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After Donald Trump spat in the faces of our longest closest allies at the G-7 summit over the weekend, a sage senior White House official summed up Trump's troglodyte diplomacy as, "We're America, bitch."
Another senior White House official didn't think that was quite right. That super genius “rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” writes The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. As Goldberg observed:
“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
But let's face it, the only observer who really matters in this global inkblot test is Russian President Vladimir Putin, and shattering western alliances until they're beyond repair is EXACTLY what Putin wants. As TPM's Josh Marshall wrote Friday, even before Trump's pitiful ego inspired his epic meltdown on the world stage:
If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia’s primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there’s really nothing more remotely realistic [Trump] could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done.
Anyway you look at it, that's not "We're America, Bitch." That's "We're Russia's bitch!" Goldberg, who was querying senior White House officials on “the Trump doctrine” was asking the wrong question. “What’s the Putin doctrine?” is the measure we should be applying.