Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing at Normandy, France, where approximately 160,000 Allied troops successfully pulled off the largest invasion by sea in history. From that point on America was in charge of allied forces and it was the beginning of the end of World War II.
When you travel to that battlefield and visit other WWII memorials and cemeteries in Europe you will see what great care is taken to ensure the memories of those sacrifices are honored with daily maintenance and respect. This is likely to be the last big D-Day celebration featuring WWII veterans who are almost all centenarians at this point. Some are traveling to the ceremonies and will be honored by all the dignitaries like President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and King Charles II of Britain. Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited due to the invasion of Ukraine which is somewhat ironic since back in 1944 the Soviet Union was one of the allied countries fighting Germany. Of course, it wasn't long after the war that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed to provide a formal, ongoing alliance to assure the collective security of its members in the wake of Soviet machinations in Eastern Europe and Berlin.
The bond between the U.S., Canada and Europe has been as strong as ever since that cataclysmic event eight decades ago, at least until recently. Today Europe is bewildered by what is happening to its American allies. And you can't blame them. Most Americans wonder the same thing.
Donald Trump had no idea about the historical significance of the term "America First" when he first started saying it, believing erroneously that he'd thought up the slogan himself even though he'd no doubt heard it somewhere during his 77 years. Before the U.S. entered the war the America First Committee was the name of the right-wing isolationist movement and many of its members also happened to be just a little bit taken with that strongman fella from Germany.
In fact, there was quite a large political faction that was all in on der Fuehrer, and as Rachel Maddow brilliantly laid out in her award-winning podcast "Ultra," most of them were America Firsters. They didn't try to hide it:
Trump has said that he "just liked the expression" America First and denied he is an isolationist. His ignorance of history and foreign policy has led him to simply denounce wars that began during other president's terms because he doesn't know what else to say. But to the extent that he has a philosophy about interventionism at all, it's that America should "win" wars and then "take the resources." Oh, and allies should pay protection money if they want the United States to adhere to its treaty commitments. NATO members have heard him loud and clear when he said this recently:
One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, “Well, sir, if we don't pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?” I said, “You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent?” He said, “Yes, let’s say that happened.” “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.”
I'm sure it's not necessary to point out that NATO members don't pay dues and can't be "delinquent. " And it's especially rich for the notorious deadbeat Trump to lecture anyone about paying bills.
The Europeans weren't exactly surprised by his shocking statement. After all, Republicans in Congress delayed financing for Ukraine for months because a group of American First politicians refused to vote for it. Just as they won't be shocked to learn that 46 MAGA members in the House of Representatives voted against funding the NATO security investment program this week. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., obviously even more ignorant of both history and current events than Trump, said on the floor Tuesday:
America should not be sending out hundreds of millions of dollars to international organizations to help them fight their enemies, especially when they are unwilling to fight for themselves.
The money is actually to support infrastructure for U.S. troops overseas, and it did manage to pass. But the world is watching.
The Atlantic's McCay Coppins recently published a piece on how the Europeans view the current state of U.S. politics. He spent weeks talking to leaders, activists and journalists in various countries this spring and the consensus seems to be that we have finally gone over the edge. For some reason, they're all convinced that Trump has the election in the bag (probably from reading the U.S. mainstream media) and that an American withdrawal from NATO is inevitable. In the wake of Russian aggression in Ukraine and Putin's broad hints about possible incursions into Eastern Europe, they are nervous and anxious that the United States is no longer committed to democratic values and is abandoning its role as a security guarantor to pursue a solely self-interested, transactional relationship with the rest of the world.
“What you’ve heard is fairly widely shared and feared across not only Central and Eastern Europe but the rest of Europe as well," Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, told The New Republic's David Rothkopf. "The general assumption, especially after Trump’s ‘If you don’t pay, I’ll tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want,’ conjures up the images of Bucha, mass killings, torture, rape, etc., we have come to associate with Russia. It can’t be undone.”
As they told Coppins over and over again in country after country, this represents an existential problem for them. Contrary to Marjorie Greene's comments about them being unwilling to fight for themselves, they are starting to talk about arming up, including obtaining a nuclear arsenal which is one of the reasons the U.S. decided after WWII to take the responsibility as security guarantor. The last thing this world needs is more nuclear-armed countries. But that's exactly what we will get if Trump pulls the U.S. out of NATO. Trump and his movement don't understand that. Joe Biden does understand it. In an interview with TIME Magazine this week he said this:
I've always believed that there are two elements to American security, and the biggest element, and our normative example, is our alliances, our alliances. We are—we have, compared to the rest of the world, we have put together the strongest alliance in the history of the world, number one. Number two, we're in a situation where we are able to move in a way that recognizes how much the world has changed and still lead the world. And it's our security.
As we commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-Day tomorrow, I would hope that some people on the right who know better would set their ambition aside for a moment and contemplate one of the reasons that horrific slaughter happened in the first place. Coppins quotes NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on this:
“The United States left Europe after the First World War,” he said, adding, with a measure of Scandinavian understatement, “That was not a big success.”
It would be a massive mistake to put this new America First movement in charge of the U.S. government. They have far more in common with the original than people realize and the results could be catastrophic.
