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Carl,

The piece you cited does not make a whole lot of sense. The first argument
is his position on military bases. Outside of this being an incomparably
small token of "isolationism" alongside threats to nuke people, send in
ground troops, drones, and his use of torture, all he said was that he
would reverse the arrangement such that those countries would be expected
to pay the United States, rather than vice versa. He has taken a similar
line with NATO. The second argument is that he does not accept the
"rhetoric" of nation-building and so on; but even president-elect George W.
Bush rejected such rationales during the 2000 election. This only means he
is not as interested in sugar-coating such policies with the rhetoric of
democracy and universalism. The last line was his "neutrality" rhetoric
about Palestine. Even assuming we give that any credibility (one might note
that even at the time, Trump combined his statements about "neutrality"
with his affirmation that he was pro-Israel, meaning that he simply
re-defined "neutral" to mean support for Israel), it has long since been
surpassed by his adamant and aggressive support for Israel.

It is an incredibly weak piece. The only part of it that even remotely
speaks to what is "anti-empire" about Trump's policies is the isolationist
rhetoric about US bases in Asia. Given the totality of the policies Trump
has elaborated on, from nukes to torture to drones to ground troops, I'm
not sure how anyone can see this as proof of any sort of "anti-imperialist"
leanings.

The Davis piece that I sent out goes into much greater depth about the
policies that Trump has actually advocated for. He is as violent as they
come.

- Amith
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