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Trump is winning the race to the bottom
China, meanwhile, has demonstrated intellectual and innovative vitality.
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A normal country would be strengthening friendships with all nations not named China, but the United States is burning bridges in all directions, says the writer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
David Brooks
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Confidence. Some people have more of it and some people have less. Confident people have what psychologists call a strong internal locus of control. They believe they have the resources to control their own destiny. They have a bias towards action. They venture into the future.
When it comes to confidence, some nations have it and some don’t. Some nations once had it but then lost it. Last week on his blog, “Marginal Revolution”, George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok asked us to compare America’s behaviour during Cold War I (against the Soviet Union) with America’s behaviour during Cold War II (against China). I look at that difference and I see a stark contrast – between a nation back in the 1950s that possessed an assumed self-confidence versus a nation today that is even more powerful but has had its easy self-confidence stripped away.
