Jordan Peterson has said, “a harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.” On its surface, this appears to be a very puzzling statement. Why are harmless men, not good? Don’t we want people not to harm others? And why are very dangerous men, good? Dangerous men are scary; dangerous men are destructive; dangerous men can harm others. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. If you are harmless, you are weak, and if you are weak, you will be attacked. If you are dangerous, you will be feared, and if you are feared, no one will come after you. You will be safe; you will be secure.
On January 7 of this year, Donald Trump at a press conference with Steve Witkoff, his special envoy to the Middle East, stated unequivocally, "if they[the Israeli hostages] are not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East, and it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone." When he made that statement, I am sure there were many people on the left or in the media who believed that bold, threatening statements like that were dangerous, that Trump’s out of control, that he is going to get everyone killed. But Donald Trump understands Jordan Peterson’s rule quite well, even though many on the left and in the media do not. Trump is dangerous. Trump knows the importance of being dangerous. But he also has his dangerousness under control. He knows how to project danger to get what he wants.
And now, a week after Trump made that unequivocal threatening statement about the hostages and the Middle East, a ceasefire deal has been struck, and hostages are coming home. For the last 15 months, there have been protests for a ceasefire in Gaza, marches for peace. There have been negotiations. There has been name calling, moral shaming, guilt-tripping, begging, pleading. Threats of incarcerating Benjamin Netanyahu. All to no avail. And then President-elect Donald Trump simply stands up and shows America’s strength, shows that he is willing to be strong and dangerous, and suddenly we have a deal. It was the exact opposite approach of the “peace-loving” Biden administration, the opposite approach of every flower child on every Ivy League campus who shed crocodile tears for the people in Gaza. And it achieved everything that they claimed to have wanted. If you want peace, be strong. If you are weak, be prepared for war.
In his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Pete Hegseth, emphasized over and over again about the “lethality“ of the US military. Not that he wanted to use the US military indiscriminately to kill people around the world, but more accurately, to let the world, especially the bad actors in the world, know that the United States military will be the most lethal fighting force on the planet, and when necessary, we will use that lethal force to stop the bad actors from harming innocent people, from creating unnecessary wars. Our lethality, our projection of strength, deters wars. If we want peace, we have to be strong; we have to be dangerous; we have to be lethal.
The day after Donald Trump was elected, Hamas declared that they wanted a cessation of war. They knew a new sheriff had been elected; they knew that America wouldn’t be pushed around anymore. How many times are we going to be forced to learn this lesson? You don’t appease dictators. You don’t appease bad actors. Peace through strength. The left gives us wars through weakness. The Biden administration, starting with its failed Afghanistan withdrawal, projected weakness to the world, and the bad actors in the world pounce on that weakness. Why do you think Russia invaded Ukraine under Biden, but not Trump. Make no mistake. If Kamala Harris for whatever reason happened to have won the election the past November, we would not be getting a cease-fire deal and hostages returning home. Harris is even weaker than Biden. All recent Democrat Presidents have been weak on the world stage.
In August 2012, Obama drew a red line in Syria when he said, “we have been very clear to the Assad regime, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.” The problem with that statement is that Obama isn’t strong; Obama isn’t dangerous; Obama is more concerned with being liked to ever be strong and dangerous. But in the end, his lack of strength was dangerous to the world because within a year of Obama’s red line statement, the Assad regime carried out a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs that killed 1,429 people, including 426 children. Obama never enforced his red line. Obama never struck Syria for crossing the red line. Obama was weak, and that is why the Middle East was on fire under his administration.
Trump understands this. He understands it militarily, and he understands it economically. Why do you think he’s talking about annexing Greenland? Why do you think he’s talking about taking over the Panama Canal? Does he really want to add a Greenland and take over the Panama Canal? Probably not. But he must posture those strong positions to get what he wants from them. Both Greenland and the Panama Canal are vitally important to our Geo-political strategic concerns. If we sit back and state unequivocally that we’ll never attempt to annex Greenland or never try to take over the Panama Canal, that would be an invitation for China to come in and try to get a strong foothold in both of those areas.
75% of the shipping traffic that goes through the Panama Canal are either imports or exports of the United States of America. It is a vital interest. That’s why China wants to control it or at least have heavy influence over it. And that’s why Trump is talking big about it. He wants Panamanian President Mulino to fear that the United States is going to take over the canal, so he cuts an extremely favorable deal with United States and cuts out China’s influence. That is the art of the deal. That is a brilliant strategy. But all the pearl-clutchers in the media and on the left are too stupid or too scared to understand what Trump’s doing. When they get scared, you know that what Trump is doing is working.
Trump’s slogan should have been Make America Dangerous Again. To conform Peterson’s statement to a country, “a harmless country is not a good country. A good country is a very, very dangerous country that has that under voluntary control.” There is no clearer distinction between the two parties than this. The Democrats are content with a weak, non-dangerous America, with managing the United States’ slow decline into mediocrity until we are not distinguishable from any of the other floundering Western Democracies around the world. Trump wants to make America great, make America strong, make America dangerous. Unlike the most recent Democrat Presidents, Trump doesn’t care if we are liked, he cares if we are respected and feared. And if we are respected and fear, if we are dangerous, and have that danger under voluntary control, we, in the end, will be loved.
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Mr. Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University, and a former NFL player, coach, and executive. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.
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