International Scapegoating in Politics
Our nation is going to rot as politicians blame foreign countries for bad domestic policy.
It is always a sign of desperation and weakness when we blame someone else for our own personal problems.
Likewise the same is true of our relationships with leaders of foreign nations. Blaming other countries for our own public policy failures signals the imminent demise of our own claims to national greatness.
And the further our nation declines, the greater the incentive exists to blame others.
This is particularly true of recent presidents who have pointed the finger at other nations for our sputtering economy.
For Bush it was Iraq and Afghanistan.
For Trump the problem was Mexico and China.
For Biden it is Russia and China.
And for future presidents it will probably be some combination of the five.
As long as the American economy is sputtering, presidents will continue to resort to pointing the finger at someone else. It’s now a part of presidents’ populist playbook whereby they rouse the masses without actually achieving anything significant.
And this scapegoating will become evermore frequent in the decades.
Because when presidents can earn public esteem without actual accomplishment they’ll do so as often as possible. Under the weak leadership of such uncritical presidents the United States’ will continue to sputter as these gluttons of praise get fat off the acclaim of the uncritical masses.
That is, unless the American people rise to the challenge of criticizing their government again.
For unless we do, the government will no longer be ours but the eventual property of the very nations we’re spending so much time fining, bombing, and damning.
Zigmund Reichenbach holds a M.A. in Philosophy from West Chester University. You can find him stirring up conversation in his Talk Politics Facebook group or you can follow him on Twitter @zreichenbach1. If you too want to talk politics subscribe to our Talk Politics YouTube to be notified when our discussion goes live every Tuesday at 8:30PM.
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