Can Trumpism Survive a Trump Administration?

From the Bush family to Paul Ryan, the Iraq war to entitlement reform, Trump arrayed himself against the personalities and policies of the Republican Party

.. But his revolution was so sudden and sweeping that it raced ahead of itself, capturing the White House without having any of the plans and personnel and foot soldiers that actually operationalizing Trumpism would require.

.. were the president-elect a shrewd judge of ideology, it might be possible to come up with a foreign policy team — a mix of realist internationalists and war-weary Jacksonians, Jon Huntsmans and Jim Webbs — that matched reasonably well with his overarching vision.

.. But instead Trump is apparently considering Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton for the State Department — the former because of his campaign-trail loyalty, the latter (presumably) because of his connections to the Heritage Foundation, which volunteered itself for the transition process back when that process seemed unlikely to go anywhere. Both men do share a temperament with Trump — combative, adversarial, sometimes bullying. But neither is particularly Trumpist when it comes to the actual details of foreign policy; indeed, both are embodiments of the full-spectrum hawkishness that the businessman-candidate often campaigned against.

.. Bolton, for instance, took to the pages of this newspaper last fall to dismiss Trump’s idea of “an American-Russian coalition against ISIS” as both “undesirable” and “glib.

.. it’s also quite possible that if he appoints conventional full-spectrum hawks to key posts, full-spectrum hawkishness is what we’ll get

.. this is explicitly what a lot of people in the Republican Party are hoping for

.. Perhaps this means there will be a persistent division between rhetoric and policy, in which Trump continues to publicly sell himself as a new sort of nationalist — and his populist allies try to go mainstream and win converts and become the ideological cadres that Trumpism now lacks — even as the gears of government grind in the grooves that Mike Pence and Ryan and the conservative movement prefer.

Why Rudy Giuliani Shouldn’t Be Secretary of State

it’s worth reflecting on the enormous foreign policy challenges the incoming administration will face.

The Trump administration will have to create a new Syria policy, which will require deft understanding of Russia’s intentions and capabilities in the Middle East, and careful management of a complex coalition of allies fighting the Islamic State. The Trump White House will most likely be tested early by North Korea’s bellicose and nuclear-armed leader. Leaders across Europe will be watching to see whether the Trump administration is willing to let the Western military and diplomatic alliance erode, which would be a boon for Russia. Closer to home, the new White House will have to weigh the risks of turning Mr. Trump’s irresponsible blame-Mexico campaign rhetoric into policy, which would severely undermine national security by halting cooperation between the two governments on migration from Central America, law enforcement matters and counternarcotics programs.

.. Mr. Trump, who has no background in international affairs, would be wise to seek the counsel of former Republican secretaries of state about the demands of the job. Anyone offering sound advice would urge him to scrap plans to have Mr. Giuliani run the State Department.

Secretary of State Giuliani? He’s the Leading Choice, Trump Aides Say

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, is the leading contender to be secretary of state in the Trump administration

.. Mr. Giuliani, a loyal, often ferocious backer of Mr. Trump’s candidacy, would be a startling choice to be the nation’s chief diplomat – a relentless former federal prosecutor who has viewed foreign policy largely through the prism of the Sept. 11 attacks, which turned him into a national figure.

.. He delivered a speech on his behalf at the Republican National Convention in which he condemned President Obama, saying he had failed to protect Americans from “Islamic extremist terrorism.”

.. While Mr. Giuliani would lack the experience of the last two secretaries of state, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, both of whom concentrated on foreign affairs in the Senate, he claims a particular expertise in diagnosing and combating the scourge of Islamic militancy.

.. During a Republican primary debate in New Hampshire in 2008, Mr. Giuliani said: “I am the only one here who actually has had to face an Islamic terrorist attack. With regard to foreign policy, I’ve negotiated with governments when I was in the Justice Department. I worked on a task force on terrorism in the 1970s.”