If Europe's elites think Trump's defence of Western liberty is 'racist, they'd have hated Churchill

National Post, 12 July 2017

Trump delivered a powerful argument that Western civilization — rooted in ideas about God, the person and liberty — depends upon more than force of arms or material goods to survive

President Donald Trump’s improbable speech in Poland last week — and the reaction to it — may be a signal moment in his presidency, not unlike the speech Barack Obama gave in Cairo in 2009.

Obama went to Cairo in the early months of his presidency to deliver an “address to the Muslim world.” It was a grand vision and values speech, the sort that presidents give to provide a framework in which to situate their policies. Obama proposed that a West animated by secular liberalism had no quarrel with the world of Islam. There was no clash of civilizations, in large part because there was no distinctive civilization on behalf of which Obama purported to speak.

Obama’s outreach to the Islamic world was accorded thunderous laudations at home. Overseas the impact was limited. Upon leaving office Obama faced an Islamic world more riven by extremism than before, from Syria to Qatar, from Nigeria to ISIL.

Now Trump, at about the same stage in his presidency, comes to this country, on the front line of the battle for freedom for more than two hundred years, and gives his own vision and values take on the state of the world. It was improbable, as Trump lacks credibility on lived values. Yet he delivered a powerful argument that Western civilization — rooted in certain ideas about God, the human person and liberty — depends upon more than force of arms or a surfeit of material goods to survive.

Newman House ManagerJuly 12, 2017National Post, Poland, United States, Culture, Donald Trump