Donald Trump’s foreign policy was poorly received by neoconservatives, as is obvious if you look at the reaction at the Washington Post. Pro-Iraq War editorial board chief Fred Hiatt said that Trump’s vision was incoherent, inconsistent, and incomprehensible. Columnist Charles Krauthammer described the speech as incoherent, inconsistent, and jumbled. While the Post’s resident columnist/blogger Jennifer Rubin expressed concern that, based on Trump’s language, he might be a malleable mouthpiece of anti-Semites.
If neoconservatives come pretty close to being always wrong, the Post’s reaction might be considered the highest form of praise. Unfortunately, most of their criticisms are accurate. This is particularly true when they go after Trump for his looseness with the facts, his contradictory and mutually exclusive messages, and his praise of unpredictability.
For example, Fred Hiatt nailed Trump for insisting that we “abandon defense commitments to allies because of the allegedly weakened state of the U.S. economy” at the same time that he criticizes President Obama for not being a steadfast friend to our allies. Krauthammer wondered how Trump could criticize Obama for letting Iran become a regional power and promise to bring stability to the Middle East without having any commitment to keep a presence there or to take any risks or to make any expenditures.
If there is any remaining doubt about how neoconservatives view Trump’s foreign policy ideas, Sen. Lindsey Graham removed them:
Sen. Lindsey Graham tore into Donald Trump’s speech on foreign policy, calling it “unnerving,” “pathetic” and “scary.”
The South Carolina Republican former presidential candidate told WABC Radio on Wednesday that the speech was “nonsensical” and showed that Trump “has no understanding of the world and the role we play.”
“This speech was unnerving. It was pathetic in its content, and it was scary in terms of its construct. If you had any doubt that Donald Trump is not fit to be commander in chief, this speech should’ve removed it,” Graham said. “It took every problem and fear I have with Donald Trump and put in on steroids.”
He added: “It was like a guy from New York reading a speech that somebody wrote for him that he edited that makes no sense.” And: “It was not a conservative speech. This was a blend of random thoughts built around Rand Paul’s view of the world.”
It’s true that Graham’s response there is a substance-free ad hominem attack, but he did get around to making specific critiques. In particular, he noted that Trump can’t keep his promises to both minimize our presence in the Middle East and destroy ISIS in short order without significant alliances with the regimes in the Middle East. But he won’t be improving our alliances by talking negatively about Islam as a religion and banning Muslims from entering the United States. Graham said that the problem with Obama is that he isn’t seen as a reliable ally by these despots, but that Trump “is worse than Obama…the entire world is going to look at Donald Trump as a guy who doesn’t understand the role of America, that doesn’t understand the benefit of these alliances.”
Graham also blasted Trump’s position on NATO and said that “the idea of dismembering NATO would be the best thing possible for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”
It’s not that Graham properly understands “the role of America” or that he gets the downsides of our alliances with foreign dictatorial regimes. But he understands that you can’t win a war against radicals in the Arab world by making enemies of every Arab (and Muslim) in the world. Graham understands that you can’t criticize the president for being a lousy friend and then rip up longstanding and uncontroversial agreements with those friends while demanding both more money and more deference.
A full treatment of Trump’s speech and foreign policy ideas is beyond the scope of this blog piece, but he’s about to become the leader of a party that is filled with neoconservatives.
They aren’t going to pretend that the emperor has clothes on.
And, for once in their lives, they’re largely right.
Yeah, some people are saying Trump should get listened to because he’s calling for less foreign intervention, which would be a good thing. But he isn’t really – he’s calling to destroy Daesh, increase military spending, and bully other countries to paying us money (normally referred to as “tribute”). He’s just spouting a lot of self-contradictory nonsense. And I guarantee that if he becomes president and gets his increased military spending, he’ll go out to “take their oil” just as he said he would.
From where I sit, and from what I can parse out of the few things that Trump’s said about foreign policy and such, I’m not seeing him as any different from the NeoCons, other than that he’s this out loud & damn proud of it bigoted racist who wants to deport every Muslim in the USA and never let another one darken (take that all ways) our doorstep.
I’ve heard/read his fans say that Trump is less warlike or wants to end wars or similar tripe. I don’t know where they get that, because every time I force myself to listen to his speeches (or read the transcripts), he seems pretty war-like to me. Wanting to pound Daesh back to the stone age, threatening the Rooskies and such.
Trump makes it sound like he could “deal” with ISIS in a NY minute – in and out and be done very quickly. And his slavering fan bash cheers and cheers. Well, excuse me, but WHERE have I heard similar “in and out fast” twaddle before??? Oh yeah: from W BushCo. Was Rummy who said we’d be “done” in Eye-rack within 3 months?? And that our troops would be greeted with rose petals strewn at their feet????
Yeah, right. How’d that THREE MONTHS turn out, folks?
Oh yeah, conservatives are easily propagandized to wipe such inconvenient truths from their memory banks, and so, it never happened that way… and anyway Trump dissed the Bushes, so this time, THIS TIME with Trump it’ll be waaaay different, and it won’t cost US taxpayers a dime bc Trump’ll charge it someone else.
I hear his fans saying crap like that. For me, it’s just the SAME OLD, different day. Nothing new to see here, children, move along now…
The “other” crop of NeoCons from the GOP establishment – like Miss Lindsay – are just pissed off that Trump is horning in on their NeoCon GRIFT, as I’ve been saying all along.
Nothing so far has show up to dissuade me from my viewpoint.
“Trump Makes Neoconservatives Look Good”
My political thriller is called THE OVERTON DEFENESTRATION.
You know what drives me nuts? Members of the media covering Trump’s pronouncements on various issues and pretending that there’s some deeper meaning to the nonsense coming out of his mouth, or that any of his pronouncements are even worthy of discussion. Sometimes an idiot is an idiot, and their coverage should reflect that basic truth. Instead, they either try to put words in Trump’s mouth that make his ramblings sound coherent or hand the editorializing off to one of his foreign policy/domestic advisors so that those people can explain what Trump “really” means (i.e., what the advisor really wants Trump’s words to mean). It’s frustrating in the extreme, the uninformed are going to come to believe that he actually has credible positions on these issues.
Exactly. And yet . . .
Since it is nonsense, it actually functions in an accidental way.
First of all, it does make Trump look presidential to his supporters, and the predictable howls of the media and neocons (or is there any difference?) will only make them admire their hero more.
Second of all, even though it’s nonsense, by raising issues, it provides an ad hoc framework for commentary. So this is the neocon commentary. But I think we could have predicted what they would say, and I don’t give a flying —- . I want to hear what Obama thinks about it. I want to hear what Sanders thinks about it.
This is the stage – now – when the media should be paying more attention to whatever it is that Trump says because he is so close to getting the nom. Putting his feet to the fire and forcing him to say something – ANYTHING! – about what his actual policies are is worthy endeavor.
That said, the media attention now is useless due to the ridiculous amount of free, nearly unending media attention paid to Trump over the past 9 months or so. I remember at least one time where MSNBC had a camera focused on an empty stage – awaiting HIS arrival – for something like an hour. This level of frothing attention at Trump’s every utterance – breathlessly repeated everywhere – has diminished the impact of what he’s saying now.
This whole sh*tshow is unbelievable, even given the utter nonsensical baloney nature of what US media has devolved to. So we have a carney barker who is finally saying something of some import, but it’s pretty much lost in the unending carney midway of jabbering and blubbering.
Then the GOP detractors rush in to whine and vetch, which further diminishes any attempt to really understand what this nudnik is proposing. It’s just a circus and not one that’s amusing in the slightest.
I don’t see why the NeoCons are so “upset” because from what I can parse out of Trump’s blabber, he’s pretty much same old, different day.
Are the GOPers just pissed off because they won’t get to cash in on the boondoggle this time??? That Trump’ll grab all the sweet sweet US taxdollar payola instead of them??? That’s what my money’s on.
Crooks, all of ’em. Miss Lindsay and the pundits are just upset because they won’t get the pirate’s booty this time.
Boo hoo.
The way climate change is picking up, and with the report of 140 degree temps arriving, much of the ME will be on the move to get out. Trump’s plan is so in the moment he ignores the day after occupation taxpayers are still reeling from with Iraq & Afghanistan. Shock & Awe is much like an antibiotic that comes in strong & kills but the cells that survive will come back stronger and more resistant.
Trump seems to relish the inconsistent, to beg to play both sides at once; not a quality for the epic battle for survival as climate change takes its toll.
The NY Times made some good points in a lead editorial on this two days ago.
“When one has a hammer [would say: “When all one has is a hammer”] everything looks like a nail. And when one’s experience is limited to real estate deals, everything looks like a lease negotiation. Hearing Mr. Trump describe his approach to foreign relations, one imagines a group of nations sitting at a table with him at its head, rather like a scene from ‘The Apprentice,’ with him demanding more money, more troops and policy changes in exchange for American protection, trade and friendship. And if he doesn’t get what he wants? ‘In negotiation, you must be willing to walk,’ Mr. Trump said.
“This unilteral approach makes for good television, but this is the real world, in which other nations have agendas too. …”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/28/opinion/donald-trump-to-world-im-willing-to-walk.html
You think he could produce more deaths than neocons have since 9/11? That is a yuuuge number. Nothing makes neocons look good, imo.
Don’t know how many a tual deaths it would involve, but he could sure fuck things up. Especially with his hand on the nuclear button …
What about Hillary’s hand? She hears voices.
Let me answer that with another question. If you were up to your neck in a barrel of vomit and somebody through sh-t at you, would you duck?
I’m asking a reasonable question. Do you trust the hand of a pathological and possibly delusional liar?
No. But when you say “pathological liar” I’m not sure which one of them you’re referring to. Delusional, I think may apply to Trump more than Hillary, but then when you think of her recollection of “landing under sniper fire”, you’ve got to wonder.
My point is, if you didn’t get it, that it’s a very hard choice to make. I’m going to try and enjoy the remaining time that I don’t have to make it.
Yeah, because they aren’t already fucked up. The Pentagon is more adept at saying no to a POTUS than is generally appreciated, and no POTUS actually has the sole power to push the nuclear button. In 2000 it was easy enough to know that GWB wanted Iraq. It’s also easy enough to know what HRC wants. Trump just hasn’t figured out what he wants; more decimated countries or new Trump Towers in Damascus, Tehran, Kiev, and Moscow.
This: The Pentagon is more adept at saying no to a POTUS than is generally appreciated…
HRC–that Russian breadbasket is nigh-irresistible to American agro-chemical industries.
Are these the guys that said GWB/Cheney was the most awesome FP team ever?
Sure, Trump is a nincompoop about everything. But that’s not what bothers the neocon jackasses about him. They’re concerned that Trump might not follow their dictates and agenda on their next wars and properly sell it to the US public. Trump doesn’t get that perpetual war requires years of planning and actions to set up a bench of next Hitlers to roll out individually as needed when the war to destroy the last one begins to wind down.
It will be instructive to see Hillary’s response, if she has one. If she does, I wouldn’t expect it to extend beyond a few warmed-over platitudes.
That is because Hillary is a neocon herself. And that isn’t going to go over too well right now with the general voting public.
Normally what you’d expect her to do in a situation like this is say basically what Bernie’s been saying. But if she did that, she’d come out with any number of blatant self-contradictions. Israel, for just one example.
If you believe Sanders does not have a well thought out foreign policy agenda, think again. And this would be a perfect opportunity for him to talk about it.
It would sound a little like what Trump wishes he could say but doesn’t have the brains or the experience to formulate it.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-poicy-213619
Hillary’s not a neocon. They’ve been opponents all the way back to the Clinton presidency. The neocons were very excited to replace their enemy Clinton with Bush and Cheney in 2000.
It may be that she’s not as extreme as Bush and Cheney, but if she’s not a neocon, she sure acts like one a good deal of the time.
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/26/is_hillary_clinton_a_neoconservative_hawk_what_iraq_and_libya_decisi
ons_tell_us_about_her_foreign_policy/
lips pursed so hard
……………………………
Bernie Believers Urge Independent Bid Over DNC Corruption
In light of dishonest party politics, over one-third of voters would support a third-party candidate
By Michael Sainato * 04/27/16 9:00am
In an interview with Politico reporter Glenn Thrush after last week’s New York Primary, a senior Clinton aide reportedly used profane language with regards to Bernie Sanders. Such disrespect has been carried out not only by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but by the Democratic National Committee itself. Since the beginning of the Democratic Primary, the attitude has seemed to be, “How dare Mr. Sanders challenge Ms. Clinton?” This complete disregard of democracy has manifested over and over again–from the Democratic National Committee’s overt favoritism for Ms. Clinton to rampant reports of voter suppression across the country throughout the primaries.
………………………….
A 2015 Gallup poll found 43 percent of Americans identify politically as Independent, and it is likely that the Democratic and Republican primaries only further discourage these voters from affiliating with either party. The presidency will largely be predicated on who can court the most Independent voters, and Ms. Clinton faces an uphill battle. Many disenfranchised Democrats and Independent voters will either write in Mr. Sanders’ name in November, or vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein–who more closely resembles the campaign platform of Mr. Sanders than Ms. Clinton, and who received over 500,000 votes in 2012.
In an interview with Grist in early March, Ms. Stein said, “You can’t really have a revolutionary campaign inside a counter-revolutionary party.” Many of Mr. Sanders’ supporters share this sentiment, and it could cost Democrats the 2016 presidential election, or give rise to a third political party. From the eruption of the Republican Tea Party in the wake of president Barack Obama’s 2008 election, to the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement following the 2008 economic recession, thousands of people who once identified as Republicans and Democrats are flirting with the idea of supporting a third party candidate.
They can work out their revenge by giving Hillary a Sanders House of Representatives to work with in 2018. LOL
They get that headline because comments Jill Stein says? LOL!! No wonder the MSM is in deep crap. Actually, some Sanders supporters/campaign workers are setting up a SuperPAC to try and do exactly that. Meaning to get Sanders-type Democrats to run, and support them, in ’18.
Oh, I took the “they” in Mino’s comment to mean the Green Party.
https:brandnewcongress.org
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/28/this_is_what_the_revolution_looks_like_former_sanders_staffers_are_l
aunching_a_new_pac_aimed_at_midterm_congressional_elections
A sort of Good Government League approach, running on a specific platform. Outside the DNC.
Yes, I’m aware of that effort. A better way forward than the Green Party. But to be fair, they’ll really have to play 11-dimensional chess to succeed. Excluding black swan, we’re talking a twenty year plan at a minimum. Very difficult to hole onto lefty young people over that period of time as a large portion of them shift right as they age.
So you’ve shot this plan down, apparently.
What are your viable plans to improve the voting habits and political views of Americans so we can move the country’s policies leftward?
I’d love for us to discuss that on this blog, and I’d love for us to be willing to disagree about some of these things while not being disagreeable. Sincerely.
What I’m not interested in is blaming our nation’s problems on the national politicians who are solidly on our side of today’s political spectrum. If the voters aren’t successfully pushing and supporting and putting into office our best electeds, then it should come at no surprise that our policies and their outcomes are not ideal. The voters are not consistently supportive of the candidates who would do what you and I would like our governments to do. That’s our biggest problem, persuading the voters, not the politicians.
We’re not going to successfully persuade the voters by implicitly or explicitly calling them stupid or disappointing or misinformed or what have you.
Since I didn’t at all shoot down the plan, your accusation that I did is just another example of your hostility and attempt to engage me in another heated and meaningless argument. (Did it hurt your fee-fees that I didn’t take the bait with your vicious personal attack on me a few days ago?) I don’t knowingly engage in debates with those who use dishonest arguments which include pulling out irrelevant factoids and going, “Yeah, but what about this?” I’ve made that plain to you multiple times over many months and have repeatedly asked that you not respond to my comments to others and I likewise don’t respond to your comments that are addressed to others. Why is that so difficult for you to respect?
The requirement which you are attempting to unilaterally enforce upon my participation in this community leads me to allow comments thread after thread to laden with your extremely personal and insulting attacks on me, Clinton supporters, Democratic Party voters and leaders…essentially, almost anyone with whom you disagree. The recent incident which led you to downgrade my brief comment was preceded by you executing a particularly long run of multiple insults on that thread, including directly insulting the political knowledge of BooMan.
For someone who can dish it out, you sure can’t take it.
Still don’t know your plan for better electoral success in the future. With your copious writing here, a plausible plan from you has never been well articulated.
I think Booman can take care of himself.
You’ve certainly gone to bat on behalf of others in this community. It’s a reasonable thing to do, if you’re feeling like the behavior in exchanges here has gone over or near the line you wish to set. We’re trying to maintain a community here; I don’t begrudge you that.
Take a look at the behavior of the community member who you defended by giving a troll rating to my downthread comment. Do you support their behavior throughout that thread, particularly their insulting conclusion to their 2:39:02 comment? I didn’t downgrade that comment; I chose to sarcastically respond to it.
I’m being asked to completely disengage with a member of the community I am in, which, when I honor their request, as I almost always have in recent weeks, frees them up to make whatever outrageous historical, motivational, and character-based claim they wish, and I am supposed to always allow them to stand. Why? Because that member of the community demands it.
At certain moments, bowing to that demand seems to me to be enabling a provocateur. We simply have to pick a method of behavior here. If we’re toning it down, we all need to tone it down. If someone plays rough and then tries to unilaterally control the behavior of others, that seems unworkable.
A community is not group think. Community mores are not defined by one member of the community.
A community is affected by the behavior of each of its members. If a small fraction of the members of a community engage in very disagreeable ways, it reduces the pleasure of the community for everyone, including the lurkers and others who don’t choose to directly involve themselves in the less civil disagreements. It also makes it likely that behavior from the broader community will deteriorate.
We’re going to have some give and take here; we’re humans with strong points of view. However, as every Congressional Democrat is now to the left of every Congressional Republican, again a measurable and empirical fact, so it is that every member of the Frog Pond is to the left side of the political spectrum. We can take comfort and security from that. It can help us more consistently enter into respectful disagreements. No one here wants to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted.
“What I’m not interested in is blaming our nation’s problems on the national politicians who are solidly on our side of today’s political spectrum.”
First, when politicians are elected and they do not deliver on their promises, they deserve every bit of blame they receive. Hopefully, people throw the bums out when this happens.
Second, politicians are on their own side; they are interested in getting re-elected; it is their job. That is not to say they won’t do some “nice” things for people; but I always remember they are politicians, not my family or friends.
We not only need to elect better politicians, we need to be able to hold them to account more effectively. I argue that the vast majority of the work we need to do to best achieve this is with the electorate, not the politicians. We are each individuals; we need to organize many more millions of voters to have the knowledge that we do and to act on it.
This work goes in a couple of different directions, in my view. We’ve seen in polling of rank-and-file Democrats and progressives/liberals that they are happy with Hillary Clinton. As a Democrat and a liberal, I am less happy with Hillary Clinton, but who gives a shit, really. I state my case to people, but the case I and millions of others have made has been ineffective as a method of beating Hillary in the nomination fight, as Clinton’s approvals in polling have stayed in the high 70th percentiles. That is the cause of Clinton’s pending win here, not the DNC or Wall Street or pick your dark conspirational cause.
While the Democratic Party and its leaders are and always have been an imperfect vehicle to drive the progressive cause, it is by far the best hope we have to gain the changes we want. And when some here and elsewhere claim, for example, that the Democratic Party has become much more conservative when that is not true and can be shown empirically to be untrue, I worry about the collective effect that can have on the voters. I worry particularly about the annihilative cynicism that untold millions of voters have decided to immerse themselves in, immune from persuasion, unwilling to participate.
Most of these people are not stupid, but we, and in this “we” I am not talking about the Democratic Party but we among the approximately 30% of Americans who consistently believe the country’s policies are too far to the right, have done an extraordinarily poor job in helping our fellow citizens understand that we can achieve better governance at the Federal, State and local levels. We need to add to our numbers to win elections consistently; we are not in the majority.
Among the ways we have collectively done a very poor job is by helping the oligarchs and the mainstream media misinform the millions of Americans who should be on our electoral side but are not. The billionaires are having much success making Americans believe that liberal policies are not their path to a better life. When liberals/progressives viciously attack elected officials and candidates who are on the left side of the political fight, often in ways which disparage the motivations and character of our candidates and leaders, it encourages voters who are inclined to be on our side to disengage from voting or making a well-informed vote.
When progressives claim that, say, Barack Obama is a bad or mediocre President, when in reality his record is better than almost every other Executive in the last century, they help the Koch Brothers. When a relatively well-informed Frog Ponder says, as one did recently, that I shouldn’t be surprised to find that many liberals are unhappy with 90% or more of Congressional Democrats, I have to marvel at the self-sabotage that view creates. First, that community member said they were unsure if they would vote in November, thus representing a plan which would make it more likely we would be victimized by a President Trump. But, if we were to accept this view, even if Sanders had become President, with less than 5% of Congress worthy of Bernie’s cause he would have been an unsuccessful President and the liberal project will be seen by the American public to have failed.
I disagree with this claim; I think the vast majority of the Democratic Congressional Caucusmembers would be worthy of moving Sanders’ agenda if they were given governing majorities. But if, by this claim, 90% of Democrats aren’t even worthy of supporting in their re-election campaigns we’ll never get majorities, much less governing ones.
But Bernie will not be President, because the voters have not been there for him. My view of the best next steps for our movement is to talk to the millions of voters who are ready to vote for more progressive policies but failed to vote in the primaries and caucuses, turn them out in November, and then keep them engaged and fighting for better government throughout Clinton’s term while being careful to keep them from becoming so cynical that they drop out, and from becoming so corrosive in their activism that they are ineffective as coalition partners.
Why are US third parties always so inept? I don’t think Ms. Stein is helping to clean up and/or restore the reputation of the Green Party. It’s HER party now and she wants the same thing as HRC wants from the Sanders’ campaign, his supporters/voters and their money.
Since Bernie drowned in New York and washed up on the beach in Pennsylvania, the assumption is that the wheels have come off and the voters and donors are up for grabs. You ignore the effort that Hillary of all people is making to get the voters and donations. Or do you assume that they are hers by divine right as the presumptive nominee? Why shouldn’t Jill Stein try to get them? Don’t care for her myself for three reasons:
Bit of miscommunication here. I was only referring to formal third parties and not the Sanders’ campaign. While he most definitely has always represented a faction of the Democratic party, that faction has never been well defined within the party and has been under assault from various other intra- and inter-party factions like seemingly forever. Plus, it has more in common with old-line traditional Republicans (think Lincoln Chafee) than it does with various factions within the Democratic party. Thus, on the IWR, legal equality for minorities, and legalization of marijuana, Sanders and Chafee were on the same side; whereas, the DINOs, Clintons, and so-called Dem “moderates” fell almost exclusively on the other side unless the politician was significantly beholden to an identifiable local status faction. An example on that last point. Dianne Feinstein had no choice but to be pro-LBGT rights, but otherwise, pro-war and pro-corporations.
Lots of factors and factions have come into play during the course of Sanders’ political career. Vermont is an interesting odd duck. With the exception of 1964, the GOP presidential nominee always carried the state in the 20th century until 1992 (and Leahy is still the only Democratic Senator that has ever been elected in VT). He appeals to both traditional (populist) Republicans and FDR Democrats that later embraced civil rights. By 1980 was there only one way, as an IND, to knit that together in a general election? Was his calculation the same in 1988 in his first statewide general election or was he a personal non grata within the ranks of the weak VT Democratic party? Would be interesting to know the answer to that question, but it does seem to me that as an IND he pushed the VT Democratic Party to the left.
Sorry, got side-tracked and didn’t respond to your main point. Agree with you about Jill Stein. While it’s an accomplishment for the Green Party to have gotten ballot access for Presidential elections, the party still doesn’t have but a few elected officials and they haven’t proved viable in moving up even to state legislative positions as a Green Party candidate. Thus, when nominating a Presidential candidate, they end up with a vanity type candidate and that IMO has hurt more than helped the reputation of the party even if the candidates are as qualified or more qualified than a Trump or Perot.
Hell, I have more Greens to vote for in Texas than Dems, I believe.
But do any of them win?
Nope. But they bother to recruit a candidate.
Beats trying to win with nothing. But that alone falls miles short of being a plan.
I have to disagree. Nothing can make the neo-cons look good, and if anything, Trump is doing a more effective job of discomfiting the neo-cons than mainstream dems ever did.
The think with Trump is, no one in the world will take him seriously, other than a few sheiks and despots who admire money. This will greatly discomfit the wannabee neo-cons in eastern Europe and the Blairite rump in the UK. Everyone elae will just laugh.
When US foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster for so long, having a total incompetent in charge with zero interest in foreign policy can actually be a good thing. The only problem is that agencies like the CIA will run amok because they will be able to play him for a fool every time.
Yes, when it comes to US FP, there’s always a nasty fly in the ointment.
Firstly, as neo-conservatives have noticed, Trump’s success and startling foreign policy pronouncements have smothered their aspirations unceremoniously with a pillow. It’s over for them and the only argument is when they can reasonably expect to come in from the cold, if ever. The rest of the party is weary of defending Bush and Iraq and is relieved to have someone to blame. Watch and see. It’s now kryptonite for them; we just don’t know its half-life.
Secondly, anyone familiar with the ‘madman theory‘ of nuclear brinksmanship will be having a quiet chuckle over Trump’s foreign policy stances (well, those living in the Southern Hemisphere, perhaps). It is springtime for the ‘unintended consequences‘ school of geopolitical history. Hang on to your hats in this event. My opinion of Putin, for example, is that he’s susceptible to ‘great man’ posturing; perhaps Trump will get in his head more than some other adversary. They are both cartoon characters.
Of course, this all assumes Trump becomes Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the United States and leader of the free world. Which still seems a stretch but arguably shorter odds than, say, a year ago.
I expect they will quietly step next door for the present.