The Marshall Plan vs The Trump Plan

According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, “in his Harvard commencement speech of June 5, 1947, Gen. George Marshall drew a clear ideological line dividing the USSR and Europe stating Europeans, Americans, and our allies have coalesced around a concept of government based on equality before the law, secularism, civil rights, economic and political freedom, and a market economy: the tenets of liberal democracy. As Otto Zausmer, who had worked for the U.S. Office of War Information to swing Americans behind the war, put it in 1955: ‘America’s gift to the world is not money, but the Democratic idea, democracy.”

In the years after the Marshall Plan, European countries expanded their cooperative organizations. The OEEC became the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1961 and still operates with 37 member countries that account for three fifths of world trade. The Marshall Plan helped to create a liberal international order, based on the rule of law. On the 10-year anniversary of the speech, the Norwegian foreign minister had a noteworthy perspective, saying: “[T]his initiative taken by Marshall and by the American Government marked the beginning of a new epoch in western Europe, an epoch of wider, and above all more binding cooperation between the countries than ever before.” 

Last week marked the 80th anniversary of D-Day. For Connie and I, it was a time when all our grandparents and aunts and uncles were serving the military, some in Europe and others in the Pacific. Everyone that generation knew was fighting fascism and communism is order to secure, for all time, what Gen. Marshall saw as the tenets of a liberal democracy (equality before the law, secularism, civil rights, economic and political freedom, and a market economy). 

Neither President Biden or former President Trump served during World War II or even in the military, but Biden respects the service and sacrifice of that great generation and honors it, while Trump has called fallen service members “suckers and losers.”

President Roosevelt, Congress, the military and the American public wholeheartedly embraced The Marshall Plan to rebuild a democratic Europe and Japan. It was a huge success economically and politically and future generations like myself have benefitted greatly. 

So its very sad to know that Trump and his wing of the Republican Party now warmly embrace elements of fascism, communism and more totaliartian governance. In the span of just eight years America and the world could lose 80 years of democratic progress, security and prosperity. Freightening prospect don’t you think? 

Let’s honor all American service members who have sacrificed for those tenets of our liberal democracy since the American Revolution this fall and vote for freedom and for democracy and against convicted, fascist felons that embrace insurrection.

Pat Malone lives in Columbia Falls.