Andrew Bacevich, former Army colonel turned professor (America’s War for the Greater Middle East), enjoys some shadenfreude at the expense of two former Bush neo-cons*. In a recent podcast, Max Boot and Eliot Cohen. Both are #neverTrumpers who are dismayed at the current occupant’s ascent. During the discussion they described him variously was erratic and unpredictable,” “blustery,” “terrifying” (twice), “reckless,” “appalling,” “ignorant,” and “dangerous”; Boot adds ““Every day I wake up, I’m outraged by something that Trump has done.” (no arguments here).
Asking by moderator Susan Glasser to account for his rise, both cited the pervasive bigotry within the rank-and-file of the Republican Party. But when Glasser asked if ‘popular unhappiness with the recent course of U.S. foreign policy have contributed to Trump becoming president?’, both Boot and Cohen drew a blank; Cohen said that might be the subject for a “separate podcast”.
Says Bacevich, “While no single factor explains why Trump won the presidency, it would surely be a mistake to exclude foreign policy.” Trump certainly walked a different line than ‘the militant McCain and “no apology” Romney. By (falsely) distancing himself him from the Iraq War and steering clear of conflicts in the Ukraine, he appealed to the isolationist strand in the GOP base, which is not at ease with Bush-style adventurism. . But his threats to build walls and bully China appealed to those same voters ingrained Jacksonian pugnacity.
Trump inadvertently managed to thread the needle, appealing to the latter (MAGA) while ridiculing the former the latter, most notably with his primary hit job on JEB! Bush. Trump is either more savvy than often credited (skeptical) or by instinct and chance (more likely) hit on a winning formulae.
At the end of his column, Bacevich also hints that this formulae might be one reason that the Democratic ticket did not succeed, despite Trump’s manifold disqualifications. The ticket’s Wilsonain leanings, including support for the Iraq War (for some, not ‘then’ but still ‘now’) and ongoing interventions and, until late in the game, globalist treaties left the ticket with the kind of vulnerability Bush experienced in the primary. Pres Obama succeeded in part because he was skeptical of the foreign policy establishment; “no apology” proved a non-starter. Unfortunately, in 2016, the pros were back in charge.