This week on The ABR Podcast, we feature Clinton Fernandes’s commentary titled ‘“Depths that we today are barely able to imagine”: The quality of disinterestedness on the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’. Noting that the Trump Cabinet is ‘the wealthiest in modern history, with thirteen billionaires and a combined net worth of US$60 billion’, Fernandes asks, ‘How does Trump’s America compare to the America that adopted the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776?’ The new republic’s leaders were ‘disinterested gentlemen’ – impartial, committed to the public good, ‘free of interested ties’, and ‘paid by no masters’. Today, Fernandes writes, ‘Young voters do not look at our politics and see any good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad guys.’

Clinton Fernandes is part of the University of New South Wales’s Future Operations Research Group, which analyses the threats, risks, and opportunities that military forces will face in the future. He is a former intelligence officer in the Australian Army.

‘“Depths that we today are barely able to imagine”: The quality of disinterestedness on the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’ by Clinton Fernandes is published in the July issue of ABR.