By Billy Webster

Our congressman didn’t have the courage to return to our district during the recent recess to face the voters—his constituents—to explain the dangerous lack of transparency and utter confusion of Trump’s first month as president. Who wants to explain the inexplicable? For someone with the history of ducking and dodging accountability, who could say they are surprised?

Now, in the wake of the most stunning reversal of American foreign policy in a century, his cowardice has reached a new height. As chair of the Military and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, Timmons advertised his first congressional hearing this week as one to “examine how the Trump Administration is rebuilding the American military and foreign policy establishment to restore American security, safety and prosperity.”

Let’s just stop right there, Congressman.

In one week, Donald Trump and his MAGA-enthralled shock troops have obliterated the cornerstone of American foreign policy, one constructed by a dozen previous Presidents including Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama. Trump and his ill-informed Vice President have succeeded in shredding the European alliance and turned America’s back on NATO, a defense and security pact that has kept the peace around the world for 80 years. Our grandfathers died on the beaches, in the trenches and in the cities of Europe to defend American democracy and the rule of law. Trump has tossed their sacrifice aside in two weeks.

Worse, Trump has embraced the world’s leading criminal autocrat, Vladimir Putin. Trump has adopted the Kremlin’s talking points on the Ukraine war almost verbatim, calling Zelensky a “dictator” and seeking to broker a peace without consulting our European allies, exactly the negotiation that Putin wants. Trump, who prides himself on being a transactional negotiator, despite having filed multiple bankruptcies in his own failed businesses (and faring now better on his first go-‘round as President), is having his lunch eaten at the negotiating table by Putin.

How Timmons and his radical foreign policy newbies cannot see the dangers inherent in this act of betrayal is breathtaking. Trump has shattered the Atlantic Alliance. He has opened the door for further Russian expansion in Europe. He has given China a fresh opportunity to make diplomatic and economic inroads around world. He has alienated both Canada and Mexico, our primary trading partners and proposed juvenile ideas for the West Bank and Greenland. And, of course, as to Timmons’ interest in ‘peace and security,’ if we won’t defend our European allies of 80 years, who would think for a second that we will defend Taiwan when Chinese President Xi Jimping decides he is ready to invade.

Trump has emboldened the far-right extremists around the world, punctuated this week by the Vice President’s reckless remarks at the Premier global security conference in Munich. Mr. Vance lectured Europe on ‘freedom of expression’ there while Trump and his Justice Department were busy muzzling voices of dissent at home. Vance extolled the virtues of the far-right German party, the AfD, whose leaders minimize Nazi crimes and portray their country as a victim of scheming outsiders, parroting the talking points of Adolph Hitler 90 years ago and Putin today. And to what end? Despite Vance and co-Vice President Elon Musk’s loud and consistent embraces of that party, they will be on the outside looking in with Germany’s new government.

Finally, Trump has installed MAGA loyalists inside the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Defense and the intelligence services. He is purging—with the consent of cowards like Timmons—all the voices of dissent and reason within our government.

Of course, the sycophant Timmons was too timid to address any of these issues. He seems like a smart guy. He knows these issues exist but he ignores them. Or he is too scared to do what is right. He is only interested in currying favor – at the risk of catastrophic implications – with Trump and those intent on bringing America to its knees.

I never thought I would live to see the day when the United States of America was the laughing stock of the free world. We are that today. It is humiliating beyond measure. No American president has ever been “fact-checked” in real-time on the world stage until this week, when French President Emmanuel Macron brutally corrected Trump’s lies about our European allies.

When the history of Trump’s dangerous follies is written, it will not be the Kennedy-esque “Profiles in Courage,” it will be a pathetic recounting of “Profiles in Cowardice,” and Timmons will have his own chapter.

Billy Webster is an educator, entrepreneur, and civic leader. He has been appointed to various positions by two presidents – George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, serving in the Agency for International Development, The Department of Education, and the White House, among other postings. A resident of Spartanburg, Webster has served on numerous boards for organizations serving the Upstate.