Tom Mulcair: Trump doesn’t get the joke about the ‘Donroe Doctrine’

CTV News political commentator Tom Mulcair comments on further takeover threats from the U.S. after actions on Venezuela.

Tom Mulcair is a former leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017. He’s a political commentator for CTV News and a columnist for CTVNews.ca.

Poor Donald Trump. He’s being laughed at, but he thinks it’s a compliment.

A year ago, Trump’s favourite newspaper, the New York Post, first made the amusing change from the Monroe Doctrine to the ‘Donroe Doctrine.’ The former was named after American president James Monroe and his policy on the Americas from two centuries ago.

The ‘Don’ in the revised version was, of course, Trump. After invading Venezuela, killing scores of people and capturing President Maduro and his wife, who was injured in the operation, Trump boasted: “All the way back, it dated to the Monroe Doctrine. And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine… "

Trump was using his favourite source: “They” -- almost as if it were a consecration from on high. While referencing that longstanding American policy about ensuring dominance in the Western hemisphere, he was characteristically bragging that it was now bigger and better, thanks to him. Think, Greenland and Canada, 51st state.

Donald Trump doesn’t do long term. Everything is about taking whatever you can today and letting tomorrow take care of itself. His dismantling of environmental protections and healthcare research are prime examples. Forget about future generations.

Stealing wealth, not creating

That approach was in full view with the invasion of Venezuela. Forget about international law as well. Don’t talk about the UN. Trump asserts that UN agencies go against American strategic interests.

He’s withdrawing the U.S. from dozens of leading international technology and scientific organizations. For economists, the only way to produce new wealth is with new knowledge. For Trump, the only way to create new wealth is by stealing it.

Forget new technologies to produce clean renewable energy. Trump says that climate change is a hoax. Maybe he’s hoping to melt the ice cap of Greenland to access critical minerals.

In any event, the United States, under Trump, has resolutely opted out of working on solutions with others. That is the real key to understanding what Trump is up to. America alone. But for how long and at what cost? For Trump, that doesn’t matter. He turns 80 this year. He can barely read off a teleprompter. He stumbles down stairs. He falls asleep in meetings. Why should he care about the future?

For now, he’s content to invade, kill, kidnap, declare victory and bugger off. The same gang of hoodlums who surrounded the thug Maduro are still running the place. It’s not that Maduro wasn’t a crook; he did indeed steal his election. Perhaps Trump harbours a little jealousy towards someone who pulled off what he failed to do with the January 6th insurgency.

All Trump wanted was his piece of the action. He’s going to make Venezuela’s oil his own; and he boasts about it. But what precedent is Trump setting with his invasion of Venezuela? On what legal or moral basis could the United States now intervene or even complain if China asserts its own hemispheric priorities and invades Taiwan?

Precedents that embolden dictators

Maybe that’s the point. It could serve to explain Trump’s tepid handling of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine. Trump likes ‘strongmen’ like Putin. If Russia says that Ukraine is theirs and they’re just taking it back, for Trump, the answer isn’t standing up to Putin, the answer is emulating him and threatening to take Greenland.

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But Greenland is part of Denmark and Denmark is part of NATO. See above: that doesn’t matter to Trump, because the dismantling of NATO doesn’t matter to him one bit. Trump promised to rule as a dictator if he won a second term. It’s one of the only truthful things he’s ever said.

His black-shirted and masked police, ICE, are being sent in to wreak terror and havoc on American cities run by democrats. When they shot and killed a young mother, Trump said she ran over his agent (who remained standing throughout). Video evidence proved it’s a lie, but his prime enablers, like Vice-President Vance, repeated the lie.

Republicans finally push back

Trump has slowly but surely taken over all of the institutions that are supposed to provide checks and balances to presidential power. That’s why it was so refreshing to see five Republican senators dare to stand up to Trump on the question of military action.

Led by the iconoclast Republican senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, they included Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. She is up for reelection this year and Trump says that none of the five should ever be elected again. Republican leaders in the senate know how crucial her seat is and have pushed back audaciously against Trump’s edict.

This could turn out to be a critical moment in American political history. After a first term of mindless political chaos, Americans have just gone through their first year of Trump 2.0. The sycophants may have become even more obsequious, but the pattern is the same. He’s surrounded himself with inexperienced nincompoops who will always do his bidding to hold onto their privileges.

For once, stronger American voices are starting to defy him. There is now real hope that this year’s midterm elections could provide a first solid bulwark against Trump.