The first few weeks of the New Year have demonstrated that 2026—the “semi-quincentennial” of our nation’s founding—represents what Time columnist Ian Bremmer calls a “turning point in history.”
If that sounds ominous, that’s because it is. My gut is feeling the same dismay I felt the year I turned 16, 1968: Our nation was torn apart by the assassinations of both MLK and Robert F. Kennedy, race riots disrupted our cities, LBJ’s presidency ended, and we elected a new president.
In 1968, Richard Nixon—like Trump in 2024—promised to reverse the belligerent course of American foreign policy. He assured voters that his “secret plan” would achieve “peace with honor,” ending the Vietnam War.
The 1968 race was one of the closest presidential contests in American history. Nixon pledged to build stronger alliances with other nations, share responsibility for security and peacekeeping, and bring the troops home.
Five years later, threatened with impeachment over the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned the presidency—but not before withdrawing American forces from Vietnam and achieving a diplomatic breakthrough with Communist China, which advanced international peace and world trade.
It’s been a full half-century since those turbulent years. Crippled by “Vietnam Syndrome,” our nation seemed unable to stabilize. For decades, we struggled with a hangover from the “realpolitik” of Nixon’s chief foreign policy advisor, Henry Kissinger. His narrow-minded view of diplomacy was based solely on power dynamics.
Yet, somehow, the underlying principles of our nation’s independent foreign policy survived, even though it’s now on life support. We’re still a member of the UN—though our role is much diminished. We still have a few career diplomats who haven’t yet been purged by Trump’s minions. We no longer have USAID, but we still have a trained workforce ready to save lives throughout the world.
But our approach to other nations seems to be an ignominious “f— you.” Trump’s bombastic insults have exceeded all bounds with his repeated insistence that the U.S. must acquire Greenland even if it requires an invasion of this semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.
Most European nations are reeling at the prospect of such an invasion. As they rush to send units of their own armed forces to reinforce Greenland’s defense, Trump is threatening unilateral tariffs of up to 25 percent against these nations. So now we’re threatened with not just an accelerated trade war with our closest economic partners, but an actual war against our closest military allies.
Is it any surprise that the hottest-selling item of apparel in European fashion is a new model of the “MAGA” hat—this one reading “Make America Go Away”?
Trump’s return to a “might makes right” foreign policy is dangerous, destabilizing, and at odds with the basic principles that have guided our nation for 250 years: The purpose of our revolution was to escape the bonds of imperialism and establish free trade based on mutual respect and mutual interests to advance the “unalienable rights” of humanity.
For centuries, and especially since World War II, Americans have stood for freedom and self-determination among nations, for respect of the sovereignty of other nations, for a strong military used only in the interests of those principles. With some exceptions, we’ve strived to be a responsible leader of free nations joined in partnership.
What is happening in the White House now is a shock to the conscience of almost every other national leader throughout the world.
Our nation may seem the strongest: We possess the most powerful military and the strongest economy on the planet. We derive our strength, however, from our national motto—“e pluribus unum,” “Out of many, one.” Throughout most of our history, the Civil War being a major exception, we’ve forged our unity as a nation from our shared commitment to the ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality.
And that unity has emerged because of the welcome we’ve given to immigrants, just as the promise engraved in New York’s harbor offers a new beginning to the huddled masses.
What do we have to offer to those immigrants today? The middle finger displayed by our president in Detroit. We have clearly lost all national pride as this profane president seeks to appeal only to the diminishing pool of MAGA Republicans who sustain him.
There is hope, however; there must always be hope. My hope lies in the leadership of new Democratic leaders like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, whose inaugural address last week gave us this example:
“Today, we’re hearing the call to connect more deeply to our American Experiment—to understand our shared history, not as a single point in time, but as a lesson for how we create our more prosperous future. And so I ask—what will you do to help us author this next chapter?”
What will this community do to author our next chapter?
For one example of a local leader whom I knew and admired from the moment I first arrived here in SLO, consider Ethel Cooley. As dean of students at SLO High School, Ethel motivated thousands of young people (including me) to be “authors of our own destiny.” ∆
John Ashbaugh writes from SLO. Respond by emailing a letter for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Jan 22-29, 2026.
At this point, it really doesn’t matter which party is in office, our 40 trillion dollars in national debt is driving policy. There’s no way to rescue America. They are printing money and can’t raise interest rates. Our banks are on the verge of collapse. Our national budget deficit is covered with borrowed money and foreign central banks are buying gold now instead of Treasuries, and can anyone blame them. None of our corporations are profitable and basically rely on bailouts, subsidies, and government contracts. Corporations don’t pay taxes, we manufacture and export nothing. I would encourage all Americans to prepare for something worse than the Great Depression. Boomers extracted 15 trillion in benefits than they ever paid in taxes, leaving the rest of us the bill. I have given up the illusion that work matters and that we have a future other than being slaves to our national creditors. The dollar is dying, gold is exploding.
For any liberal out there that thinks all we need is a Democrat in office, I’d like to remind them that even FDR was a fascist. He rounded up Japanese Americans and put them in American concentration camps and oversaw their life’s work getting stolen from them. LBJ oversaw the horrors in Vietnam.
I wanted to give a little more of a “shout-out” to Ethel Cooley. I was privileged to know this remarkable woman who served in many community organizations, including the Sierra Club, where I was Santa Lucia Chapter Chair for two years in the early 1980s. She also served as President of the Historical Society, the League of Women Voters, AAUW, and similar groups. You can learn more about this awesome leader by visiting the History Center of San Luis Obispo where a new exhibit focuses on Ethel’s life and work – call 805/543-0638 or visit their website at http://www.historycenterslo.org.