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Right and Left React to Trump’s Speech at the U.N. Right and Left React to Trump’s Speech at the U.N.
(about 9 hours later)
The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.
Has this series exposed you to new ideas? Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com.Has this series exposed you to new ideas? Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com.
For an archive of all the Partisan Writing Roundups, check out Our Picks.For an archive of all the Partisan Writing Roundups, check out Our Picks.
Sohrab Ahmari in Commentary:Sohrab Ahmari in Commentary:
Establishment Republicans should rejoice at the president’s speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, writes Mr. Ahmari, and “give credit where it is due.” According to him, the address marks a “return to the G.O.P.’s postwar foreign-policy traditions” and a shedding of the “pinched, narrow nationalism” of hyper-nationalists like the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen or Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist. Read more »Establishment Republicans should rejoice at the president’s speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, writes Mr. Ahmari, and “give credit where it is due.” According to him, the address marks a “return to the G.O.P.’s postwar foreign-policy traditions” and a shedding of the “pinched, narrow nationalism” of hyper-nationalists like the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen or Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist. Read more »
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Daniel Larison in The American Conservative:Daniel Larison in The American Conservative:
Articulating the views of the isolationist wing of conservatives, Mr. Larison criticizes Mr. Trump’s belligerent tone. He compares the president’s confrontational talk with President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” remarks, and worries that Mr. Trump’s speech will commit the United States to more “avoidable wars.” This, according to Mr. Larison, has nothing to do with “putting American interests first.” Read more »Articulating the views of the isolationist wing of conservatives, Mr. Larison criticizes Mr. Trump’s belligerent tone. He compares the president’s confrontational talk with President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” remarks, and worries that Mr. Trump’s speech will commit the United States to more “avoidable wars.” This, according to Mr. Larison, has nothing to do with “putting American interests first.” Read more »
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Rich Lowry in National Review:Rich Lowry in National Review:
While some of the president’s more colorful language was sure to turn heads at the General Assembly — “we’ve never heard such direct, undiplomatic language from a U.S. president at Turtle Bay” — Mr. Lowry is not unhappy with Mr. Trump’s address. “All things considered and given the alternatives, it was a fine speech,” he writes, though he would have liked the president to emphasize “how important a vision of liberal democracy was to the United States.” Read more »While some of the president’s more colorful language was sure to turn heads at the General Assembly — “we’ve never heard such direct, undiplomatic language from a U.S. president at Turtle Bay” — Mr. Lowry is not unhappy with Mr. Trump’s address. “All things considered and given the alternatives, it was a fine speech,” he writes, though he would have liked the president to emphasize “how important a vision of liberal democracy was to the United States.” Read more »
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Judith Miller in Fox News:
“The president’s maiden speech to the UN was really two speeches.”
Ms. Miller saw two sides to President Trump’s speech on Tuesday. It was both a “conventional endorsement of the” United Nations and “vintage Trump,” complete with the familiar “America First” message. It was “his version of truth-to-power,” though, at the same time, “long on contradictions and short on proposals for solving the threats he denounced.”.” Read more »
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Fred Kaplan in Slate:Fred Kaplan in Slate:
Mr. Kaplan appraises Mr. Trump’s speech as perhaps the “most hostile, dangerous and intellectually confused” address by an American president to an international audience. According to Mr. Kaplan, the president was particularly contradictory in his remarks on sovereignty, arguing that “he invoked sovereignty when it suited his purposes — and proposed violating sovereignty, without a thought, when it didn’t.” Read more »Mr. Kaplan appraises Mr. Trump’s speech as perhaps the “most hostile, dangerous and intellectually confused” address by an American president to an international audience. According to Mr. Kaplan, the president was particularly contradictory in his remarks on sovereignty, arguing that “he invoked sovereignty when it suited his purposes — and proposed violating sovereignty, without a thought, when it didn’t.” Read more »
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Spencer Ackerman in The Daily Beast:Spencer Ackerman in The Daily Beast:
Not only was this speech a “worthy successor” to the president’s inaugural address — the “American carnage” speech — but it also resembles the United Nations address that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia gave to the international body in 2015. And though Mr. Trump briefly mentioned Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, his speech signals a potential opening to a “resurgent, aggressive Russia.” Read more »Not only was this speech a “worthy successor” to the president’s inaugural address — the “American carnage” speech — but it also resembles the United Nations address that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia gave to the international body in 2015. And though Mr. Trump briefly mentioned Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, his speech signals a potential opening to a “resurgent, aggressive Russia.” Read more »
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Paul Waldman in The Washington Post:Paul Waldman in The Washington Post:
Mr. Waldman asks his readers to put themselves in the place of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Why would any of Mr. Trump’s threats — and hints that he was willing to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal — sway Mr. Kim to give up his own nuclear weapons? Read more »Mr. Waldman asks his readers to put themselves in the place of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. Why would any of Mr. Trump’s threats — and hints that he was willing to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal — sway Mr. Kim to give up his own nuclear weapons? Read more »
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Heather Digby Parton in Salon:
“One might even call this speech ‘Global Carnage.’Trump described a Hobbesian world in which decent countries everywhere are under assault from ‘small regimes’ trying to undermine their sovereignty and destroy their ways of life.”
Ms. Parton suggests an alternate title for the president’s speech: “Global Carnage.” In her assessment, Mr. Trump “careened wildly from some warped form of principled realism to threats of mass annihilation and back again.” She also notes that for all his talk about sovereignty, Mr. Trump has notabley ignored a particular instance of international interference: suspected Russian meddling in the U.S. election. “As long as foreign actors interfere on his personal behalf he has no problem with it,” she writes. Read more »
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Eli Lake in Bloomberg:Eli Lake in Bloomberg:
In many ways, writes Mr. Lake, Mr. Trump’s speech echoed a conventional, neoconservative worldview, though it stopped just short of the Bush doctrine to “seek democratic transformation for friend and foe alike.” For Mr. Lake, this foreign policy turn is a welcome one: “Let’s hope Trump sticks with this new approach.” Read more »In many ways, writes Mr. Lake, Mr. Trump’s speech echoed a conventional, neoconservative worldview, though it stopped just short of the Bush doctrine to “seek democratic transformation for friend and foe alike.” For Mr. Lake, this foreign policy turn is a welcome one: “Let’s hope Trump sticks with this new approach.” Read more »
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Gayle Tzemach Lemmon in CNN:
“A bilateral man addressed a multilateral world. And he left knowing neither is likely to change.”
Ms. Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, describes the style of Mr. Trump’s address as “Teleprompter Donald Trump” meets “domestic speech-giving Donald Trump.” The result? “Tough talk” that should have surprised no one. Read more »
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Have thoughts about this collection? Email feedback to ourpicks@nytimes.com.Have thoughts about this collection? Email feedback to ourpicks@nytimes.com.