Shaking The Tree

We need to talk about this again.

Had a spirited discussion with a couple of work associates yesterday about politics, as usual.

I can usually keep my cool, even when there is disagreement. I'm a strong believer in engaging in respectful political discourse with people you disagree with. In fact, it's essential. There's far too much exchanging of ideas only with people you already agree with. You don't learn anything new from an echo chamber.

But I do draw the line when I hear a certain phrase — one I hear far too often: “I hate trump, but I like that he's doing… (fill in the blank).” And often the blank is filled with something like “He’s shaking the tree.”

First, to say you “hate trump” before praising him is, at the very least, niggling — a cop-out — and at worst disingenuous. It reassures the listener: I’m actually on your side. I know, like everybody knows, that he’s a terrible person. I’m a good person, not really one of his supporters. In my mind, qualifying your opinion this way gives you permission to support him while avoiding responsibility for that support. It is, in some ways, worse than simply backing him openly.

Second, the premise itself is false. It treats trump as if he were a conventional politician making policy decisions in the national interest. He isn’t. He operates less as a policymaker than as a performer of power, guided by self-interest and self-preservation. To say “I like what he’s doing” implies that he is acting on your behalf. He isn’t. Even if an action happens to benefit you, that benefit is incidental. Saying you like it because it helped you is like praising a forest fire because, by sheer luck, it didn’t burn your house down.

For instance, it looks increasingly like trump may strike Iran again. Some of my Israeli friends are pleased by this prospect. But if such a decision is made, it would not be because he was thinking about Israel’s security. It's because it serves his personal domestic political needs — projecting strength, shifting attention away from Epstein etc. The external effect may align with certain interests, but that does not mean those interests drove the decision.

Third, no, he isn’t “shaking the tree” — he’s breaking it. Do I think the world has become far too dependent on the United States over the past 70 years, and that countries like Canada should invest more in their own defense? Yes. But that is a reformist argument, not a demolition plan. What is being upended now is not merely policy but the underlying structure of the postwar international system: a network of alliances and institutions built around shared liberal values and rules rather than raw power.

In our discussion, my colleagues argued that the United Nations should be abolished, claiming it has become corrupt to the core. Frankly, they have little idea what the UN actually does or how many agencies operate under its umbrella. It is unquestionably flawed and in need of reform, and some bodies — such as UNRWA — are obsolete. But the larger claim is simply untenable. No organization in history has done more to benefit humanity than the UN, from coordinating humanitarian relief, saving lives through disease control programs, facilitating economic development, and mediating conflict on a global scale.

What my colleagues were really expressing, understandably, was frustration. 

A values-based international system gives even the weakest nations a seat at the table, including countries whose political systems, cultures, or human-rights records differ sharply from our own. Yes, it is troubling that states like China or Pakistan sit on bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Council. Yet their presence also subjects them to scrutiny under internationally recognized standards. The system’s inclusiveness is both its weakness and its strength.

In the end, the “I hate him, but…” argument reveals less about trump than about our collective impatience with imperfect systems. Disorder can feel satisfying when order seems slow, hypocritical, or ineffective. But history suggests that once the guardrails are removed, rebuilding them is far harder than tearing them down.