Institutionalizing Trumpism

Trump's long term legacy may be undermining the credibility of the United States as an international partner.

Donald Trump is institutionalizing his approach to global affairs - but not in the way you might think.

One way to institutionalize change is to change personnel. But civil service protections and a lack of qualified replacements make this impossible for Republicans in the federal government. This is a point Chris Rufo made explicitly.

Another way is to terminate programs and change priorities. Trump is doing that. But for the most part, these changes won’t be durable. Most of his changes could be readily reversed by a subsequent Democratic administration. Things like terminating most of USAID may permanently disrupt some structures and programs, but very similar programs could be brought back under a Democratic or even establishment Republican President. Similarly, expect a comeback in the Department of Education and other departments.

Trump’s most enduring institutionalization of his ideas will not come from these traditional approaches, but from his discrediting of the United States as a trustworthy international partner.

Institutional credibility matters. Indiana got a new governor this January, former US Senator Mike Braun. Since he took office, the state has announced a number of economic incentive grants for business expansion. Some of the more Tea Party type people in the state have complained about a number of these.

But the majority of the announced projects in the state this year were probably in the pipeline before Braun took office. Maybe he isn’t that big a fan of some of them either.

But as a businessman, Gov. Braun knows something very important: risk and uncertainty are kryptonite to investment. If he pulled the plug on a bunch of deals his predecessor had been working on, what would that do to Indiana’s reputation as a place to invest? Does a business want to go to a place where its deal could get torn up any time there is an election?

While he might call a halt to some deal if he thought it was necessary to do so, Gov. Braun, like most other state and local executives of both parties, wants to make sure that the market does not start applying a “political risk discount” to doing business in his state. He’s likely to honor his predecessor’s pipeline of at least advanced deals unless there’s a very strong reason not to.

Anytime an institution changes its mind or reverses course, this makes it appear more unstable and riskier to do business with or rely on. A college that starts cancelling speakers or rescinding job offers is going to start making people think twice before signing a deal with them, for example.

Now, some colleges or institutions are so prestigious that they can get away with abusing people, and still have a line outside their door. But this sort of thing has an effect.

Ordinarily, those running an institution should be seeking to steward its credibility and integrity. I even wrote a post on how to do this.

Newsletter #49: Defending Institutional Integrity

Now, all too many leaders have squandered their institutional credibility. But as the incumbent authorities, they in theory should have wanted to preserve it.

Trump is in a different situation. Though he’s the President, there was a bi-partisan consensus on many topics such as immigration, trade, and foreign policy contrary to his positions. Many people of both parties remain deeply hostile to Trump’s agenda, as does the bulk of the federal bureaucracy. They would certainly reverse course as quickly as possible immediately upon retaking power, and not allow any norms or even legal niceties to stand in the way.

Unlike, say, the generational ownership of the New York Times, Trump’s personal hold on presidential power is fleeting. This produces a different incentive structure.

In this scenario, maybe the most effective way for Trump to make his policy legacy enduring is to degrade the credibility of the United States as a partner. That way even if his opponents win in 2028, other countries will not go back to viewing the US as a trustworthy partner or ally to the same extent and in the same manner they did before.

Trump’s approach to economic and foreign policy, where he takes actions like imposing steep tariffs on friendly nations like Canada, demanding Denmark cede sovereignty over Greenland to the US, raising questions about NATO and US support for Ukraine, and, depending on the day, seeming willing to cut deals with Vladimir Putin all combine to raise questions about what had been the fundamental assumed order of the Western world.

Stewart Patrick at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace wrote earlier this year:

Just two months into his second presidency, Donald Trump is revolutionizing U.S. foreign policy. His policies will upend world order by destabilizing and ultimately destroying established institutions and patterns of international cooperation…In its scope and speed, this wholesale reorientation in U.S. foreign policy has few precedents in American history outside responses to surprise attacks such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11…This revolution in U.S. foreign policy is reverberating globally. Even long-standing U.S. allies are stunned by the speed of the administration’s about-face, from its embrace of authoritarian Russia to its snubbing of democratic allies to its dismantling of foreign aid.

Former Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Richard C. Longworth, in a piece sharply critical of Trump, recognizes that nevertheless he is a type of “great man” with the potential to unwind the existing global order.

I’d argue that a great leader is one who, by sheer force of intellect or will, shapes the history of his time. Most leaders merely react to the events of their day or cope with crises, big and small, or try to make progress bit by bit, happy to leave their societies a little bit better than they found them. In this sense, history shapes their legacies by limiting what they can do. If they keep us out of war or depression or civil strife, that’s no bad legacy.

This modest competence doesn’t satisfy the great man, not at all. He wants to dominate history and change the world. Propelled by ideology or a sheer lust for power, he intends to break the rules of society and uproot the social order he inherited.

Trump’s mercurial personality, adverse actions against US allies, and his questioning or unraveling of many agreements or international relationships may become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy as other countries decide the US is no longer a country that can be relied on due to political risk.

In fact, the worse he acts from the standpoint of these other countries, the more likely it is his revolution will have staying power.

As with Harvard and some other prestigious institutions, the US can get away with a lot because of who we are. Those of us who are Americans are essentially locked in. But it seems unlikely that other countries will ever go back to fully viewing the US as a partner the way they used to.

Foreign nations could write off Trump’s first term as an aberration. After all, nobody knew for certain what they were getting with him. And his win seemed like a fluke. But after his reelection, particularly in winning the popular vote, there’s no doubt that a large share of the American voters love Trump’s ideas. Even if a Democrat wins convincingly in 2028, the political risk from populist revolt is not going away and will have to be taken into account. Unlike in the early 1990s, the attempt to suppress America First populism has failed. The political risk discount will be here to stay.

I’m not going to argue that Trump’s policies are some kind of “4D chess” designed strategically to institutionalize his positions as outlined above. I’m merely saying there’s a kind of perverse logic to what he’s been doing. In his case, undermining institutional trustworthiness actually helps cement his legacy for the longer term. Love him or hate him, unlike with Trump’s first term, there may not be any going back to the status quo ante for our international relations.