Ahmed Charai
Donald Trump radically breaks with the traditional dogmas of American foreign policy, long known as the “postwar consensus.” In the wake of World War II, the thinking of a handful of Ivy League graduate schools was reflected and amplified through national and (U.S.-funded) international institutions. Politicians could emphasize one or another of its nostrums but never question the “consensus” itself or the institutions. The “consensus” became a kind of hymnal for American decisionmakers.
Trump 2.0, buoyed by a resounding electoral success and a political comeback story for the ages, dares to question both the consensus and the institutions. He points to its results and asks: Why would any citizen want more of the same?
This question, and the answer it implies, is what Trump’s supporters hail as “common sense” and what the president’s foes call “chaos.”
Trump’s political life story embodies this divide. His allies see him in almost messianic terms, a leader who rose from near-death experiences in the face of gunmen. Trump’s refusal to yield or plea bargain and his repeated survival against ambushes made him a hero to half of America. The open hostility of the Establishment, if anything, galvanizes his followers and fuels him to deconstruct a system that, according to him, has unjustly thwarted and unfairly hindered him.
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