"When you dont have a hammer, you dont want anything to look like a nail."
Robert Kagan is an American columnist. He is a neoconservative scholar. He is a critic of US foreign policy and a leading advocate of liberal internationalism.
"[W]ho will stand up for anyone accused in the public arena, besides their lawyers? In a Trump presidency, the courage it will take to stand up for them will be no less than the courage it will take to stand up to Trump himself. How many will risk their own careers to defend others? In a nation congenitally suspicious of government, who will stick up for the rights of former officials who become targets of Trump’s Justice Department?"
Robert Kagan"Nor is there sufficient reason to hope that the disordered and dysfunctional opposition to Trump today will suddenly become more unified and effective once Trump takes power. That is not how things work. In evolving dictatorships, the opposition is always weak and divided. Thats what makes dictatorship possible in the first place. Opposition movements rarely get stronger and more unified under the pressures of persecution."
Robert Kagan"The formula for defeating Trump in November [2024] is simple enough: Unite the Democrats, and split the Republicans."
Robert Kagan"Many people responded to my last essay [dated November 30, cited above] by insisting that a majority of Americans oppose Trump, and they are right. But the way our system works today, that popular majority is prevented from coalescing. Many blame the electoral college or the two-party prejudice built into our system, and they might well be right. But, folks, are we going to fix these problems before November? The question is how best to bring this majority together in a coalition of Democrats and Constitutional Republicans to prevent a dictatorship this coming year. Afterward, we can look at reforming the system. First, the system has to survive."
Robert Kagan"The United States was losing interest in preserving European security, but at the same time it was hostile to European aspirations to take on the task themselves. Europeans complained about American perfidy, and Americans complained about European weakness and ingratitude."
Robert Kagan"And now, in the final irony, the fact that the US military power has solved the European problem, especially the "German problem", allows Europeans today, and Germans in particular, to believe that American military power, and the "strategic culture" that has created and sustained it, is outmoded and dangerous."
Robert Kagan