Until recently the progressive mind has been resolutely closed and stubbornly frozen in place against all things Trump.

But cracks are appearing in the ice.  With increasing frequency over the last few months, some of the most thoughtful left and progressive figures have begun to speak favorably of aspects of Trump's foreign policy.  Let us hear from these heretics, among them William Greider, Glen Ford, John Pilger, Jean Bricmont, Stephen F. Cohen and William Blum.  Their words are not to be construed as "endorsements," but rather an acknowledgment of Trump's anti-interventionist views, the impact those views are having and the alternative he poses to Hillary Clinton in the current electoral contest.

First, let's consider the estimable William Greider, a regular contributor to The Nation and author of Secrets of the Temple.  He titled a recent article for the Nation, "Donald Trump Could be The Military Industrial Complex's Worst Nightmare: The Republican Front Runner is Against Nation Building.  Imagine That." 

Greider's article is brief, and I recommend reading every precious word of it.  Here is but one quote: "Trump has, in his usual unvarnished manner, kicked open the door to an important and fundamental foreign-policy debate."  And here is a passage from Trump's interview with the Washington Post that Greider chooses to quote:

"'I watched as we built schools in Iraq and they'd be blown up,' Trump told the editors.  'And we'd build another one and it would get blown up. And we would rebuild it three times. And yet we can't build a school in Brooklyn.… at what point do you say hey, we have to take care of ourselves. So, you know, I know the outer world exists and I'll be very cognizant of that but at the same time, our country is disintegrating, large sections of it, especially in the inner cities.'"

Trump talks about building infrastructure for the inner cities, especially better schools for African American children, rather than bombing people of color halfway around the world!  That is hardly racism.  And it is not how the mainstream media wants us to think of The Donald.

Next, Glen Ford, the eloquent radical Left executive editor of Black Agenda Report, a superb and widely read outlet, penned an article in March 2016, with the following title: "Trump Way to the Left of Clinton on Foreign Policy – In Fact, He's Damn Near Anti-Empire." Ford's piece is well worth reading in its entirety; here are just a few quotes :

"Trump has rejected the whole gamut of U.S. imperial war rationales, from FDR straight through to the present."

"If Trump's tens of millions of white, so-called 'Middle American' followers stick by him, it will utterly shatter the prevailing assumption that the American public favors maintenance of U.S. empire by military means."

"Trump shows no interest in 'spreading democracy,' like George W. Bush, or assuming a responsibility to 'protect' other peoples from their own governments, like Barack Obama and his political twin, Hillary Clinton."

"It is sad beyond measure that the near-extinction of independent Black politics has placed African Americans in the most untenable position imaginable at this critical moment: in the Hillary Clinton camp."

Next, let's turn to John Pilger, the Left wing Australian journalist and documentary film maker who has been writing about Western foreign policy with unimpeachable accuracy and wisdom since the Vietnam War era.   Here are some of his comments on Trump:

"..Donald Trump is being presented (by the mass media) as a lunatic, a fascist.  He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure.  That alone should arouse our skepticism." 

"Trump's views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama."

"In 1947, a series of National Security Council directives described the paramount aim of American foreign policy as 'a world substantially made over in [America's] own image'.  The ideology was messianic Americanism. We were all Americans. Or else. …"