Over the decades the unfolding drama of world events has never upset me. Actually, that is something of which I am quite proud because of my profession. Even in childhood – during the Cuban missile crisis and the Kennedy administration when people thought the world might be on the on the edge of nuclear war – I always felt that wiser heads would prevail. They did prevail and we didn’t incinerate ourselves.

When JFK was assassinated, I was still in high school and the word of the President’s killing sent the entire world into a panic again. Was the assassination part of a larger plot? Who were the conspirators? Would we go to war? Again, I found the whole thing terribly interesting but not frightening. Somewhere in the middle of it all I knew that journalism was for me. There was no real fear of events just an excitement in the whole thing. I was glued to my television set even to the point of missing school one day o I could watch it all.  

Time marches on and the next events that had people fearing the worst were during the presidency of Richard Milhous Nixon. He was an edgy character who thought himself in some ways above the law. Remember the Nixon line “When a President does it; it isn’t a crime!”  Well, we saw in the final days of Nixon the idea of him calling the question and asking where the loyalties of the American military lay. It is obvious they weren’t rooted with the President and, in fact, the Chiefs of Staff had been “keeping an eye” on Nixon. They were spying on him. Hard to believe but it was true. In the final hours of the Nixon empire, as he spiralled down, the word went out in the military to not follow commands from Nixon but rather go up to the top of the military ladder for direction. For instance, if Nixon had ordered the Army to occupy Washington, then that WASN’T going to happen. There was an over riding order to things beyond the President although it is unclear as to who was actually running things.

Times have changed. From day one President Donald Trump has tried to reshape presidential control in the United States and take more power into the executive branch. He has surrounded himself with people in various departments whose chief credential isn’t necessarily talent but rather loyalty to HIM. It is against that background that we see armed forces moving into American cities to round up illegal immigrants. Armed and masked they present a frightening spectre. The temptation to compare them to Nazi storm troopers is large.

Here is the part that really scares me. Donald Trump wants to control the military, we all know that, but he also has embarked on a crusade to control the news media, and he is good at it. The power of economics is forcing networks and news outlets to tread more softly and to worry about their licenses. Trump is quick to threaten and quick to sue. That causes me concern because I see already the effect it has had.

Trump also scared me quite a bit by his assertion that Democrats telling members of the military that they need not follow illegal orders can be guilty of “treasonous” behavior. He also alluded to the ultimate punishment for treason could be death, but he quickly said that is not what was being threatened.

The final thing in this little observation is what scares me the most. This is not even an original observation, but it is one draws me in. Beyond Donald Trump’s control battle qith everything around him is the idea is that he has lost control of himself.  He is lashing out online in the dark hours after midnight at everything and everyone. Where that dark road leads nobody knows.  It is jarring to see things like his endorsement of a Russian peace plan that sees Ukraine surrender territory to the nation that invaded it. It actually reminds me of Neville Chamberlain returning to England with a document from Adolph Hitler that Chamberlain said represented “peace in our time.”

There is an expression I learned in History 107 which was the introductory history course at MUN back in the 1960s. The expression is that “those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.” That expression is often credited to Winston Churchill but actually belong to philosopher George Santayana from back at the turn of the 20th century.

It is with increasing concern that I watch events unfold in the United States. Those events include threats of territorial control against places like Canada or Greenland and unsanctioned firing on boats at sea that the US says are involved in drug trafficking. 

Is there any good news? Yes, there is. It seems to me that the issue is not lost and that Donald Trump is losing his battle for control. It is still early days but there are signs his hands are slipping off the tiller. I want to be right, and I really do think I am. I have a feeling that bombast and bluster not withstanding if the President were to order American forces to a place that they really ought not go – when they wouldn’t.

Hope is a wonderful thing.   

You can contact Jim Furlong at [email protected]