When reading articles that blame America for setting a bad example for other countries, I have taken to looking right away for what I call “the Litella sentence.” Named for Emily Litella, the late Gilda Radner’s recurring character on Saturday Night Live, the sentence I’m looking for is one in which the author essentially disclaims the conceit of her own article, as if to say, “never mind.”
In a New York Times article today on Venezuela, I found our old friend Ms. Litella hiding out in the 14th paragraph.
The headline of the story is “How the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ Reinforces Xi’s Vision of Power in Asia.”
The news analysis tells the reader that the U.S. mission to capture, detain, and put on trial Nicolás Maduro “reinforces a broader logic that ultimately favors President Xi Jinping’s vision of China and its status in Asia: when powerful countries impose their will close to home, others tend to step back.” The warning is stark: “A globe carved into spheres of influence — with the United States dominating the Western Hemisphere and China asserting primacy across the Asia-Pacific — and where might makes right, regardless of shared rules, could benefit Beijing in a number of ways.”
It is not wrong to suggest that there is risk in such an organizing principle of global competition. But would anybody seriously claim that Beijing simply copies the behavior it sees in Washington? Certainly not, Emily Litella jumps in to say: “None of this means Beijing is calibrating its approach to Taiwan based on events in Venezuela. Chinese leaders have long treated the island as a domestic issue to be resolved on their own terms, independent of U.S. actions elsewhere.”
Right. Never mind. Trump isn’t causing Taiwan any extra trouble by going after Maduro, at least so long as there is no U.S. military occupation of Venezuela that would force us to sit on the sidelines in a situation in which we would otherwise have intervened. There might be any number of challenges ahead in Venezuela, but the idea that Maduro’s capture signs Taiwan’s death warrant isn’t one of them.
Moreover, as the article itself then states, “China will not easily give up on Latin America, a region where Beijing has been expanding its economic and political influence for years, buying soybeans and minerals and investing in ports, telecommunications networks and space infrastructure. It has aligned itself with Brazil, Colombia and, of course, Venezuela, in being willing to stand up to Washington’s bullying.”
So there is no new understanding here. No new lines have been drawn. China won’t change its behavior, and it will not expect the U.S. to do so either. We have not just witnessed an FDR-esque carve-up of the world; we’ve just watched a dictator get perp-walked.
So if the article itself admits this, even belatedly, what bothers me so much about this vein of “news analysis”? I think it’s the futile wish that media organizations would follow their own logic to its natural endpoint, and reframe such reporting accordingly.
In this case, the only truly developed concern is American weakness—that, regardless of what happens in Caracas, Trump might not be aggressive enough in defense of Taiwan when the time comes.
The article is dressed up as a critique of American imperialism but all it really says, despite itself, is: more, please.
American power projection turns out to be popular. So does the idea that the United States has obligations far outside its own borders. For example, despite the Trump administration’s schizophrenia toward Ukraine, the American public still wants to see more material support for the beleaguered democracy and still considers it an ally and Russia a rival. Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear program likewise won majority support, and majorities back similar missions in the future, should they be deemed necessary.
And here we have the Times worrying that Trump might not intervene against China on Taiwan’s behalf. Which it should just come right out and say from the outset, rather than smuggling the desire for American power under cover of criticism of the very same American power.
