Fareed Zakaria

What is striking is the difference.

Bush, for all his flaws, and he made many, many mistakes in Iraq, always looked at it as an essentially idealistic, aspirational mission.

We were trying to help the Iraqis.

He never demeaned Islam.

He always tried to sort of see this as part of America's great, uplifting mission.

And you almost miss that because even in our mistakes, even in our errors, there was always that sense that, you know, we were trying to help this country do better.

We were trying to help these people do better.

And what you're describing, I think, quite accurately is Trump approaches it not just from the point of view of the 19th century country.

Because sometimes people talk about, oh, he loves McKinley and he liked tariffs and he's like McKinley in that imperialism.

No, Trump is more like a rapacious 18th century European imperialist who did not have any of McKinley.

McKinley said he went to the Philippines because he wanted to Christianize the place.

And there was none of that sense of uplift.

Most of it was just

brutal.

And it was, as you say, the individual was never at the center of it.

Human life and dignity was never at the center of it.

It was all a kind of self-interested, short-term, extractive game.

And Trump is hearkening back to that.

And it's interesting to ask where he gets it from, because it really is probably fair to say that

Nobody else on the American political spectrum, if they were president, would speak like that.