The folly of hubris

By Bill Kilpatrick

My daughter asked me the other day if there was going to be war and what we would do if it came. Words that I have uttered to myself many times in the last while, but to hear it from her was somehow more impactful and brought the reality of what is happening right into my kitchen and into my family. I've spent enough time reading and writing about war to know that there is no glory in it. I've spoken to enough veterans who have had their souls destroyed by the inhumanity that war creates to know that it is not something to be engaged in lightly. I know enough about war to know that most of those people on Fox News and in the White House espousing “the law of the jungle” and the “iron laws” of might makes right have never even experienced a war, never watched a child killed, or witnessed hideous wounds, yet feel they can encourage war and violence, mostly because they know that they will not be the ones doing the fighting.

America is suffering from what all empires suffer from: hubris or as the Historian Ian Kershaw put it “…that overweening arrogance which courts disaster.” The Roman empire did and it destroyed them. The British empire did and it destroyed them. The Germans did and they just about destroyed the world. And now the world will, once again, have to suffer the ever-growing hubris of a disintegrating empire. We all know where this is leading.

The worst part about hubris is that those who suffer from it are blinded by it, intoxicated by it, and trapped by it. They cannot fathom things any other way, honestly when a person creates a hat that proclaims that they were “right about everything,” is this not the very epitome of hubris?

But Trump's hubris, like his rise to power, was not just his doing. Those around him have fed his hubris with their prostrations, ego stroking, and ass-kissing. The Supreme Court has fed it by saying that he cannot be held responsible for his actions. The United States army feeds the commander and chief's ego with their $1.25 trillion budget giving him an inflated sense of invulnerability and superiority. Now Trump is feeding the hubris of those federal troops who are being given immunity from prosecution in Minneapolis, and we are seeing things escalate as they are continually acting with more brutality and cruel impunity. He promises all those around him that they are safe from prosecution, so is it any wonder why they act as they do? They believe that they can say and do anything they want and no one will stop them. Immunity from behavioural consequences tends to not bring the best out in humanity.

At the end of the day Trump is just another bully; but make no mistake, he is an immensely powerful bully that has been given massive economic and military resources. And like any bully, he abuses his power to feed his insecurities. When we consider the awesome military and economic power of the United States, it's intimidating and scary, which is why he keeps making threats; yet consider when the last time the United States actually won a war. Not Afghanistan, not Iraq, not Vietnam, not the Bay of Pigs, not the war in Somalia, and that's just a small list of post Second World War battles that, despite having overwhelming military dominance in all those conflicts, they could not bring home a W. Yet, Trump throws his weight around like the U.S. military is undefeatable, a claim equal to that of Trump being a successful businessman.

While there is no doubt that he can inflict massive economic hardships on Canadians, we cannot and should not bow down to his hubristic demands, insatiable desires, or military threats. I got into a Facebook argument with a MAGA supporter who said that we did not stand a chance against the American military, then I reminded him of all of the American military losses, and the fact that there is no way they could ever occupy our country as it is too vast. They would end up on a long, protracted, and bloody guerrilla war that they would lose. He did not have a response, because he knows it to be true. To invade Canada would be pure folly, but hubris does not follow logic and reason.

Like another world leader who was also overcome by hubris and believed that he was being led by “providence,” Trump's hubris will lead to nemesis and disaster for America. Kershaw pointed out that in at the end of 1936, Hitler's “mastery over all other power-groups within the regime was by now well-nigh complete, his position unassailable, his popularity immense. Few at this point has the foresight to realize that the path laid out by providence led into the abyss.” We have the benefit of hindsight that they did not have.

Trump seems to be at a similar point in his presidency, though his popularity is fading, and more and more Republicans are standing up to him, unlike in Germany. The question now it seems is will Trump's hubris lead to civil war or world war? Neither of which will have the outcome that he thinks it will. Canada must be ready for either.