For the past year or so I've been trying to get a handle on what exactly upsets me so much about President Trump. I’m angry about his incessant name-calling and the way he constantly makes self-serving statements with no regard for the truth. Then anything he doesn’t agree with he labels "fake news."
But is it just his arrogant, self-aggrandizing style that upsets me? No, former Ambassador to Panama and longtime diplomat John Feeley, who recently resigned from his post, nailed it when he wrote in the Washington Post, "My values were not his values." President Trump’s approach to foreign affairs can be summed up in a single phrase: The strong do what they will and the weak do what they must.
The concept of basic human rights does not enter into his thought process at all. Ethics, loyalty and social justice are just pawns in his deal-making game. It’s easier for him to make deals with dictatorships than with democracies because the democratic process is so messy!
So it is that simple, Trump’s values are not my values. The longer he is in office, the more damage he will do to our democracy and the image of our country in the world community.
