Our president for better or worse, Donald Trump, was a guest of France last weekend. He was there to represent the American people in events marking the end of World War 1 a hundred years ago.
On Saturday, he missed a planned commemoration at an American war cemetery outside Paris, which his staff blamed on bad weather grounding his helicopter, although other high-ranking U.S. dignitaries made it to the event (but let it be noted that he kept a speaking engagement at American war another cemetery on Sunday, although by then it was too late to prevent a PR disaster).
But things only got worse. Trump was barely back home when he unloaded on his French hosts via Twitter, retaliating for remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron critical of “nationalism.” Macron didn’t refer to Trump, and given France’s long history of being both a perpetrator and victim of nationalistic politics, his remarks could have been interpreted in a variety of ways. Trump took it personally, although he didn’t have to. He could have ignored it, or looked the other way.
But that’s not Trump’s way. The French, he taunted on Tuesday, were “starting to learn German in Paris” until “the U.S. came along” to the rescue. He also complained about French duties on American wine, mocked France’s unemployment rate and Macron’s approval rating, and bleated “MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!”
It so happened that on Tuesday the French nation was observing the somber anniversary of a 2015 terrorist attack that took 130 lives. It’s possible Trump didn’t know this, because he doesn’t read newspapers. In any case, the timing of his outbursts didn’t set well. France’s government spokesman, after alluding to the terrorist attack, said, “I’ll reply in English: Common decency would have been appropriate.”
Of course, decency is not a Trump trait. He’s no more decent than he is ethical, honest, or truthful. Boorishness fits him like a glove. Well, that’s him. The problem is, he represents us.
There are, of course, backstories and subterranean currents running under these manifestations of official and personal disrespect. Trump wants European nations, including France, to pay more of NATO’s bills. But beyond that, he apparently also expects France to be an American lapdog, which is counter to history. For the last century, the United States have been allies, but not close friends. After World War 2, the French under de Gaulle (who had been a Resistance leader during the war) went their own way, often irritating American leaders. Gaullist France treated America more as a rival than a partner. Eisenhower, distrusting the French, refused to help them acquire nuclear weapons; so the French developed their own independent nuclear capability, and made clear they would exercise independent discretion concerning its use. The French people in general looked down on Americans, whom they regarded as vulgar, racist, and materialistic. To be French, they said, was to be not American.
Americans reciprocated the disdain. They referred to the French as “Frogs,” and denigrated the French army’s fighting record in the world wars. (In fact, the French fought in World War 1 with great bravery and sacrifice, particularly at Verdun, which was an Allied victory. And while they were quickly overrun in World War 2, and many French citizens collaborated with the German occupation, including with the perpetration of the Holocaust, others fought bravely and doggedly in the Resistance throughout the war, and following the Normandy invasion the French people effusively welcomed American troops as liberators.)
France is a different country than America, with different values, culture, and history. They lent support to our fledgling country during the American Revolution, and were our allies throughout the Twentieth Century’s troubles, first against Germany, then against Soviet Communism (even though French politics have long sported a small but noisy communist party). They also were brutal colonizers, especially in Algeria. And in the 19th century, they inflicted Napoleon’s wars of conquest on the rest of Europe, including an exceptionally brutal campaign in Iberia. Even today, they regard Napoleon as a national hero, and his remains repose in Paris in grandeur.
Yet. This is 2018, not the early decades of the 19th century or the postwar decades of the 20th century. Napoleon and de Gaulle are gone (and in any case neither was ever an enemy of the United States). Like families, even nations with close relations experience frictions. Diplomacy performs the important task of smoothing them over. Diplomatic protocol serves the equally critical function of forgetting them when they need to be forgotten. Like forgive and forget in a marriage.
Trump isn’t an expert in marital success. In fact, there’s no aspect of interpersonal relations he’s good at, so we can’t expect much of his amateur diplomacy.
But. He represents us. And anyway, just how difficult is common decency, assuming you weren’t raised in a cave by wolves and were never socialized into human civilized society? Most of us manage it at least adequately.
Why can’t he? Maybe his father smacked him around too much, and his mother not enough.