War, as it points out on its own website, to “maintain international peace and security, give humanitarian assistance to those in need, protect human rights, and uphold international law.”

Should Donald Trump, at this point, even be speaking there?

But back to Abraham Lincoln, and another comparison as we watch our neighbour to the south lurch towards midterm elections, even as Trump Republicans seem to be trying to lay the groundwork for claiming those elections may not be fair or valid because of any number of claims of unfairness.

Lincoln argued for elections even during the tumolt of a civil war — and planned for what happened if he lost.

“We cannot have free governments without elections, and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us,” he wrote. As well, as he wrote in what has become known as the Blind Memorandum, “This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the president elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.”

Imagine those words coming from Trump.

You can’t.

And, by the way, if Lincoln had been at Tuesday’s speech by Trump at the UN?

He would be horrified.