Is Trump Rewriting “America First” Into Forever War? (ft. Tim Snyder)
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Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlow, and I'm so excited to be joined today by historian Tim Snyder, leading scholar of European history and authoritarianism and author of On Tyranny, 20 Lessons from the 20th Century. Tim, it's so nice to have you. Very glad to be with you. It's perfect timing. I want to talk about present stuff, but there's so much of what's going on these days that I feel like if you're not grounded in the history of it, you're going to totally miss the real realities, which I feel like the administration is trying to hide from us. So in today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're going to talk about what history can teach us about Trump's war in Iran and what the Texas primary might be signaling for the midterms ahead.
Before we get started, if you aren't already subscribed to the Raging Moderates YouTube channel, please do that. We're five days a week now. It's very exciting. Let's get right into it. Trump built his brand opposing these regime change wars. Very proud of the fact that he opposed the Iraq war, actually, though I think you... Liked it before he opposed it. But either way, he's been mocking democracy building and promising America first. And yet now, after U.S. strikes in Iran and open calls for Iranians to overthrow their government, he is the fourth American president in the past century to frame military force as a mission of liberation. I want to start off by just asking you, what does history tell us about what happens next?
Yeah, I mean, before I get to that, I just want to say, it's very hard when talking about this not to make it more coherent than it is. So you've just presented a fairly coherent description of what Trump thinks that he's doing, right? And sometimes he says that, and then sometimes he says other things. Sometimes he says, yeah, we're here to liberate. And sometimes he says, well, actually, we just wanted to put the next bad guy in power. And so I can tell you what history says, but I think the lessons of history in a way are deeper in this case because there's just much less coherence in the present. So the first thing that history tells you is that wars are always unpredictable. Yeah. If you want to make life more unpredictable, start a war.
The second thing that history tells you is that war changes politics, but it doesn't necessarily change politics in the way you expect. So Iran will be different, but probably not the way that people would like for it to be different. And the third thing that history tells you is that the other side has a vote. So you may have a story about how you were expecting this is going to go and you may tell that story to yourself and to your people. But once you start a war, the enemy has a vote and they will do things that you don't like. They will do things that you don't expect and you can't stop them from doing all of those things. So those are the basics. I like it. And I guess for the purposes of having to write an intro, you always do kind of make Trump more coherent than he has been.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–9:18
2
What historical lessons can we learn about Trump's military actions in Iran?
9:18–10:46
3
How has Trump's stance on regime change evolved since his presidency began?
10:46–16:19
4
What unpredictable outcomes can arise from military interventions?
16:19–24:04
5
How does Trump's foreign policy affect the Iranian regime's response?
24:04–34:12
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