'Failure of imagination': George Will explains why Trump may not 'understand' his own rhetoric

In his speeches, President Donald Trump has, at times, described himself as an aggressive defender of "The West." But many Never Trump conservatives — including The Bulwark's Bill Kristol, the Washington Post's Max Boot, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and attorney George Conway — consider him sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin and hostile to the interests of western democracy. And Trump's attacks on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are a major source of irritation to Never Trumpers.

Another prominent Never Trump conservative is veteran Washington Post columnist George Will.

In his July 23 column, Will examines Trump's use of "The West" as a rhetorical device but wonders if Trump even understands his own rhetoric.

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"The West urgently needs a definition of 'the West,'" Will argues. "Without this, it cannot understand itself, or current and future challenges…. Putin understands the West and despises it for reasons rooted in a comprehensively anti-western mentality."

Will continues, "He rejects the Enlightenment legacy of individualism and this Raymond Aron ideal: 'The true 'westerner' is the man who accepts nothing unreservedly in our civilization except the liberty it allows him to criticize it, and the chance it offers to improve it.' Putin embraces a thorough inversion of this: an immersive ethno-religious doctrine of group identity that must exist in irrepressible conflict with the West."

The conservative columnist notes that Georgios Varouxakis of Queen Mary University of London said that philosophically, Trump is "the first non-western president of the United States."

"Donald Trump's frustration with Putin's refusal to split differences like a rational real estate broker flows from Trump's failure of imagination," Will writes. "Trump’s incomprehension of Putin, his inability to understand Putin as Putin understands himself, is a failure to recognize the reality of deep-rooted, durable civilizational conflicts…. Speaking in Poland…. on July 6, 2017, Trump used the phrase 'the West' 10 times. He said Poland's historical experience is a reminder that 'the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means, but also, on the will of its people to prevail."

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Will adds, "So, Trump said, 'The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.' What remains questionable is whether he meant the words he read."

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George Will's full Washington Post article is available at this link (subscription required).