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Thanks to Donald Trump, North America's tallest mountain, Alaska's Mt. Denali, may soon become Mt. McKinley, renamed for a former president who, according to our present one, "was a natural businessman, and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama." Ah yes, the Panama Canal! Why in the world did we ever let that go? You know McKinley, the president who, in 1898, advocated annexing the Republic of Hawaii as our "manifest destiny." ("We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny.")
Well, it's not too late for a little more manifest destiny, or so our latest president thinks anyway. According to him, it can once again become this nation's "manifest destiny" to expand, expand, expand. You know the list, of course: in addition to the Panama Canal, Greenland ("I don't really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn't allow that to happen because it's for the protection of the free world"); and certainly Canada! ("What I'd like to see -- Canada become our 51st state.") And don't forget Gaza, which recently loomed as another possible all-American future possession for our 45th president. The two million Gazans would be shown the gate (no longer standing, of course) and Donald Trump and crew, as he put it, would become "responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings," and so create "the Riviera of the Middle East."
And while you're at it and thinking about manifest destiny, don't forget Mars. Yes, the Red Planet. When it comes to all-American expansion, this president has no intention of being limited to Earth. As he said in his second inaugural address (thank you Elon Musk and Space X!), "We will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars," and he promised to send American astronauts to plant a flag on Mars (the 52nd state?).
Phew" I'm a little out of breath, so let me stop and turn you over to TomDispatch regular, historian, and retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore, who runs the must-read Bracing Views Substack, to fill you in on America's all too grimly manifest destiny in the twenty-first century. Tom
Greenland! Canada! The Panama Canal! The Gulf of America! Gaza!
Manifest Destiny Gets a Reboot Under President Donald Trump
A few years ago, I came across an old book at an estate sale. Its title caught my eye: "Our New Possessions." Its cover featured the Statue of Liberty against stylized stars and stripes. What were those "new possessions"? The cover made it quite clear: Cuba, Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The subtitle made it even clearer: "A graphic account, descriptive and historical, of the tropic islands of the sea which have fallen under our sway, their cities, peoples, and commerce, natural resources and the opportunities they offer to Americans." What a mouthful! I'm still impressed with the notion that "tropical" peoples falling "under our sway" offered real Americans amazing opportunities, as did our (whoops -- I meant their) lands. Consider that Manifest Destiny at its boldest, imperialism unapologetically being celebrated as a new basis for burgeoning American greatness.
The year that imperial celebration was published -- 1898 -- won't surprise students of U.S. history. America had just won its splendid little imperial war with Spain, an old empire very much in the "decline and fall" stage of a rich, long, and rapacious history. And just then red-blooded Americans like "Rough Rider" Teddy Roosevelt were emerging as the inheritors of the conquistador tradition of an often murderously swashbuckling Spanish Empire.
Of course, freedom-loving Americans were supposed to know better than to follow in the tradition of "old world" imperial exploitation. Nevertheless, cheerleaders and mentors like storyteller Rudyard Kipling were then urging Americans to embrace Europe's civilizing mission, to take up "the white man's burden," to spread enlightenment and civilization to the benighted darker-skinned peoples of the tropics. Yet to cite just one example, U.S. troops dispatched to the Philippines on their "civilizing" mission quickly resorted to widespread murder and torture, methods of "pacification" that might even have made Spanish inquisitors blush. That grim reality wasn't lost on Mark Twain and other critics who spoke out against imperialism, American-style, with its murderous suppression of Filipino "guerrillas" and bottomless hypocrisy about its "civilizing" motives.
After his exposure to "enlightened" all-American empire-building, retired Major General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, would bluntly write in the 1930s of war as a "racket" and insist his long career as a Marine had been spent largely in the service of "gangster" capitalism. Now there was a plain-speaking American hero.
And speaking of plain-speaking, or perhaps plain-boasting, I suggest that we think of Donald Trump as America's retro president from 1898. Isn't it time, America, to reach for our destiny once again? Isn't it time for more tropical (and Arctic) peoples to be put "under our sway"? Greenland! Canada! The Panama Canal! These and other regions of the globe offer Donald Trump's America so many "opportunities." And if we can't occupy an area like the Gulf of Mexico, the least we can do is rebrand it the Gulf of America! A lexigraphic "mission accomplished" moment bought with no casualties, which sure beats the calamitous wars of George W. Bush and Barack Obama in this century!
Now, here's what I appreciate about Trump: the transparent nature of his greed. He doesn't shroud American imperialism in happy talk. He says it just like they did in 1898. It's about resources and profits. As the dedication page to that old book from 1898 put it: "To all Americans who go a-pioneering in our new possessions and to the people who are there before them." Oh, and pay no attention to that "before" caveat. We Americans clearly came first then and, at least to Donald Trump, come first now, and -- yes! -- we come to rule. The world is our possession and our beneficence will certainly serve the peoples who were there before us in Greenland or anywhere else (the "hellhole" of Gaza included), even if we have to torture or kill them in the process of winning their hearts and minds.
It's 1900 Again in America
My point is this: Donald Trump doesn't want to return America to the 1950s, when men were men and women were, as the awful joke then went, "barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen." No, he wants to return this country (and the world) to 1900, when America was unapologetically and nakedly grabbing everything it could. To put it in his brand of "locker room" language, Trump wants to grab Mother Earth by the p*ssy, because when you're rich and powerful, when you're a "star," you can do anything.
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