The Sweet Spot: Isolationist Hawk

Donald Trump Nailed it in the Campaign.   The problem is that things come up.

Angry Dove

Donald Trump had the perfect political position in the campaign: He was an isolationist hawk, who sounded tough but opposed actual conflicts.   

Trump had a mix of policy and tone.   The policy was "America First."   Stay out of stupid wars.  Stay out of quagmires.  Don't engage in Syria on behalf of either side; let Russia do the dirty work.  Mind our own business.   Meanwhile Trump talked very tough.  In addition to angry denunciations of America's enemies, he voiced angry denunciations of Obama and Hillary Clinton and everyone in the bi-partisan establishment who supported engagement in the Middle East.

Worst of both worlds: a weak hawk

It fit the Trump brand of domination.  Meanwhile he pushed Hillary into the worst of both worlds.   She was the foreign policy hawk--which poisoned her with some dovish progressive left activists who stayed Bernie-pure and stayed home or voted for a third party--while he simultaneously described her as weak, near death, coughing, fainting, having no stamina, probably wilting away from Parkinsons or MS or old age or femininity.

Trump had the magic balance: the angry belligerent dove.  If a candidate is dovish and going to oppose wars on policy grounds then he or she needs to come across as a fighter, not a peacenik.   Trump is an attacker, a demander, an accuser, even in his demands that Obama do less rather than more.  It works.  Hawkish voters heard the tone; dovish voters saw the policy.   Win, win for Trump.   

A tough, tight general in uniform has the credibility to say dovish things that a professional peace advocate cannot.   Hillary had the worst of all worlds.  She is physically small, a woman, a former Secretary of State rather than a former Secretary of Defense, and her closing campaign comments were about nurturing children and families.  She was tone deaf to what was happening to her.  Lose, lose for Hillary.

Gentle Look, Relentless Hawk

(Lindsay Graham shows a less successful but alternative system: since he is doomed to look and sound like a soft spoken and delicate Southern flower--perceived to be homosexual by his constituents and mocked for his effeminacy by Jon Stewart--he works against type by being a relentless hawk on policy.  It isn't ideal, but it deals with what Graham has to work with.  He is tiny.)  

The problem with Trump's artful negotiation of message and policy is that it led him to be elected and now events take over.   He is safe for a while.  The history of American presidents and foreign quagmires is that the road into the tar pit is easy and one is surrounded by cheering.   Short wars with some sign of victory are very popular.  Long wars for unclear and complicated ends are very unpopular, made worse in Trump's case because  it counters his campaign policy.   For a brief while Trump can sell it as "flexibility" and he can appeal to the crisis of the "beautiful children."  

The clock is ticking on his popularity.

Governing

A premise of this blog is that Trump's campaign messaging was extraordinarily skillful.  He triumphed over both the liberal Democratic establishment and the Republican one.  His problem will be governing.  He did not create a new consensus; he destroyed an old one.   

If he ever gets a medical overhaul plan through, he will be hated for it.  The only tax plan that can pass a Republican Congress will punish the people who voted for Trump, and that fact will be evident.  Wars are expensive and tough- talking presidents find themselves in quagmires and long wars.  Serious enemies are not patsies.  They believe their causes are true and righteous and they soldier on.

There is lots of videotape of Trump asserting, with confidence and power, the opposite of the courses that governing is forcing on him.   The tar pit is this blog's recurring metaphor, with the problems of actual governing serving as the sticky trap.  He can be made to look like a liar or a con artist or incompetent.   The stories surrounding Trump are accumulating.


Still, Trump has a gift.  He may not be doomed.  Trump may escape the tar pit.   

Clear, Decisive, Angry

One of Trump's great skills is that he appears to believe what he says when he says it, and American voters may value certainty more than they value accuracy or consistency.  If Trump begins saying that people elected him so he could fix things in Syria and American soldiers are there in fulfillment of his campaign pledge, not only would Trump believe it but a great many Americans will as well. People don't believe the videotape.  They believe Trump.

It would not have been consistent with his stated policy, but it would have been consistent with his tone.  The words might be wrong, but the emotion would be right.  Another premise of this blog is that people don't really register the denoted literal meaning of language.  They hear and respond mostly to demeanor and conviction--the body language of politics.

If Trump tells voters that he always supported engagement in Syria then Trump may succeed in selling it, and people might decide that if Trump likes it, so do they.