Kennedy, Nixon, and American Imperialism

 

Kennedy and Nixon and American Imperialism

Peter Schultz

 

Here’s a thought that helps make sense of JFK and Nixon: Both were conventional American imperialists, meaning they embraced an elitist corporatized imperialism, the kind of imperialism that recommends the kind of stability which corporate elites crave and profit from. But this means it was their conventional imperialism that put limits on their anti-communism. Ironic, no? 

So, JFK could oppose invasions of Cuba, both the Bay of Pigs and during the missile crisis because they would be too disruptive and unsettling and, hence, bad “for business,” thereby threatening the US’s conventionally grounded imperialism. Ironically, it was JFK’s imperialism that set limits on his anti-communism. Ditto regarding Laos and Vietnam. Even his counterinsurgency bias can be seen as limiting his anti-communism, keeping it contained, so to speak. 

Nixon appears in the same light: his push for detente with the USSR and his opening to China were in the service of his conventionally grounded, corporatized imperialism that would benefit from stability rather than from anti-communism. 

So, JFK and Nixon were, we might say, shrewd in that they hid their imperialism, dressing it up as a modified or rational anti-communism. That is, they dressed their imperialism up in sexy clothes, especially JFK’s New Frontier and Camelot, that would titillate and arouse while not really changing traditional American imperialism. Of course, JFK, being “glam,” could make his politics look sexier and more seductive than could Nixon. 

But the irony is delectable, I think: It was their imperialism that set limits on their anti-communism. Priceless! 

 

Kennedy and Nixon, Part Two

 

Richard Nixon was smart enough to understand that anti-communism could subvert US imperialism and its drive for hegemony. Thus, Nixon’s imperialism limited his anti-communism vis-a-vis the Vietnam War, the USSR, and with regard to China, just as JFK’s imperialism limited his anti-communism with regard to Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, and his Alliance for Progress in Latin America. Similarly, President George Herbert Walker Bush understood that removing Saddam Hussein by going to Baghdad would undermine American imperialism. But his son was not so smart, failing to understand that his GWOT would subvert US hegemony and undermine its imperialism. 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq with little to show for it other than trillions wasted and lives lost and taken. Savagery is one thing; futile savagery is something else altogether. The price of ignorance can’t be exaggerated.