Trump, Papa Doc, And China - Rethinking Extrajudicial Governance

The regime of Papa Doc Duvalier, President-for-Life of Haiti was a stable, secure, and confident one.  Under the iron hand of the President and his secret police, the Tonton Macoute, there was no civil disobedience, no crime, and no unrest. Ordinary Haitians could go about their business without fear of gangs, thugs, or terror. 

 

Foreigners found Haiti the ideal spot for a warm, Caribbean vacation.  The beaches were unspoiled, simple, and delightful; the nightclubs in Port-au-Prince unbeatable for their music and beautiful women, French restaurants situated in the cool uplands of Petionville served the finest European cuisine, and anyone could walk the streets of the capital without fear. 

'Dictatorship has its merits', said a American consultant who visited the island on many occasions, negotiating and overseeing the generous grants given by his government to the regime because it was friendly to Western governments, steadfastly anti-communist, and the one secure spot in a Caribbean region known for political unrest and socialist interests. 

The American  consultant lived well in Haiti.  He stayed at the Olaffson, the Victorian gingerbread hotel made famous by Graham Greene in his novel, The Comedians, ate at the equally famous Cote Cour, Cote Jardin in the Kenscoff hills, and slept with Marionette Fougere, a beautiful Haitian woman from Petit Goave.  

 

Asked by colleagues back home whether he found his sybaritic lifestyle problematic, existing as it did amidst the abject poverty of the Haitian people, he demurred, suggesting that Duvalier was 'a given'.  His governance was a fact, his regime was in America's interest, and there was neither guilt nor shame in enjoying the benefits of a peaceful, orderly society. 

China raised itself from a Third World, poor, badly run, and desperate nation of hundreds of millions to the world's number one power in a scant thirty years.  China's presidents uniformly embraced the notion that peace and prosperity were the country's civil rights, not the fissiparous expressions of individual liberty.  The goal was to raise all out of poverty and to regain the international power and respect of former dynasties, not to satisfy individual concerns. 

Former Philippine President Duterte operated under the same principle - the peace, security, and happiness of the Filipino people was worth the harsh, extrajudicial methods needed to eliminate the Islamic terrorism in the south, and to rid Manila of crime.  

 

President Bukele of El Salvador has turned this country from one of the most violent and crime-ridden in the hemisphere to the safest.  Through judicial and extrajudicial means, he has rounded up and incarcerated thousands of MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha gang members and vowed to hold them there indefinitely.  The people of El Salvador applauded, and Bukele has become one of the regions most influential leaders. 

Naysayers object.  Democracy matters, they say, and regimes which disregard the principles of a liberal civil society will pay the price.  Lawlessness, regardless of the outcome, is impermissible.  The means are just as important as the ends; and moreover, one can see the results of civil oppression in the fall of the Soviet Union, the current mayhem in Iran, and the starvation and penury of North Korea. 

Certainly, and the history of Sevak, Stasi, and the KGB bears witness to the dangers of government overreach; but does that ipso facto deny any consideration of strong, extrajudicial authority as a means of providing well-being and security for the many? 

 

'Democracy is the worst form of governance', said Winston Churchill, 'except for all the rest', and harsh critics of China, Duterte, and Bukele say that this universal law is being broken and disregarded. 

Yet, who says that Churchill was a divine prophet with exclusive insights into the future of world order? Is China not an example of a nation which has successfully combined Communist political hegemony with entrepreneurial capitalism? Isn't Bukele right when he says that the people's right to a safe, peaceful existence trumps individual liberty any day?

Donald Trump has observed all this with equanimity and interest.  He inherited a chaotic, minimally ruled, divided, divisive nation where polity, probity, and respect for civil order had deteriorated under the previous administration.  Crime, civil unrest, and the bullying demands for recognition, restitution, and reparations had become common.  The original vision of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams had disappeared, and the country resembled more a Third World nation than 'The Shining City on a Hill'. 

If crime is destroying the social fabric of America's cities and encouraged by progressive policies of 'Defund the Police', then unusual means are necessary to return them to order and civility.  Trump's willingness to deploy federal agents - ICE, the National Guard, and the US military - and challenging received wisdom about the right of presidents to do so, is an indication of his overall comprehensive originalist vision.  The ends justify the means - the same principle applied universally throughout history with both generous and disastrous outcomes. 

Trump is a revolutionary president exactly because he is unafraid to challenge received wisdom and stretch the boundaries between civil and government authority.  He expects opposition, protest, and animus; but that has always been par for the course.  Never in his life has he shied away from confrontation and risk. 

He is not only on the cusp of extrajudicial action in his sweep of illegal aliens, but he is challenging both American and international law in his unilateral strikes against Iran and now Venezuela.  His Machiavellian international politics match those of America's arch-adversaries, Russia and China.  Nationalism and national self-interest are the new rules of the game - or actually the old rules of history, long rejected by America's exceptionalist politicians, but now back in vogue. 

China's President Xi laughed at America's focus on race, gender, and ethnicity; diversity, inclusivity, and equity while building his own superpower - a nation which owns America's debt and thus is in complete control of it; which is in the process of owning and controlling vast resources of rare earths essential for Artificial Intelligence, and their hardware; and spreading its economic, political, and financial influence worldwide. 

 

Putin parodied Joe Biden in private and knew that this senile old man, trapped in fantastical progressive politics, was no threat to Russia.  Now that Trump has joined the Machiavelli Club, resolution - in Russia's favor - of the Ukraine war is a certainty.  America will get access to Ukraine's rare earths and vast agricultural resources, Russia will regain what it considers its historically obligated territories, and Zelensky will retire to Switzerland with his untold wealth, a by-product of unaccountable economic and financial support of the United States and Europe. 

So, do not expect Trump's aggressive, determined national and international policies to be modified, toned down, pulled back, or apologized for.  On the contrary, this President has never backed down or apologized and never will.  Authoritarian? No Kings? Fascist?  Hardly, just a chief executive unafraid to use every armament in his war chest to realize his goals. 

It is only the timid, the fearful, and the hidebound, inflexible, worriers who refuse to look beyond their hatred of the President and to see the larger issues of governance raised by him.  No longer can any American judge this president by the performance of presidents past.  He is unique, revolutionary, unsettling, challenging, and here to stay.