For years, a particular story held sway—one that even its original tellers can scarcely defend today: that Donald Trump stood for an American withdrawal from world politics. “America First” was read as a renunciation of the United States’ role as global policeman, a turn toward isolationism, transactionalism, and retrenchment. The liberal commentariat projected onto Trump the disintegration of American order—and, in doing so, they confused rhetoric with strategy.
What is emerging now is not the retreat of American power but its reform. Trump is not abandoning power politics; rather, he is abandoning the universalist, neoconservative self-conception that had come to define it. The point is not less American power but a different kind.
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