US President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the draft defense budget for fiscal 2021, which was recently approved by the US House of Representatives. The formal reason was the president’s dissatisfaction with the fact that the budget contains an amendment prescribing the renaming of American military bases named after the leaders and commanders of the Confederation. The project also contains a number of restrictions on the actions of Trump himself, which no one can like.
However, behind the outside of Trump's public butting with Congress, there are, as always, internal processes invisible to the naked eye. For there are things that cannot always be said aloud. Especially in the current American political system, weighed down by internal confrontation among the elites and the flaring up civil war on the streets of the United States.
So what does the U.S. defense budget project contain that Trump might not like?
What immediately catches the eye is the limitation of the incumbent's initiatives, with which he is worn during his entire first term. For example, the notorious wall on the border with Mexico. She was part of Trump's election promises as a candidate, and not fulfilling it is not fulfilling one of the most important points of the program, which attracted a significant part of the sympathy of the white electorate.
The democratic part of the Congress from the very beginning opposed the implementation of the construction of the wall. At first, I simply blocked the allocation of money from the budget. Then the item "Wall" migrated to the military budget already as a defense initiative, but even here it was discovered by Trump's opponents and also limited. Congressmen included in the defense budget a direct ban on the use of funds allocated to the Pentagon to build a wall on the border with Mexico, that is, they are trying to disrupt Trump's long-term plan to combat illegal immigration from Central and South America.
However, there is a deeper reason behind this point. Trump, like most white, traditional America, does not believe, unlike Democrats, that all people are equal and the same. True, the democrats have already gone much further, arguing that not only people of different nations and races, but also different genders are the same, and that gender is a convention. And even the fact that, in general, a person is not a subject, but an object, on which an outrageously progressive, object-oriented ontology insists. And that all this mass of post-human objects - half-humans, half-cyborgs - should be controlled by artificial intelligence.
However, Trump does not seem to hear all these progressive lamentations, but continues to insist in the old fashioned way on preserving the identity of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant with his own principles and system of values, including the traditional family, life on earth and American Confederate heroes - symbols of white America. Racist, cruel, intolerant? Well, what it is.
Then there were such times and such morals, and it is not a matter of rewriting history and demolishing monuments whenever morals and assessments change.
This is what American traditionalists think along with Trump. After all, it was the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who founded this state under the leadership of their leaders, whose memory is dear to them. And perhaps, somewhere deep down, they regret that the South lost the civil war, that everything turned out the way it is. And they want to save what is left of this white, Anglo-Saxon America, at least in the form of symbols.
But they cannot say that, and Trump cannot. It is not a fact that he is generally capable of formulating this even in general terms. He just doesn’t like it - an endless stream of immigrants who go and go, don’t want to work, they don’t like to comply with the laws, they want benefits, and if they don’t like something, they hooligans, burn cars and rob shops. And they cannot be changed (Trump thinks so), but at least they must be stopped. The wall is also not God knows what, but it is a gesture of despair.
Trump also puts America and its interests above the interests of the globalist project and its promotion by democrats around the world. Trump does not want American taxpayer money to be spent on multiple adventures around the world sponsored by his liberal opponents, but wants it to be spent on improving the lives of ordinary Americans.
But the Liberal Democrats in Congress think differently. Although Trump himself, if it were his will, would have long ago turned off a dozen adventures begun by the previous administration. For example, it would withdraw troops from Afghanistan, at least significantly reduce their number. And also would reduce the number of American troops in Europe, for example, in the same Germany.
Perhaps Trump would have already withdrawn American troops from Syria, where they are forced to fight on the side of the militants, would have left Libya torn to pieces by his predecessor Obama, and even would have given Iraq the opportunity to lick the wounds received as a result of the brutal imposition on its own, without American supervision. there is American democracy.
But no, the Democrats in the Congress are not asleep and are directly blocking his initiatives, introducing one ban after another. The adopted bill proposes to prohibit the Trump administration from reducing the number of American military contingents in Germany and Afghanistan. What can we say about Iraq, Libya and Syria. Apparently, Trump shouldn't even stutter about this.
If he had such an opportunity, Trump would "get along with Russia." But when he promised this in his campaign speeches, he thought that, having become president, he would receive the power that would give him the opportunity to do this.
But no. Gentlemen, the Democrats are thrusting a spoke in the wheel here too and demanding more spending to contain Russia.
Trump himself, perhaps, believes that if Russia is not touched and does not try to constantly "contain", then she will not. And he thinks correctly. But no, the amendments to the draft defense budget involve the allocation of $ 3.78 billion to "contain" Russia in Europe as part of the European Containment Initiative (EDI).
The very same European Containment Initiative is a program to strengthen the American military presence in Europe and was launched by the Barack Obama administration in 2014 after the reunification of Crimea with Russia and the beginning of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Trump would have spat on Ukraine along with Crimea long ago, especially since in his view, both are Russia. "Is not it so?" Trump raises an eyebrow in surprise. On the contrary, he is being asked to increase military aid to Ukraine. How can we get along here.
At the same time, Trump's veto would block sanctions against the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. This, apparently, is also a military defense initiative - new sanctions that will be introduced against individuals and companies involved in the construction of the Russian pipeline. Moreover, the sanctions pressure on the construction of Russian gas pipelines is an extremely unpopular measure in Europe itself and has already completely quarreled the former allies.
All this Donald Trump feels and understands, but he cannot say aloud, already badly hunted and battered by the four difficult years of his first presidential term. Not literally or figuratively. Indeed, even having chosen the most innocuous arguments against the current draft budget - disagreement with the removal of the names of leaders and commanders of the Confederation from the names of military bases and with the refusal to build the "Great Mexican Wall" - Trump has already unleashed a hail of reproaches and accusations. It is difficult even to imagine what would have happened if Trump, coming to the podium of the Congress, quoting Friedrich Nietzsche pathetically, said: “People are not equal. And they shouldn't be equal! " Perhaps the very "democrats" would have eaten him alive.
But Trump will not say this - and in general, he is unlikely to say anything else about this. Most likely, he will write on Twitter. And the US military budget worth $ 740.5 billion will soon be adopted. They will bargain a little more, correct a couple of wordings - and they will accept. After all, it also includes the interests of Donald Trump himself, his favorite defense industry. And he, as we know, is primarily a businessman, not Zarathustra.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.