Most
of this essay appeared on my science blog, but I have added some religious
thoughts at the end that are unique to this blog.
It
may not seem like the most important news of recent times, but I believe that Trump’s
recent declaration that countries with dark people are “shithole nations” marks
a major shift in the relationship of the United States with the rest of the
world—not just with the countries that Trump insulted, but also with our
European allies. As of this writing, Trump has refused to apologize for his
words. (He admits insulting other countries, and only denies using the word
shit.) He never apologizes for anything. He just blames Hillary for everything
he says.
No
longer does the United States, embodied now in the figure of Trump, oppose only
its enemies such as North Korea or its economic rivals such as China. Trump,
who insists that he is a “very stable genius,” has made it clear that he hates
every country that is not pure white. Clearly, the United States no longer
wants other countries as friends. We Americans want them to either hate us or
to fear us or both.
It
is not just Trump. The entire Republican Party, even if not completely sharing
Trump’s sentiments, has supported him. America elected him, and knew what kind
of person he was when doing so.
The
majority non-white countries of the world have been pushed away from the table
of friendship with America. Naturally, they will turn to one another for cooperation.
And the majority-white European countries such as France and Germany must be
perfectly ready to form coalitions with these countries. Perhaps even more
importantly, when the United States insults most of the world, the Russians and
Chinese will say, “Come and join with us, make special trade arrangements with
us, at least we will not insult you.”
I
do not mean the other countries of the world will become military enemies of
America. But, starting now, and increasingly with time, they will consult with each other but only negotiate with the United States. It is
quite clear to them that there is no point in talking with America except from
a position of their own solidarity and power. We do not need to be at war with
the other countries of the world in order to be overpowered by them.
I
just finished reading Graham Greene’s classic novel The Human Factor, about a British double-agent who defects to the
Soviet Union. But this man was not a communist. He thought communism was evil. Why,
then, did he do it? He did it because, when he was a representative of the
British government in South Africa, he fell in love with an African woman. In
South Africa, love between blacks and whites was illegal. He had to escape from
South Africa in order to marry the woman. The only people who were willing to
help him escape were the communists, and in gratitude to them for this help—not because he agreed with their
politics—he became a double agent. (Leave it to Graham Greene to make a spy
novel into an empathetic exploration of the human spirit.)
Graham
Greene was a convert to Catholicism. He did not seem very enthusiastic about the
details of doctrine, but he considered the internal religious struggle between
good and evil to be fundamental to the human experience. That pretty much
summarizes all of his novels. Were he alive today he might see American
arrogance as a fundamental evil that is now beginning to change the course of
world history, much greater than the apartheid that Greene hated so much but
that was confined to South Africa.
In
a similar fashion, the countries that will begin to form an alliance against
America—whether a few or many or all other countries—do not necessarily disagree
with democracy nor do they necessarily agree with Russia or China. They will do
it primarily because America hates them.
I
imagine a future in which the other countries of the world form a new version
of the United Nations, one in which America is not invited to participate. As I
have so often said in this evolution blog, human altruism has been the greatest
achievement of evolution. It will continue into the future, but the form in
which it continues may be as mutual aid among countries who have had their fill
of American hatred and arrogance.
And
I think that future historians will look back and see that this shift started
to take organized form in early 2018. As a religious person, though of no
specific doctrine, I see that America has now largely become a force of evil in
the world. I believe America has pushed God out into the dark shithole realms
that we consider the rest of the world to be.
