The Great War as touchstone

One of the great ironies and complexities of our current situation is that -- however much everyone protests that they want to avoid WWIII, both of the lead actors in the current drama derive the core of their self-concepts from their behavior during WWII, so each in a sense is motivated by a return to it. Russia, most obviously, sees WWII -- along with the campaign against Napoleon -- as its moment of greatest heroism and triumph. In each case Russia, by means of incredible sacrifice and loss of life, beat back a formidable invading power. Victory Day, May 9, is a huge celebration. Here's a quick video to give you a taste.

In the US, likewise, WWII was our moment of greatest moral clarity. We were attacked. We joined the war, stormed the beaches at Normandy, turned the tide of the war, liberated Auschwitz... Then we launched the Marshall Plan, yatta yatta. After WWII, it got more complicated. We tried to do the right thing, but time and time again we did things that were questionable (Mossadegh, Vietnam, Allende, Iran-Contra, Abu Ghraib...). We like to see ourselves as defenders of a rules-based international order that promotes and defends democracy abroad, and certainly the world votes with its feet and people are on average happy to come here, but it's complicated. Time and again realpolitik and the simple realities of operating in a complex world draw us into behavior that is less than ideal, certainly not black and white like fighting Hitler was. In the end we can only hope that on balance the judgment of history will be positive and strive to make it so.

At the end of the day, the Make America Great Again sentiment, hearkens back to the time of Eisenhower, when America manufactured things, the hierarchy of things seemed relatively clear to the majority, and we still basked in the glow of our victory in World War II when everyone rowed in the same direction, or at least seems to have done so, viewed from the whitewashed perspective of several decades of remove and forgetting. But Democrats also long for that moral clarity. While we understand that the world is complex and compromises must be made -- so for instance right now we must cozy up to Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalists as a counterbalance to Chinese dominance in Asia -- we'd much prefer to see ourselves as an unalloyed Force for Good globally, and to do so makes us think back as far as WWII.

The past ideal that Russia and the US share is a problem, to say the least. For the two of us, if not for China.