It seems unlikely that Trump’s appointees will be driving the bus.
There’s been a goodly amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth in my corner of the world about some of President-elect Donald Trump’s recently announced appointments. Particular dismay has attended those of Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) to the position of national security advisor and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to the State Department. Both men have voiced hawkish—sometimes very hawkish—sentiments in the past, and the collective feeling among those who feel the United States is overexposed abroad is that these two appointments signify the triumph of zombie Bushism and the War Party.
Maybe. I remain unpersuaded. First, a bare political reality has gone unmentioned in these conversations: Rubio and Waltz both backed the once and future president early in the nomination race against Ron DeSantis, the popular governor of their own state. Rubio especially, as a focus of anti-Trump yearning in the ’16 race, could have added heft to the DeSantis insurgency; while I doubt this would have changed the outcome, it could very well have made the journey longer, more expensive, and more acrimonious, leaving the party weaker and less well-funded for the general election. Both men might reasonably expect favors in return. There are a limited number of jobs that are a promotion from a safe Senate seat and influential committee positions. The flip side is that able men who were not loyalists—to take the most prominent example, Elbridge Colby, who was associated with the DeSantis camp—have been shut out. This is just how politics works.
Second, Rubio has shown himself adaptable to the Trump-era line on a variety of policies. (You can read him on a variety of his evolved positions in this excellent little magazine, The American Conservative—well worth a subscription!) I tend to subscribe to the theory that it is in fact the president, Donald Trump, who will be calling the tune and his cabinet that will be dancing; I do not think Rubio will be doing much moonlighting as a warlord, nor do I think he is especially inclined to do so. The thrust of the campaign and early transition has been toward avoiding the establishmentarian frustration of the second-term agenda, as happened in the first term. In the words of the greatest political sage of the 19th century, Humpty-Dumpty, “The question is, which is to be master—that’s all.” I tend to think the master is Trump, not Rubio or Waltz, and that they have been selected in part because they will toe the line.
A final point worth considering is Trump’s long-standing affection for the rhetoric of deterrence, for putting on the scary mask and pulling faces. “Fire and fury,” his proudly displayed collection of generals, the occasional punitive barrage of ballistic missiles—this all is of a piece. While Trump has a proven record of avoiding wars, his technique has been to maintain a ferocious aspect. And that is a fairly classical diplomatic tactic; to have an avowed peacenik heading State or NSC is a liability, or at least undercuts a legitimate diplomatic tool, the threat of force.
This is not to say that I am especially infatuated with any of Trump’s appointments—to be infatuated with even a sympathetic politician is to invite sorrow and, worse, embarrassment. I share reservations about the men’s policy commitments. Further, Rubio has no executive experience, and running the Truman Building is a different and far more demanding task than running a Senate office or a presidential campaign. (For one thing, in theory, the staffers in a Senate office or a campaign are on your side.) But my fantasy cabinet has little chance of making it through a Senate confirmation process, and would tend to produce some very hurt feelings among powerful people who helped to put Donald Trump in the White House a second time. You have to dance with the ones that brung you.
The master craft to which Plato compares statesmanship is weaving—the artful combination of various individuals into a dynamic but cohesive whole. Trump the weaver has a box of particular threads, each with its particular virtues and vices; he has to bring them together into something resembling a functional government, at least if he is to deliver on his promises and secure a legacy. Not playing the game with supporters in your own party would be a bad start. If Rubio buffaloes us into another Asian land war, I will eat my words and humbly reply to every abusive email I receive with the simple phrase, “I was wrong.” But for now, I am not sweating the appointments frenzy—too much.
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