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      Our Own Worst Enemy review: a caustic diagnosis of America after Trump

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      BooksOur Own Worst Enemy review: a caustic diagnosis of America after TrumpTom Nichols quotes Abraham Lincoln – on how American democracy can only be brought down from within Lloyd GreenSun 22 Aug 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 22 Aug 2021 02.01 EDTLiberal democracy is under attack from within. Institutional trust erodes. Fewer than one in six Americans believe democracy is working well, nearly half think democracy isn’t functioning properly, and 38% say democracy is simply doing meh. Atomization, bowling alone and nihilism have converged at the ballot box.The Reckoning by Mary L Trump review – how to heal America’s traumaRead moreRepublicans are hellbent on shoving the events of 6 January, when supporters of Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol, down a deep memory hole. GOP governors in Florida, Mississippi and Texas remain sanguine as Covid-19 dispatches children to intensive care. Seven months into his presidency, Joe Biden looks to some like Jimmy Carter redux, competence and judgment seriously doubted, allies strained and divided. FDR, he’s definitely not.Into this morass parachutes Tom Nichols, with a meditation on the state of American democracy. Nichols grew up in a working-class home in Massachusetts and is now a professor at the US Naval War College and the Harvard Extension School. He is also a Never Trump conservative.In his eighth book, Nichols is pessimistic. “Decades of constant complaint,” he writes, “regularly aired in the midst of continual improvements in living standards, have finally taken their toll.”The enemy, Nichols asserts, is “us”. Citizens of democracies, he writes, “must now live with the undeniable knowledge that they are capable of embracing illiberal movements and attacking their own liberties”.As if to prove his point, Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, recently made light of Trump’s attempts to have the Department of Justice subvert the election result. Even with Trump out of office, Senator Lindsay Graham continues to play first golf buddy, Renfield to Trump’s Count Dracula. A majority of congressional Republicans voted against certifying the 2020 election.In 2016, Nichols urged conservatives to vote for Hillary Clinton because Trump was “too mentally unstable” – far from the “very stable genius” he would later claim to be.In Our Own Worst Enemy, Nichols quotes Abraham Lincoln on how threats to American democracy always come from within: “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.” Nichols sees the internet and the “revolution in communications” as the means by which we reached this dark point.Public life has become ever more about dopamine hits, instant reaction and heightened animus. Our fellow citizens double as our enemies. Electronic proximity breeds contempt, not introspection. Social media and cable television provide a community for those who lack a three-dimensional version.Nichols looks to ancient Greece for a reminder that nothing lasts forever. Admiringly, he quotes Pericles, the Athenian general and orator – but observes that Pericles was not around when his city state collapsed. He died two years earlier, behind “the besieged walls of Athens – from a plague”.History can repeat itself.In September 2016, writing in the Claremont Journal of Books under the pseudonym Publius Decius Mus, Michael Anton declared the contest between Trump and Clinton the “Flight 93 Election”: a reference to the plane that came down in Pennsylvania on 9/11 when passengers attacked their hijackers. Clinton, he argued, simply had to be stopped. First principles of conservatism could therefore be jettisoned.“Charge the cockpit or you die,” Anton thundered. “You may die anyway … There are no guarantees.”What, he asked, must be done “against a tidal wave of dysfunction, immorality and corruption?” To Anton, for the right, respect for “democratic and constitutional niceties” was ultimately a sucker’s game. Culture was stacked against them.After a stint as a Rudy Giuliani speechwriter, and other stops along the way, Anton joined Trump’s national security council.Later this year the Claremont Institute will honor Ron DeSantis. At a press conference earlier this month, the Florida governor asked: “Would I rather have 5,000 [Covid-19] cases among 20-year-olds or 500 cases among seniors? I would rather have the younger.”A few weeks later, the Sunshine State is getting the worst of both worlds.Simple decency, it seems, is for losers. Amid the last presidential campaign, comparisons between the US and the Weimar Republic were rife. The January insurrection was seen as our “Reichstag fire”. The attackers came from the right.Nichols absorbs and abhors it all. Not surprisingly, he takes particular aim at the populist right, which he says has been the “main threat” to liberal democracy over the past two decades. That is subject to debate, which Nichols acknowledges. Regardless, he writes that the populist right “is a movement rooted in nostalgia and social revenge”.As if to make Nichols’ point, Lauren Boebert, the hard-right, QAnon-adjacent Republican congresswoman from Colorado, recently trashed Biden for having left America’s friends in Afghanistan in the lurch – after voting last month against granting 8,000 immigration visas to Afghans who assisted the US military.‘We dodged a mortar round’: George Packer on America in crisisRead moreOther GOP diehards who opposed the legislation include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks and Paul Gosar. Greene and Gosar were charter members of the de facto white nationalist America First caucus. After a bomb threat on the Capitol this week, Brooks tweeted: “I understand citizenry anger directed at dictatorial socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom and the very fabric of American society.”Considering what ails America, Nichols offers limited prescriptions. He supports bridging the gap between civilian and military life. The progeny of the coastal elites opt for Ivy League colleges over the service academies, reinstatement of the draft isn’t likely and notions of national service all too frequently amount to “little more” than a paid internship, he writes.Concurrently, rightwing “Spartanism” breeds the unsustainable notion that “‘citizens’ and ‘soldiers’ are not the same people”.Nichols urges America’s youth to spend a summer in uniform, exposed to military life and skills. Most won’t join the army, he thinks, but will come away with a better knowledge of the soldier’s life. Right now, he laments, “there is no longer any common experience related to national defense”.Indeed. America has become one nation separated by a common language.
      Our Own Worst Enemy is published in the US by Oxford University Press
      TopicsBooksUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsUS CongressBiden administrationTrump administrationreviewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      From the archive: Cuomo’s demise – Politics Weekly Extra

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      A week after Andrew Cuomo resigned as the governor of the state of New York, Jonathan Freedland revisits a conversation he had with Alexis Grenell back in March. The pair discuss how Cuomo rose to the top, and then fell spectacularly from grace.

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Follow our Cuomo coverage here Listen to the original episode here Follow all of our latest reporting on what’s happening in Afghanistan Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

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      Biden says ‘I stand squarely behind my decision’ after Taliban takes Kabul – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.13pm EDT
      17:13

      Today so far

      5.08pm EDT
      17:08

      Botched Afghanistan withdrawal gives Biden biggest crisis of his presidency

      4.12pm EDT
      16:12

      ‘I stand squarely behind my decision,’ Biden says after Taliban takes Kabul

      4.05pm EDT
      16:05

      Biden acknowledges ‘rapid collapse’ in Afghanistan after Taliban takes Kabul

      1.59pm EDT
      13:59

      Ambassador to UN tells security council meeting Afghanistan must never be a terrorism base again

      1.18pm EDT
      13:18

      Third Bob Woodward Trump book will also focus on Biden

      1.01pm EDT
      13:01

      Today so far

      Live feed

      Show

      5.41pm EDT
      17:41

      The publishers of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times asked Joe Biden to move journalists to the US military-protected side of the airport in Kabul, as they evacuate.
      “Brave Afghan colleagues have worked tirelessly to help The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal share news and information from the region with the global public. Now, those colleagues and their families are trapped in Kabul, their lives in peril,” the publishers said in a joint statement.
      The airport today was overrun with desperate civilians fleeing Kabul after the Taliban’s seized the city. Seven died amid the chaos.

      .

      5.13pm EDT
      17:13

      Today so far

      Joe Biden defended his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, even after Taliban forces took Kabul and the world saw images of desperate Afghans attempting to flee the country. “I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden says. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces.”
      At least seven people were killed amid the chaos at Kabul International Airport today, according to the AP. Videos widely shared on social media showed desperate Afghans trying to cling to a US military plane as it departed Kabul and then falling to their deaths.
      Administration officials have continued to defend Biden’s strategy in Afghanistan, even in the face of rebukes from Democrats and Republicans over how the troop withdrawal has been executed. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said this morning, “What the president kept saying over and over again is that it was not inevitable Kabul would fall. And it was not inevitable. There was the capacity to stand up and resist. That capacity didn’t happen.”
      The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at the emergency security council meeting today that other countries should Afghanistan becoming a base for international terrorism again. “We must all ensure Afghanistan cannot ever, ever again be a base for terrorism,” she said in New York.

      – Joan E Greve

      5.08pm EDT
      17:08

      Botched Afghanistan withdrawal gives Biden biggest crisis of his presidency

      David Smith

      Joe Biden was facing the biggest crisis of his presidency on Monday after the stunning fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban caught his administration flat-footed and raised fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
      Recriminations were under way in Washington over the chaotic retreat from Kabul, which one Biden opponent described as “the embarrassment of a superpower laid low”.
      Bowing to pressure, officials said the president would leave his country retreat, Camp David, to address the nation from the White House on Monday afternoon.
      The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, ending two decades of a failed experiment to import western-style liberal democracy. Diplomatic staff were flown to safety but thousands of Afghans who worked with US forces were stranded and at risk of deadly reprisals.
      As harrowing scenes played out on television – including desperate Afghans clinging to a US transport plane before takeoff – the White House scrambled to explain how the government collapsed so quickly.
      Last month Biden, pointing to the Afghan military’s superior numbers and technology, predicted: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
      Unrepentant, the president issued a statement on Saturday, insisting the sudden withdrawal had been the only possible choice.
      But the response by Biden, who ran for election promising unrivalled foreign policy credentials after 36 years in the Senate and eight as Barack Obama’s vice-president, was jarring to many. A headline in the Washington Post read: “Defiant and defensive, a president known for empathy takes a cold-eyed approach to Afghanistan debacle.”
      Read more:

      4.30pm EDT
      16:30

      Joe Biden acknowledged that his decision to continue with the Afghanistan withdrawal mission would be criticized by many, and he pledged he would not “shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today”.

      CBS News
      (@CBSNews)
      Biden says he takes “my share of responsibly” for what is happening Afghanistan: “I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision… I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war.” https://t.co/almuVAk3AW pic.twitter.com/xJicyWQTTu

      August 16, 2021

      “I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me,” Biden said.
      “I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision to end America’s warfighting in Afghanistan,” the president added. “I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war.”
      After concluding his prepared remarks, Biden left the East Room without taking any questions from reporters. He will soon return to Camp David.

      4.26pm EDT
      16:26

      Joe Biden warned that the US would carry out a “swift and forceful” response if the Taliban attacked US citizens or attempted to disrupt evacuation efforts in Kabul.
      “We will defend our people with devastating force, if necessary,” Biden said.
      The president said that, once all evacuation efforts have been successfully completed, the US will move forward with wrapping up its withdrawal mission and “end America’s longest war”.
      “The events we see now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure, Afghanistan,” Biden said.
      “I am now the fourth American president to preside over war in Afghanistan. Two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president.”

      4.17pm EDT
      16:17

      Joe Biden argued that Afghan troops’ failure to defend their country demonstrates why it was the correct course of action to move forward with the US troop withdrawal.
      “It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not,” Biden said.
      Echoing his message from earlier this year when he announced the planned withdrawal, Biden added, “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?”

      4.12pm EDT
      16:12

      ‘I stand squarely behind my decision,’ Biden says after Taliban takes Kabul

      Joe Biden continued to defend his decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan, even after Taliban forces took Kabul and the world saw images of desperate Afghans attempting to flee the country.
      “I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden says. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces.”

      CSPAN
      (@cspan)
      President Biden: “I stand squarely behind my decision…there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces…The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So, what’s happened? Afghan political leaders gave up and left the country.” pic.twitter.com/v3nnvXxRiI

      August 16, 2021

      Biden said he and his national security team were “clear-eyed about the risks” of leaving Afghanistan, and he argued that the events of the past week demonstrate how America’s continued military involvement could not have ultimately propped up the Afghan government.
      The US president criticized Afghan government leaders for fleeing the country and Afghan troops for refusing to properly defend their country.
      “The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden said.

      Updated
      at 4.17pm EDT

      4.05pm EDT
      16:05

      Biden acknowledges ‘rapid collapse’ in Afghanistan after Taliban takes Kabul

      Joe Biden is now delivering an update on the situation in Afghanistan, a day after Taliban forces took control of Kabul.
      The president said he and his national security team have been “closely monitoring” the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, even though Biden has not delivered on-camera remarks about the issue in several days.
      Biden acknowledged that the world is now seeing a “rapid collapse” of the Afghan government, but he insisted the US mission in Afghanistan was “never supposed to be nation-building”.

      4.01pm EDT
      16:01

      Reporters are now set up in the East Room of the White House, where Joe Biden will soon deliver remarks on the situation in Afghanistan, a day after Taliban forces entered Kabul.

      Peter Alexander
      (@PeterAlexander)
      Inside the East Room, awaiting @POTUS’ remarks on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/vaEzJJPWkQ

      August 16, 2021

      3.55pm EDT
      15:55

      Joe Biden was scheduled to start his remarks on Afghanistan about ten minutes ago, but he appears to be running late — as he so often is.

      Nikki Schwab
      (@NikkiSchwab)
      The pool hasn’t even been called yet, so President @JoeBiden’s remarks will not be happening on time.

      August 16, 2021

      3.40pm EDT
      15:40

      The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports:
      The office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a congresswoman from California, distributed a set of talking points to members of Congress on the unfolding crisis in Afghanistan. The talking points, obtained by the Guardian, are below. They were sent out around noon on Monday.

      White House Talking Points on Afghanistan
      TOPLINE:

      The President was not willing to enter a third decade of conflict and surge in thousands of more troops to fight in a civil war that Afghanistan wouldn’t fight for themselves.

      It’s clear from the past few weeks that would have been necessary – more troops for an indefinite amount of time.

      The administration knew that there was a distinct possibility that Kabul would fall to the Taliban.

      It was not an inevitability. It was a possibility.

      POTUS said in July that the Afghan military had the capability to fight the Taliban. But they had to demonstrate the will. Sadly, that will did not materialize.

      The administration planned for every possibility. We had contingency plans in place for any eventuality — including a quick fall of Kabul. That’s why we had troops pre-positioned in the region to deploy as they have done.

      We are focused on safely evacuating US Embassy personnel, American citizens, SIV applicants and their families, and targeted Afghans. We have deployed 6000 US military to Afghanistan to secure the airport and ensure that those evacuation flights, as well as commercial and charter flights can safely depart.

      But indefinite war was and is unacceptable to the President.

      SIV Applicants

      The administration has deployed 6000 US military to Afghanistan to secure the airport and ensure that evacuation flights, commercial and charter flights can safely depart.

      Chairman Miley [sic] and Secretary Austin are working to restore order at the airport so those flights can take place.

      Many have asked why we did not evacuate more Afghanistan civilians, sooner. Part of the answer is that many did not want to leave earlier: many Afghans to whom we gave visas to come to the US chose to stay in their country, still hopeful.

      Nearly 2000 SIV applicants and their families are in the United States, and the administration is prepared to evacuate thousands of American citizens, SIV applicants, and targeted Afghans.

      Was this an intelligence failure

      The Administration knew that there was a distinct possibility that Kabul would fall to the Taliban.

      It was not an inevitability. It was a possibility.

      And the administration planned for every possibility. There were contingency plans in place for any eventuality — including a quick fall of Kabul. That’s why there were troops pre-positioned in the region to deploy as they have done.

      The President said in July that the Afghan military had the capability to fight the Taliban. But they had to demonstrate the will. Tragically, that will did not materialize.

      Here’s what the President was not willing to do: enter a third decade of conflict and surge in thousands of more troops to fight in a civil war that Afghanistan wouldn’t fight for themselves.

      When Trump made the Doha agreement, there were 13,000 US troops in Afghanistan. When POTUS took office – Trump had drawn down troops to 2500. It’s clear from the past few weeks that would have been necessary.

      The President was unwilling to send US men and women back to Afghanistan for an indefinite war.

      Counter-Terrorism

      The United States face terrorist threats in countries around the world including Syria, Libya and Yemen. We don’t have boots on the ground in those countries. We have over the horizon counter terrorism capabilities. And, that’s what we’ll do in Afghanistan – prevent, detect and disrupt terrorism threats with over the horizon capabilities.

      And, we’ll hold the Taliban accountable to not allowing Al Qaeda a safe haven. if they do, there will be consequences that we’ll pursue.

      Two points stand out. One is the emphasis put on the collapse of the Afghan government being a possibility, rather than an inevitability. The second is that the Biden administration is now focused on evacuating personnel, including American embassy staff and the special immigrant visa holders who helped American troops while in Afghanistan.
      The talking points come as Democratic lawmakers emphasize throughout the day that American military forces must secure and retain control of the airport out of Kabul to evacuate people.

      Updated
      at 3.49pm EDT

      3.22pm EDT
      15:22

      Maryland governor Larry Hogan said his state is already slated to welcome at least 180 Afghan citizens through the special immigrant visa program, and the Republican leader said he is “ready and willing” to receive more immigrants.

      Governor Larry Hogan
      (@GovLarryHogan)
      Today, I am announcing Maryland’s commitment to receive more Afghan interpreters who have contributed to U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Many of these Afghan citizens—our allies—bravely risked their lives to support our efforts, and we have a moral obligation to help them. pic.twitter.com/1B89nxz3Bi

      August 16, 2021

      “The chaotic and heartbreaking scenes out of Afghanistan over the last several days—with innocent civilians running for their lives in fear of the Taliban—is the result of a rushed and irresponsible withdrawal,” Hogan said in a video message.
      “Many of these Afghan citizens—our allies—bravely risked their lives to provide invaluable support for many years to our efforts as interpreters and support staff, and we have a moral obligation to help them.”
      Hogan encouraged anyone who is in need of assistance, or knows someone who is, to immediately contact the state’s Office of Refugees and Asylees.
      “I ask all Marylanders to continue to pray for the safety of every American and all of our allies who remain in harm’s way,” Hogan said.

      Updated
      at 3.22pm EDT

      2.59pm EDT
      14:59

      German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged that she and other global leaders had “misjudged” the Afghan government’s ability to withstand attacks from the Taliban.
      “This is an extremely bitter development. Bitter, dramatic and terrifying,” the German chancellor said as the Taliban took control of Kabul, per DW News.
      “It is a terrible development for the millions of Afghans who want a more liberal society.”
      Merkel also noted that her misjudgment had been “widespread,” alluding to the incorrect calculations by other leaders, such as Joe Biden, about how long the Afghan government would be able to stand once US troops withdrew from the country.

      DW News
      (@dwnews)
      “Bitter, dramatic and terrifying.”German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the international community was wrong in its assessment of the situation in Afghanistan, with terrible consequences. pic.twitter.com/LCi8KRCfsu

      August 16, 2021 More