Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • My Rifles
  • Concentrate on Dividend Record and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Your Health
  • Old Confederacy
  • Main Street Conservative
  • BLM’s Marxist Agenda
  • Ron Paul
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Freedom Force
  • Dick Young’s Safe America

Trump and De Gaulle: Men of Instinct

October 10, 2019 By Richard C. Young

By Darq @ Shutterstock.com

From The American Conservative’s weekly Realism and Restraint column, comes a comparison of Donald Trump to France’s Charles De Gaulle by Leon Hadar. In his piece, Hadar reminds readers De Gaulle’s leadership philosophy did not rely on intelligence alone, but also heavily upon instinct. That instinct is, as Hadar continues, the connection between De Gaulle’s leadership style President Trump’s. Hadar writes (abridged):

Renowned French philosopher Henry Bergson was a leading Western thinker who challenged the notion that all occurrences can be explained by rationalism, scientific determinism, a priori reasoning, or “frozen doctrines.” He stressed instead the importance of intuition and instincts in the shaping of our reality.

According to Julian Jackson’s majestic biography of Charles de Gaulle, A Certain Idea of France, the legendary French leader was a fan of Bergson, and explained once to an American journalist that when it comes to producing great statesman, intelligence alone was not sufficient.

“The intelligent man does not automatically become a man of action,” de Gaulle stipulated. “Instinct is also important.” He then explained that the reason French President Henri Poincaré was overshadowed by Prime Minister George Clemenceau during the Great War was that the former was “a man of texts, a mechanically organized intelligence” who believed in “texts, messages, proclamations” and interacted only with ministers and diplomats, while the latter adhered to the “ferocious law of the species” when it came to issues of war and peace.

To put it in contemporary terms, if Paris had been filled with think tanks in 1940, and French leaders were to ask the advice of their best and the brightest, it would have been more likely than not that based on rational and cost-benefit analysis, most of what constituted the “Blob” of that time would have advised the French leadership to seek a ceasefire with the Germans, negotiate a deal with Adolph Hitler, and make the best out of it. Propelled by his instinct and impulse, De Gaulle begged to differ with France’s decision makers, and the rest, as they say, is history.

While Trumpism may not be Gaullism, it still makes much more sense than the numerous doctrines and grand strategies that have guided America since the end of the Cold War. Those presidents were men “of texts, a mechanically organized intelligence,” but that didn’t mean their foreign policies turned out to be successful.

Read more here.

Charles de Gaulle: “The Greatest Frenchman of All Time”

Related Posts

  • De Niro’s Unhinged Anti Trump Tirade
  • Trump Celebrates Acquittal Victory
  • Trump Powering Forward
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young is the editor of Young's World Money Forecast, and a contributing editor to both Richardcyoung.com and Youngresearch.com.
Latest posts by Richard C. Young (see all)
  • SARS-CoV-2: Probability of Outdoor Airborne Transmission Very Low - January 22, 2021
  • Biden’s Inaugural, the Most Confusing, Contradictory, Incoherent Ever? - January 22, 2021
  • Ten Republican Senators to Get Behind - January 21, 2021

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Yes! Money Can Bring You Happiness
  • Could this Be the Vanguard GNMA Winning Edge?
  • Rich States, Poor States this State is Dominant Once Again
  • “An Epic Struggle Over the Definition of America”
  • U.S. Survival AR-7
  • What to Do about China?
  • VIDEO: Giuliani: BLM Is a Marxist Organization Planning to Destroy the Police
  • TAC’s Robert W. Merry Unveils Presidential War Lies
  • My Smith & Wesson Revolvers Home Defense Team
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money

Our Most Popular Posts

  • The Recklessness of Arnold Schwarzenegger
  • The Stock Market Is About Money Flows Not Politics.
  • Dick Young’s Safe America: Chapter 1, Part I
  • Who Are Those Urging Violence?
  • Smith Family Robinson in Live Free or Die, NH
  • Warmongering Firestarters Victoria Nuland and Samantha Powers Back
  • Cancel Culture, the Great Purge, Double Standards
  • How Are You Doing on a Local Level?
  • How S.D. Surged in Vaccination Inoculations
  • Ten Republican Senators to Get Behind

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Your Retirement Life: Meet Your BMW Club Racing Program Director
  • Corporations Rush to Reap Equity Windfall
  • Do You Know Who’s the Largest Owner of Farmland in America?
  • Investors Are Being Conditioned Not To Recognise the Danger
  • I’ve Been in Richard Young’s Maximizers for Years
  • What Is the Stock Market’s Link to the Economy?
  • Smith Family Robinson in Live Free or Die, NH
  • Dick Young’s Safe America: Chapter 1, Part I
  • Whether Through Audacity or Ignorance, Stock Fundamentals Are Being Ignored
  • Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Absentee Ballots Not Verified

SARS-CoV-2: Probability of Outdoor Airborne Transmission Very Low

Your Personal Safety: Concealed-Carry How to Carry Your Freedom

Mostly Peaceful, Ungovernable Protestors

Biden’s Inaugural, the Most Confusing, Contradictory, Incoherent Ever?

Is the GOP Over? Not Even Close: Here’s Why

Copyright © 2021 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives