The Return of Appeasement

At what point should we expect US citizens to start singing “Buddy can you spare a dime” or dancing cheek to cheek?

Do I hear any takers for my Packard 745 or my Buick Marquette?

How about my dad’s old trilby or my grandfather’s fedora?

Forgive me for asking, but it appears the 1930s are back with a vengeance on the western shore of the Atlantic.

We began with tariffs, which, as I already noted, did a fantastic job of ushering in The Great Depression and shutting down large chunks of the world’s economy.

Now it seems we have resurrected Appeasement, the peace at any price policy which gave such encouragement to Nazism and Fascism, resulting in more land grabs and eventually the Second World War. Neville Chamberlain? Ha! Stand aside, loser. You may have invented the idea of excluding the victim from the peace talks, but you wait until you see me carve up the victim and hand over a fifth of their country without even a by your leave. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Hey, all you dictators out there! Just invade your neighbouring peaceful state, commit innumerable war crimes, and then come and talk to POTUS about how you can keep your ill-gotten gains, take time to replace your expended arms and ammunition, and get ready for your next aggression! Because everybody wants peace, right? And making peace is so easy if you give the aggressor everything he wants before the negotiations even start.

You know what? We’ll forget that you and the US both guaranteed the sanctity of your neighbour’s borders thirty years ago. We’ll just take your word for it that you have no more territorial claims. I mean, we know you broke your word twice already in that time, but we’re willing to let bygones be bygones. We’re going to trust you if you promise not to do it again.

And don’t worry about being an indicted war criminal, because we don’t recognise the court that indicted you. Hell, I don’t recognise the courts that indicted me. So we don’t even recognise our own courts let alone international ones.

And don’t worry about our European, Japanese and Taiwanese allies. Who cares what they think? If they want defending, then they should pay 5% of their national income to defend themselves. Like we do. Or don’t? One or the other, I forget which. And we have to defend on two fronts, not just one.

Just oblige me by not moving into the rest of Ukraine before I finish my term, huh? Don’t make me look bad, the way Adolf did to Neville.