Tuesday marks the end of the tumultuous first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
If you are not dismayed by something he has done in the past year, you found a way to insulate yourself from the news assaulting our sensibilities.
Many of the decisions made in Washington that roil national life and continue to upend decades of international order seem distant from Connecticut — until they strike here. The damaging examples are growing more frequent.
The administration’s insidious hostility to higher education in general, with heightened animus to foreign students is especially costly for a state that provides a place for advanced learning. In the past year, the University of Bridgeport has seen 700 foreign students leave because of changes in visa programs and heightened uncertainty on when they might be forced to abandon their studies, often in engineering and international business. Foreign students who study here are often introduced to freedom under the rule of law for the first time. That has been an enduring American contribution to much of the world, creating millions of ambassadors of democracy.
Trump says he may punish countries with tariffs if they don’t back the US controlling Greenland
The tariffs that provide Trump with his favorite word will extract a high cost from the state, particularly greater Hartford. Businesses here export billions in sophisticated goods to other countries. We export more to Canada than to any other country. Trump’s belligerence toward our reliable ally has caused it to seek new markets for its goods in China and India. Canadians are avoiding American goods as they adjust to this strange new world. Connecticut has no separate claim on Canadian affections as they reorient their economy away from us.
Trump’s economic and rhetorical bombardment of Canada in the early going reminded us that it sends a lot of electricity into the United States. Nations use the tools they possess to thwart an aggressor. No should be surprised if the vital flow hydropower into New England eventually goes somewhere else.
Electricity has been a peculiar Trump obsession, even for him. Companies that have invested billions, real money, not the fantasy deals he often ballyhoos, in offshore wind turbines that will generate electricity for Connecticut and neighboring states. Trump’s vaguely explained hostility to renewable energy succeeded in uniting Gov. Ned Lamont, Attorney General William Tong, and utilities as they beat back the inexplicable obstacles the Trump administration’s enforcers create to completing the projects and generating electricity.
Judge clears CT wind project to continue. White House calls it ‘scam of the century’
As you will hear Republicans repeat often during this gubernatorial election year, Connecticut residents pay more for electricity than people in nearly any other state. They will be muted in their reactions to Trump’s damaging interventions aimed at making us use more oil, especially that gloppy stuff from his new friends, the brutal Marxist junta that continues to rule Venezuela.
From the American Revolution to this day, Connecticut has been a notable arsenal of freedom. In our 5,544 square miles, we design and manufacture some of the world’s most sophisticated and effective weapons to sell to our allies and, regrettably, also to too many horrific regimes. But mostly they benefit of our fellow democracies.
The world’s most advanced submarines are built in southeastern Connecticut. Electric Boat has more orders than it has ever had in peacetime. It defies a rational explanation that Trump and senior members of his administration would hurl abuse at our European allies, our partners in peace and prosperity for the past 80 years. When they are not denigrating our nation, they are menacing NATO, the most successful military alliance in the long and woeful history of the world.
Europe has awoken to the danger the United States poses to their security. They will spend hundreds of billions on expanding their own defense industries. When the president of the United States cannot bring himself to acknowledge the indisputable fact that Russia invaded Ukraine, no American ally is safe from Trump’s embrace of the murderous dictator.
Last week, France’s Emmanuel Macron tried to prevent any of the $80 billion European nations provided to Ukraine for weapons from being spent on purchasing arms from the United States. And why wouldn’t he? France and its neighbors are home to defense manufacturers that may be able to match or surpass the quality of American arms makers with more money. This is only the beginning of the price attached to the first foolish year. This will cost us, America and Connecticut.
In one of the great speeches of the 20th century, Jeane Kirkpatrick reminded the 1984 Republican National Convention, ” We need friends and allies with whom to share the pleasures and the protection of our civilization.” That’s what Republicans used to believe.
In that speech, Ambassador Kirkpatrick quoted a Democratic president, Harry Truman. “The elements of our strength are many. They include our democratic government, our economic system, our great natural resources. But the basic source of our strength is spiritual. We believe in the dignity of man.” Many days in the last year have brought examples that our leaders no longer do.
On Tuesday, Trump visited a Ford manufacturing plant. A worker on the factory floor called him a “pedophile protector,” a reminder that Trump has failed in diverting the nation’s attention from his strange friendship with monstrous Jeffrey Epstein. Trump replied with a two-word obscenity accompanied by a matching gesture. The factory worker, Thomas “TJ” Sabula, was suspended from his job.
On the same day, Trump appeared at the storied Detroit Economic Club. He used the occasion to ridicule former President Joseph Biden’s speaking style, including some wheezes he attributes to Biden, who is coping with stage four prostate cancer. The audience responded with silence. The audience that saw the exchange between Trump and Sabula did not. People quickly contributed more than $800,000 to two GoFundMe accounts for the suspended Sabula, who responded in a way that the target of his contempt never would. He asked people to stop giving to him and contribute instead to other worthy causes.
Maybe, but only maybe, the frontiers in the drive to coarsen the world and plunge it into misery can be pushed back to the gold-pocked confines of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Reach Kevin F. Rennie at [email protected].