After winning a second term as president in 1916, Woodrow Wilson felt empowered to do what was right.
And what was good for America.
And good for the world.
After an electioneering slogan "He kept us out of war", President Wilson got us into war - World War One.
And he and we tipped the balance.
In favor of France and Britain, and against Imperial Germany.
Unfortunately the Treaty of Versailles was a botch; it set the stage for World War One, Act Two.
But in the brief interim between those two Acts Wilson burst on the world stage.
Chief among his many ideas for a better world was the formation of a League of Nations: to ensure political independence and territorial integrity of all states.
The "world" of that time - mainly Europe - was ready for that idea; a thousand years of blood and treasure pissed away climaxing in the debacle of 1914 had been enough.
The "world" (Europe) wanted that treadmill of waste and slaughter to end; they wanted peace; they wanted prosperity; they wanted to try something new; they were ready for a new idea such as Wilson's.
So the League of Nations was born.
But without the participation of the Nation of the Architect, without the United States, the League was doomed.
Wilson lacked the flexibility of ego and the political ability to get his own national legislature to sign on to the League.
So World War One Chapter Two ensued.
And another tens of millions of lives and hundreds of billions of Francs, Pounds, Dollars, Yen and Marks were pissed away.
Just then, a new leader had moved to the head of the line in world leadership.
Franklin Roosevelt decried a day of infamy, Congress declared war, and, almost four years later Chapter Two came to an end.
And Roosevelt was one of those Americans who saw the wisdom and utility of Wilson's League.
And he had the political clout and skill to get Congress to sign on this time.
Franklin didn't live to see it completely formed.
But he had chosen a Vice President with the intellect, world view and political skill to see its final birthing throes result in a world peace focused forum, headquartered in New York.
That was Harry Truman.
Harry picked up the baton from Franklin and ran with it.
And The United Nations was born.
The not written down anywhere tacit corollary of this organization's existence was that the United States was now accepted as a sort of final arbiter for most of the world, but especially for Europe, except for those parts of Europe that were occupied by Russia and, therefore, closed off from the rest of the world.
Given the nature and implications of the obvious threat of the fact that there were "parts of Europe that were occupied by Russia and, therefore, closed off from the rest of the world", Truman realized a robust military alliance was needed.
In 1949 NATO was founded with 12 original members: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Its design point was to keep free and intact its members, those members being both vanquished and victor in World War One Chapter Two.
They had had that fight twice and they didn't want to do it a third time.
The biggest deal in a really big deal was and is article 5 of the founding treaty; it says that any member attacked, all members are attacked, and immediate action will be taken.
Seventy-five years later that attack has never come.
And the attacker implied by the treaty has ceased to exist.
And twenty more countries have joined NATO.
And many of them were previously "parts of Europe that were occupied by Russia and, therefore, closed off from the rest of the world".
An unstated understanding underpinning NATO and the entire post World War Two world has been that the United States, in final analysis, is in charge of what the non Soviet, including when push comes to shove, a lot of the so-called neutral segment, does; the additional unstated understanding being that the United States will shoulder a large portion of the finances of that project.
That seemed only fair.
In 1949 many of the founding members were in rubble and economically crippled.
In 1949 the United States was a powerhouse with an economy still in hyperdrive from having just provided the materiel for winning the war.
So those members, and by political osmosis, most of the world agreed: "you pay the bills you call the shots".
Truman implemented Wilson's vision and Roosevelt's blueprint with brilliance; he got the thing up and running and, when broken field running was required improvised: in the run up to the signing of the NATO treaty he got Congress to pass the European Recovery Program which provided significant economic aid to help rebuild Western European economies after the devastation of World War II.
They named it after Truman's Secretary of State, George Marshall.
Truman knew that Congress likes Marshal and named the plan after him to assure Congress' passage of the plan.
Truman also knew that the best allies are prosperous allies.
And he wanted to jump start European prosperity.
The whole thing came together and today there is the European Union, a prosperous 27-member, 450 million citizen descendant to the rubble of 1945.
And the EU looks to NATO and the United States for its defense, and it accepts in general that when push comes to shove the US has senior partner management power, and it wants 75 years of peace and prosperity to continue unthreatened and unabated.
Truman passed the baton to Eisenhower, Eisenhower to Kennedy, Kennedy to Johnson, Johnson to Nixon, Nixon to Ford, Ford to Carter, Carter to Reagan, Reagan to Bush, Bush to Clinton, Clinton to Bush, Bush to Obama.
Some of these were Republicans and some of these were Democrats.
They all understood one thing: the peace, prosperity and continued existence of the world depends on the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and American leadership.
Then we got donnie.
He knows nothing.
And that is damn dangerous for all of the world.
