Containment

George Kennan, at about
the time of the long telegram 

In 1946, while serving as a diplomat in the Soviet Union, George Kennan wrote his famous "long telegram" to the Secretary of State, proposing what would become known as the "containment policy."

Kennan argued that it was a mistake, at that time, to continue efforts to appease the Soviets.  He suggested that Stalin needed a hostile world in order to legitimize the brutality of his dictatorship at home, and that the basis "of the Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity."

Kennan predicted that Stalin would continue efforts to expand his nation's influence, a tendency suggested not so much by Communist ideology as by Russia's own nationalistic history of expansionism.  America and the West should act resolutely to oppose any aggressive expansion  Unable to expand, the Soviets' own domestic problems, with no threat of foreign attack to divert attention from those problems, would eventually cause the regime's collapse.

Which is what happened, ultimately.

I recall all of this as I keep my eye on President Trump.  Here is a man with a "neurotic view" of not only world affairs, but of his own relationship with virtually everyone in his own country other than his immediate family.  He is a man beset by insecurity.  His having received fewer votes than Hillary Clinton obviously disturbs him greatly.  He fears, and thus hates, the press, the courts, those states in which Democrats are the majority -- and even the traditional leaders of his own party.

Like Stalin, Trump is an insecure and neurotic man, and one who is ruling a country filled with institutions, officials, and an aroused electoral majority that he fears and cannot control.  Like Stalin, we can expect him to lash out -- as he has done frequently in his first three weeks -- and to make every attempt to arouse the country to fear and hatred of "the other" -- whether that "other" is other nations, foreign terrorists, "disgraceful" courts, or "un-American" opposition leaders here at home.  Like many dictators, including notably Stalin, he will rely on that fear and hatred to unite the country behind his own authoritarian leadership.

Mr. Trump is legitimately the president, pursuant to our constitutional rules.  We will have no military coups.  Unless something unforeseen develops, the Republican Congress will not impeach him.  But, as did America under the Kennan containment doctrine, we can "contain" Mr. Trump.  We can oppose with all our might every attempt he makes to expand his power beyond that traditionally granted to American presidents.  We may still be forced to live with many policies we abhor.  We may see good laws repealed and bad laws adopted.  But those are the expected consequences of losing an election.

But with respect to his grasping for more power, we can contain him.  And that is why the Temporary Restraining Order issued by Seattle's Judge Robart was so  important.  And why the Ninth Circuit's refusal to stay the TRO was even more critical -- more critical, because the Ninth Circuit's per curiam opinion was far more comprehensive than it needed to be, and because it specifically rejected Trump's arguments one after another. 

Trump has, for the moment, in this one small area, been contained.  A small containment, but it's been an important containment, and one that has elicited fury from the president.  Just as assistance to the Greeks against the Soviet-backed rebellion -- our first action pursuant to the containment doctrine -- no doubt enraged Stalin.  We now need to match every future attempt to expand presidential power with an equally strong resistance.  Resistance that will have the effect -- not to be disrespectful -- similar to that of slapping a rolled-up newspaper loudly to the ground every time a dog misbehaves.

Luckily, unlike Kennan and post-war America, we don't need to hope that such containment will cause Mr. Trump to implode or collapse of his own internal contradictions.  (Although such a terminal breakdown at times appears not impossible.)  We merely need to continue the pressure for the next four years.

Four more years.  We must hope that the Democrats then select a more popular nominee in 2020 than they did last year, and that the American people will be so fed up with the oddities and incompetence of the present administration that they will overwhelmingly remove Trump from power.