A Radical Abdication

America Is the Enemy of European Liberal Democracy

Exponentially worse than it was then—and it was bad.

I want to highlight a subject that got pushed out of the headlines, because the news cycle is almost impossible to keep up with these days. On December 4th, 2025, the Trump regime unveiled its National Security Strategy. The NSS is an official document presented to Congress that articulates the administration’s view of U.S. national security interests, including global threats, foreign policy priorities, and national security objectives. It turns out the Trump regime’s strategy is a travesty that alienates our allies, embraces authoritarian leaders around the world, and threatens the Western liberal democratic order.

None of this should surprise us. Donald and those in his orbit, including JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and every single congressional Republican, have shown themselves willing to turn the United States of America into an autocratic fascist regime in which white nationalism is the order of the day. But the implications are vast and far-reaching—not just a re-configuring of the post-World War II order, but a complete American withdrawal from it.

In her piece for The Atlantic “The Longest Suicide Note in American History,” Anne Applebaum writes that by withdrawing from Biden-era agreements “to jointly expose malicious and deceptive online campaigns originating in Russia, China, or Iran,” the United States was, in effect

declaring that it would no longer oppose Russian influence campaigns, Chinese manipulation of local politics, or Iranian extremist recruitment drives. Nor would the American government use any resources to help anyone else do so either.

This “absolute refusal to acknowledge the existence of enemies or to name any countries that might wish America ill,” as Applebaum puts it, will leave us rudderless and woefully unprepared when and if our real enemies, which do exist whether the Trump regime acknowledges them or not, choose to attack us.

In one sentence, the NSS lays bare what James Rubin, former head of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, refers to as this country’s “unilateral act of disarmament:”

We seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change.

There is one exception to “the nations of the world” referenced here and that is one of the most troubling aspects of the NSS: the Trump regime’s perspective on the European Union, and its harsh criticism of our longtime ally. The enemy, as they would have it, is European liberal democracy.

Donald, from the perch of his imperial presidency—thanks to the corrupt illegitimate super majority of the Supreme Court—cares nothing for democratic values. So, therefore, with the Trump regime in charge of everything, neither does America. It is a terrible time for this country to abandon its role as leader and champion of global democracy; it is a terrible time for there to be such a leadership void during this crucial period in which autocracy is on the rise and democracy is on its back foot.

The NSS also suggests that the United States will not support NATO membership for Ukraine. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, commented on the policy to Russia’s state news agency Tass. He said, quote:

The adjustments we’re seeing... are largely consistent with our vision. We consider this a positive step.

Yes, you could almost say lockstep.

Here in the United States, nonpartisan national security experts are sounding the alarm about this bizarre and dangerous abdication. On CNN, General Wesley Clark, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander said:

[the document] indicates we can’t afford it, but at the same time, the document is saying, we’re such a great vibrant nation. We’re so great. So why can’t we afford this? And we’re sacrificing 80 years of U.S. leadership, the rules-based international order, which has served us so well, and we’re falling back into this sort of hemispheric, hands up protective status. . . . We gave $20 billion to Argentina, but we can’t afford to help Ukraine? A nation that’s fighting for the very values that have made America great.

That’s the conundrum of the Trump regime, on the one hand, we’re “the hottest” country on the planet and they claim we’re raking in trillions of dollars because of Donald’s tariffs; on the other hand, we can no longer afford to be a leader in the world. Neither of those things is true. The government dispenses money to those things it (or Donald) considers important ($20 billion to help prop up his corrupt right-wing ally in Argentina; $400 million for his benighted ballroom); but withholds it from anything the inner circle does not value ($35 billion dollars to USAID; money and weaponry to support Ukraine).

This is what happens when you give power to a man who views everything as a zero-sum game.

Perhaps the most significant tell in the NSS is the description of a Europe that is on the brink of “civilizational erasure,” a phrase that Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, says is “to the right of the extreme right.”

That is because the authors of this simultaneously sophomoric and consequential document are talking about whiteness. Reactionary white people in power know and fear that, in the not-too-distant future, they will no longer be in the majority. Both here and overseas, they have found one expedient to making other white people care about this: Weaponize immigration and demonize immigrants.

We in this country are going down a very dark road. Hopefully there will be an opportunity for us next year and in 2028 to put the brakes on or at least slow down this degradation; to give ourselves one more chance at becoming the kind of multicultural, multiracial democracy in which all of us are truly equal. I still believe we have the potential to be that country.

By aligning itself with the worst, most extreme right-wing organizations in Europe, however, the Trump regime is setting something else in motion, and it is something they may not be able to control. It is certainly something we American voters will have no control over. We can get rid of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans and the Trump regime. We cannot un-ring the bell that has been rung by the Trump regime in Europe and elsewhere. This is yet another massive misstep on Donald’s part, yet another potentially grave miscalculation that may be something we as a country will not be able to recover from.