Said Jonathan Swan in today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Trump 2.0: A Year of Unconstrained Power" (audio and transcript at Podscribe). As the episode title suggests, today marks the 1-year anniversary of Trump's second term in office.
Swan was responding to a prompt from the host, Michael Barbaro. Barbaro had said that Trump's "interventions," while "legally dubious," "have seemed to turn out pretty well for the United States." NATO is "paying more than ever for its own defense," and Latin America is doing "a heck of a lot more to fight those [drug] cartels."
What I'm sure Swan realizes even as he says those words — "America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America" — is that the Europeans need us. Trump is using their dependence to bargain for things that benefit the United States. That's open and on the surface. Who is this character Swan calls the "restorationist" and what is he up to? Is he trustworthy? Is he lucky?
CORRECTION: I had the wrong Jonathan there for half an hour. It's Jonathan Swan, not Jonathan Martin.
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No matter what Trump succeeds in, and he has succeeded in amazing things in one year, it is always "Orange Man Bad" for the Left.
Jonathan Martin is longing for a figure who can go back in time and make Trump's existence go away. Someone who will restore trust in something at the NYT beyond Wordle.
What “trusting” us has meant for decades is sitting on their ass defensively, putting up tariffs against our products and pretending that they are bringing so much to the table. No longer Trump says. You want to be a partner, get off your ass and be a partner. Until then we are not going to let you guillver our national security. I5 Germans to Greenland. It is a joke, Trump is just calling them on it.
"...it was an astonishing display of military prowess."
Mas o menos...no matter what anyone tells you you're not dealing with the varsity when it comes to Cuban specops, especially not when your bodyguard corps likely didn't disperse sufficiently to get them all nailed in one JDAM strike (why the tiny little boxes).
Unconstrained power is the new affordability crisis.
They've now had this lived experience of an American president that says, we're gonna take this territory.
Hang on. What territory has the United States taken? Delcy Rodriguez and the socialists are still running Venezuela. What territory is Martin talking about?
It's not just AI that has a hallucination problem.
He's been President for 5 years. What territory has he taken?
"Unconstrained power"? Really, with leftist federal judges forcing him over and over to go to the SC to do what The Constitution already authorizes? He's the most constrained in my lifetime. He's just willing to do what other had no balls to do, even when they knew it was needed.
What's unconstrained is the resistance to him over the entire 5 years he's been in office. The unconstrained power is that being used against him. It's unprecedented. They, spied on him, lied to the courts, charged and tried him, they jailed his advisors and supporters, they impeached him twice, they even shot him. Unconstrained indeed!
He's acting in the interests of the USA and doing so successfully.
This irritates some people to no end.
This isn't luck,, and it takes moron NYT correspondents to miss the incredibly obvious. President Trump is fighting hostile but gravely weakened enemies, and the EU tops the list. None of their economic "bazookas" can be triggered without risking real bazookas back. Or President Trump can simply turn off Europe's heat. It's a really bad time to be a Eurodrone.
So, what I'm hearing them say is that Trump has "gotten lucky" in just about every foreign policy gambit he's attempted. At what point does it cease to be "luck"?
Apparently time for a new version of Heinlein's "bad luck" quote.
Who is this character Swan calls the "restorationist" and what is he up to? Is he trustworthy? Is he lucky?
A Biden or Kerry type, wealthy despite no career outside of "public service", cozy with the striped-pants Foggy Bottom mandarins and other Deep State termites in the Beltway despite being manifestly wrong about every major foreign policy issue of the last thirty years, caring far more about what people think of him around swanky dinner tables in Islington and the 6th arrondissement than they do around kitchen tables in Des Moines. Maybe Gavin Newsom or Pete Bootyjuice fits the bill.
No, he's not trustworthy. I can say so categorically, regardless of who he is, if he's able to win the Democratic nomination. (And it won't be a "she".)
Was it ever so? "But... America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America" It was always a sort of grudging acceptance of the terms at the end of WW2. We were useful when they wanted to squelch their own domestic opposition is all.
America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America....
Trump wants them to do what is in their own national interest. That means strengthening themselves and picking the right friends.
For example, the US may one day be living under an anti-missile Golden Dome. It will be interesting to see if Europe would like to also reside underneath it or stand principled and naked alone.
This goes along with what I said in the other thread about Greenland being an aikido ploy to bait the Europeans to do what the scum in Congress never will, i.e. kick our troops out of Europe and save us trillions.
It will be salutary for the Europeans to buy the guns and the Americans to buy the butter for a change. I am old enough to remember when a lot of lefties felt this way too, but those days are long in the past.
People seem to forget that we "betrayed" the English and French in 1955 and they've never really forgotten or forgiven that, and that Europe has had to play in our sphere (or they could have played in the Soviet's) since then.
He has done what Biden, Obama, and Bush did before him - push the boundaries of Article II authority in the face of a supine, performative Congress. If Trump is "unconstrained", so are his predecessors.
1. “And that's why you see him now saying, well what about Greenland?”
No. He isn’t NOW saying “what about Greenland?” Greenland has been a priority of his since August of 2019 and especially after his 2024 election win.
2. “America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America.” You can only trust a vassal state - and the Europeans did think they had the US in their back pocket. All nations should do what is in their nation’s best interest. As far as trust goes, RR said it best, “trust but verify.”
"America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America...."
Good. What they trusted historically was that we could be fleeced, and also counted on to die for their goals and "values". What they can trust now is quite different. They still trust, but now they can trust that we will act in our best interests not theirs. Kind of like "It's time you found a job and got your own place, son."
J Scott said, "People seem to forget that we "betrayed" the English and French in 1955 and they've never really forgotten or forgiven that, and that Europe has had to play in our sphere (or they could have played in the Soviet's) since then."
Yeah cause we wouldn't let has-beens play Empire any longer with money and prestige they no longer possessed after we bailed out the entire damn world from Europe's 2nd bloodletting in a score of years.
The first shall be last and the last shall be first...the light of Western Civilization changed hands and they'll never let us live it down, elitists that they are.
In the game against Maduro, Trump was 4th and 5 from the 12 yard line. He decided to go for it.
’America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America…’
I can think of maybe four allies that would have our back if needed: Japan, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. If they’re worried about the trust of England, Germany, and France then I’d say they’re wasting their energy about nothing.
Apparently time for a new version of Heinlein's "bad luck" quote.
I think the OG version works just fine. Certainly you can't argue that the tiny minority that produces the advances that allow us, occasionally, to get our heads above water, isn't despised.
I feel a lukewarm desire to reread some David Brin to see what I think of him now. I read him at a time when I was particularly susceptible to what I remember as being his kind of Rousseauian attitude - that people are basically good and will willingly work together in the common interest. What set him apart in my mind was that he wrote about that philosophy more convincingly that anyone else I had encountered - and yet I still came away from each of his novels with "Yeah, it'll never work" in the back of my mind. I hope I'm not maligning him unfairly; I really have only the vaguest memory of anything I read of his.
I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.
It's amazing to continually watch Ivy League educated editors and columnists not understand what Trump says.
Shorter Trump: I was always going to do what I wanted to do, but now I don't have to worry about people screaming that you need to revoke my Nobel Prize.
Also: Don't you see that Trump's ability to make peace comes from his willingness to wage war? Without an occasional Maduro or Greenland, no one will take his demands for peace seriously.
It was always a sort of grudging acceptance of the terms at the end of WW2. We were useful when they wanted to squelch their own domestic opposition is all.
Matt Taibbi, who thinks NATO should've been dissolved when the Cold War ended, resurrected the old quote about NATO - that it was meant to keep America in and Germany down. Seems about right.
Montgomery Burns: "Ooh, the Germans!"
It's like watching a dog, just learning how to read.
How is the next president going to fix all this damage caused by Trump's success? Of course that's how they frame it.
If holding hands and getting along got us into this hole we needed Trump to dig us out of, then why would we even want to go back to holding hands and getting along?
When do they ask that question?
I don't even have a problem with NATO, only that it serves and should serve our interests and not the EUs. De Gaulle understood this. Too many of our leadership have gone native. One would hope that the EU member states recognize that De Gaulle was ultimately correct.
You've still got a Jonathan Martin tag.
Trump will bomb back to the Stone Age two IRGC bases in Tehran. Probably right after he leaves Davos.
Posterizing the Euros and mullahs. They can’t stop him!
"Unconstrained" power? The Jonathan needs to check that definition. All sorts of judges have slapped Trump down. Many DC people have rejected or resisted his efforts. There's even an acronym in investing for Trump tariffs: TACO trade = "Trump Always Chickens Out."
An accurate summary is: "Trump is testing the limits of his power and the scope of the USA's chief executive role per the constitution."
Even Putin and Xi are constrained by their own teams and negative PR.
The NATO quip was "Germans down, Russians out, and Americans in."
The first two seem to be working just fine, which means the third has served its purpose.
Trump's eyeing the international order in a manner similar to how he was looking at the old Kennedy Center or the East Wing. In this case, his vision for the project is a self-sufficient America that doesn't have to rely on other countries for energy or rare earths, and one that can't be seriously threatened militarily.
When a security talk ensues and literally yesterday’s public enemy number one’s name is not mentioned. Are Libs Making Putin Great Again?
..."But... America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America...." He says that like it's a bad thing, taking the USA for granted for upholding their status quo.
Did he mention, anywhere in the interview, the word 'realpolitik'? Because that's all it is. We just haven't seen it practiced in a while. But both Pepperidge Farm and Donald Trump remember. Is there a tag for that, here?
Marcus Bressler said...
No matter what Trump succeeds in, and he has succeeded in amazing things in one year, it is always "Orange Man Bad" for the Left.
@Marcus, you’re almost right. The point is that especially when Trump succeeds the drooling, slobbering, hatred escalates. I’ve seen this before, with Dick Nixon, wth Ronald Reagan, with George W. Bush, and with his Daddy. The focus of the hatred may vary, but the hatred is always there.
If anyone needs to "restore trust", they're over there (Europe) and over here (the Democrats). Europe has betrayed America's trust about a million times since 1945, stating with being far from sufficiently grateful for the Marshall Plan. One particular betrayal that really galls grew out of Omar Ghaddafi's terrorism. Pan Am 103 is bombed. 258 persons, mostly Americans die. The FBI and the NSA spend millions identifying the ring leader. He's caught. Tried and sentenced to life in prison. Then he's released. He lived 33 months and died with his family present, something none of the souls aboard Flight 103 enjoyed. Europe owes an apology. White roses for 300 million would be a start... with a nice card.
The Dims are just insufferable. They spoke in humiliating terms about Trump for NOT dealing decisively with Maduro during his first term. Now they want to impeach him for dealing decisively with Maduro. Groveling apologies are overdue, Mr. Schumer. Crawl over broken glass to kiss my foot, assholes.
"In this case, his vision for the project is a self-sufficient America that doesn't have to rely on other countries for energy or rare earths, and one that can't be seriously threatened militarily."
Those seem to be reasonable goals to me.
"NATO Secretary General Rutte to Trump: I’m ‘Committed to Finding a Way Forward on Greenland’"
It’s always amusing to see what the NYT has to say about Trump because that is the narrative to be repeated by the Legacy Media, Democrats who can read and supposed moderate Republicans.
I’ve heard the song before. It is a Golden Oldie.
The incredible failure known as Gavin Newsom:
" I can’t take this complicity, people rolling over. I should have brought a bunch of kneepads for all the world leaders.”
Newsom went on to claim that Trump was “playing” world leaders “for fools.” adding, “This is diplomacy with Donald Trump? He’s a T-Rex. You mate with him or he devours you. One or the other.”
Newsom would have been great as the female lead in a King Kong movie.
I bet a lot of Europeans secretly wish they had a leader like our Kong.
What's the point of NATO, anyway? If the balloon really went up, does anyone believe the Europeans would really and truly put their boots on and line up with our boys in harm's way? That's why Trump wants Greenland, because he knows they'll surrender immediately. Denmark can't defend Greenland, mainly because they won't. They won't admit that they won't. Nevertheless, they won't. They'll leave it to the Americans to spend lives and treasure to expel the invaders, and they expect us to return Greenland, all nice and clean, back to Copenhagen free of charge because NATO.
"But... America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America...."
America’s traditional allies(Europe) and the neocons in DC are just rent seeking douchebags and should be treated as such.
Gavin Newsom slept with the wife of his best friend and campaign manager, but I'm sure he was a perfect gentleman.
Newsome did just have an epic meltdown.
He is realizing that Americans hate elites like him that trash America and trash the people in it.
The elites in Europe and DC and the little blue enclaves in US cities run by democrats are in for a rough decade or two as we become a Christian nation that exhibits “toxic whiteness and masculinity.”
"Restorationist" is the opposite of what we voted for. We quite intentionally elected someone to DISMANTLE a desperately doddering and pathetically post-seasonal globalist system run by an administrative state under the unaccountable and generally incompetent management and control of elitists and alleged experts.
He made it very clear what he intended to do and won a rather solid victory on that basis. More please, and faster, so that "restoration" will be impossible.
As to trust, I have no great trust that many of our allies would jump to our defense unless they were sure we would prevail. At the first sign of that not happening, they would switch sides and bow, and that's regardless of whether we treat them as equals or dependents.
Surely the Board of Peace will stop Trump's unchecked aggression
We need Greenland more than we need allies. ~ Donald Trump
Let's see how that plays out.
Trump's up all night 'til the sun
Trump's up all night to get some
Trump's up all night for good fun
Trump's up all night to get lucky
CC, JSM
Trump wasn't "lucky" in those operations in Iran and Venezuela, he knew what our military is capable of doing and now everybody else does too. That said, acquiring Greenland by military force as some have accused him of wanting to do could be done but the backlash would be considerable, to say the least. I can understand why Greenland is desirable for our national security but his way of going about it isn't working well. IMHO he should have been working on the folks in Greenland to get them to want to be associated with the US. The grievances with Denmark are certainly there and could have been played up. Helping the poor mistreated citizens of Greenland would have played out much better than his current tactics.
Reagan said "Trust but verify". Now, who is it that can't see past the next election?
It's our so called allies that can't be trusted.
Or, from Marillion's first lead singer (a Scot, like Trump):
Born to fight out of the tightest corner
You can bet on him with the odds against you
They'll not put him down no matter how they try
Oh, he could have been you
He could have been me
He could have been anybody
But he was born lucky
CC, JSM
I think Trump has the Euros right where he wants them.
They may even beg him to take control of Greenland...if he just gives some limited commitment to Ukraine or holds tariffs from rising (or both).
"We need Greenland more than we need allies"
We won't lose a single ally over Greenland, but they will all be safer, including Denmark.
Whatever effect the successful Maduro operation had on Trump's psyche, it also had a perhaps more dramatic effect on the psyches of third word dictators. That's got to give them pause.
Victor Davis Hanson frequently talks about Europe's schizophrenia. Pretty much the same countries are in the EU and NATO, give or take a couple. The EU is hostile to the US as an economic competitor and, nowadays, as an ideological opponent. But NATO loves the US. Previous American administrations just dealt with each personality separately. Trump, as an outsider to such subtle nuancey statecraft, just sees it as one Europe: he can economically and politically leverage their EU personality while militarily leveraging their NATO personality. The Europeans can't switch personalities fast enough to deal with him.
Also, a Trumpy Greenland 'invasion' would be completely nonviolent. He'd just land planes and ships like it's a regular admin day in the US military. And the guys would just stay. The native Greenlanders aren't going to resist violently, and the Euro countries won't either. Even if the Danes try to invoke Article V, the Central European members will tell them to fuck off, from the golf cart where they're riding with Trump. CC, JSM
He’s a T-Rex. You mate with him or he devours you
How does Newsom know the mating habits of a T-Rex?
I think Trump is--as Scott Adams would say--talking past the sale in Greenland. An invasion of Greenland would be industrial strength stupid, and Trump, for all his failings, is not stupid. Still all this weird talk is spooking the markets. My higher power is money, and I don't like it when the markets get spooked.
"Legally dubious" according to whom?
Is this the new leftist media Doublespeak fad along with "according to unnamed source," "said without evidence," and "credibly accused."
Kakistocracy said...
Surely the Board of Peace will stop Trump's unchecked aggression
We need Greenland more than we need allies. ~ Donald Trump
Let's see how that plays out.
We shouldn’t have allies. We should have interests.
We don’t have anyone who has acted like an ally in Europe for decades. The European Union is explicitly anti USA and was founded explicitly to counter US hegemony.
We should treat the European welfare states like the juvenile losers they are. They will be majority Muslim in a decade or two anyway.
It's always useful to remember that the NATO countries are U.S. "allies" in exactly the same way that the townspeople were Gary Cooper's "allies" in "High Noon" when he faced down the entire gang of bad guys by himself.
Ah, go throw some more shrimp on teh barbee, ya sheila!
Gavin Newsom is a walking, talking sleazy haircut. He’s goin’ down!
I thought Greenland was nuts and a ploy to blow up NATO, but if the missile and submarine drone tech that makes aircraft carriers obsolete in any great power conflict are not already deployed, they are certainly on the drawing board. Carriers are now little more than glorified gunboats. If you want to turn the North Atlantic into an American lake, you need large air and naval bases that you can’t get kicked out of without a fight because your “allies” got regime changed by Chinese bribery or whatever.
The major threat from Russia nuclear powered submarine drones that can hit any coast, and which are launched from the Arctic.
NATO has been pantsed by Russia, and nobody is impressed.
“ Also, a Trumpy Greenland 'invasion' would be completely nonviolent. He'd just land planes and ships like it's a regular admin day in the US military. And the guys would just stay”
You want to say “like Grant took Richmond,” but it’s more like how Russia took Crimea.
European leaders are deeply concerned about a possible Russian attack on a NATO country. The subsequent war would pull in other countries and spread the conflict. North Korea is already providing troops to Moscow in its Ukraine campaign, but a war with NATO could see China and Iran supporting Russia. On top of this anxiety, European leaders fear that the Trump Administration might soon reduce its presence or attach conditions to its role in Europe’s defense.
So, I think, Trump is taking advantage of European anxiety and dependence on the American military for its security. He wants Greenland and, in exchange, he is offering a renewed commitment to NATO. I also think he is offering targeted killings of Iranian leaders in order to weaken or destabilize a Russian ally.
I would say it's pretty darn hard to call anything an 'invasion' when we have 5 times the number troops stationed there as the Euros were willing to dispatch in a 'show of force'.
imTay: "it’s more like how Russia took Crimea."
Or more like how the USSR went into Czechoslovakia and Hungary. CC, JSM
I'm sort of surprised that Althouse hasn't posted on this NYT editorial temper tantrum regarding the upcoming WEF Davos conference.* The gist is that Trump has completely conquered the WEF and the old lefty BS is out. Bummer if you're an NYT acolyte. What's fascinating is that after two decades of proclaiming the wonderfulness of the "elites" gathering via private jet in Davos to combat climate change and world hunger, and promote state socialism, the piece basically denounces them all as capitalist corporate frauds. No shit, Sherlock.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/business/davos-president-trump.html
*It's your blog, Prof-post whatever you want.
What's "legally dubious" about demanding that freeloaders in NATO pay their "fair share"? Isn't the left always whinging on about "rich folks" paying their "fair share".
Looks like we've lost Europe for good! Here's Macron asking for Chinese support!
https://x.com/_MAGA_NEWS_/status/2013631217196056891
“What I'm sure Swan realizes even as he says those words — "America's traditional allies will not go back to the way they were in terms of trusting America" — is that the Europeans need us.”
No, even better—now they’re starting to fear us.
IMHO he should have been working on the folks in Greenland to get them to want to be associated with the US. The grievances with Denmark are certainly there and could have been played up. Helping the poor mistreated citizens of Greenland would have played out much better than his current tactics.
I seem to recall that Trump quite publicly has offered to buy Greenland several times since 2019, and Greenland's alleged "representatives" have loudly and snippily asserted that "Greenland is not for sale." I don't know whether the actual residents have had any say in this. As many have pointed out, everyone on the island could be a millionaire if they play their cards right.
James Clyburn is a certified Class “A” clymer.
h/t Darth Cheney
As it turns out, respect is more important than trust.
Trump should offer every Greenlander male a new speedboat and a new rifle and every Greenlander woman a college education after annexation. They'd be a lot cheaper than the Somalis and probably better value.
If you want to turn the North Atlantic into an American lake, you need large air and naval bases that you can’t get kicked out of without a fight because your “allies” got regime changed by Chinese bribery or whatever.
The major threat from Russia nuclear powered submarine drones that can hit any coast, and which are launched from the Arctic.
The Muslim hordes are of far greater concern from where I sit.
The Russian population is old and dwindling, and the country's economy is tottering because of low oil prices. This is in large part attributable to the actions of Donald Trump, who some deluded lefties consider a puppet of Putin, but has been behaving as his worst enemy instead.
The Muslim population is young and fecund, by contrast, and doesn't worry about the economy, because they have cashed in on the stupidly groveling white guilt of the European left. Every bloodthirsty radical imam with four wives and two dozen children gets a mansion worth three quarters of a million dollars and a fat monthly stipend, courtesy of the white taxpayers. He does no work at all except for a jihadi rant in the mosque every Friday, and impregnating his wives to breed future jihadis every other day of the week.
Europe will be an aggressive, nuclear-armed Muslim caliphate in 50 years at most, unless the Europeans start forcible deportation of the entire Muslim population in the next few years.
I would say it's pretty darn hard to call anything an 'invasion' when we have 5 times the number troops stationed there as the Euros were willing to dispatch in a 'show of force'.
Just post some "Under New Management" signs.
M. Rubio, Property Manager.
He's acting in the interests of the USA and doing so successfully.
This irritates some people to no end.
See also; Frederson, F.
’Europe will be an aggressive, nuclear-armed Muslim caliphate in 50 years at most, unless the Europeans start forcible deportation…’
Which they won’t, and why a nuclear caliphate is inevitable.
The gaullists tried in the 90s, but there was no follow through and the socialist nixed it
Btw macrons rating is somewhere near 15% a very selective audience
"He"........wait, Kamala is starting her 2028 race.
When a tree falls in a forest...
I see that every liberal media studiously avoids the decrease in deaths by fentanyl and crimes, the fall of illegal immigration, and, most essentially, the cut of public money for leftist groups (aka: fraud): this is the real reason why Trump is THE enemy.
"Luck is the residue of design."
-- Branch Rickey
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