OPINION:
The past few years have been filled with non-stop political drama, most of it originating — or at least “spun” — out of Washington, D.C. This same kind of drama was what caused the major political upset of 2016, the election of outsider Donald Trump and his war on the “swamp.”
This has not gone without substantial ironies, most of which have resulted in painful lessons learned by the GOP and the 75 million who voted for President Trump’s reelection. We must also include Mr. Trump in this general category — as some of these lessons learned had to be both surprises and disappointments for him as well.
Here are some of the main ironies — while a few have resulted in lessons learned, most have not:
• Mr. Trump has never been forgiven by the GOP — nor will he ever be — for his criticisms of the Iraq War as a strategic response to 9/11, even though he was/is correct
Perhaps candidate Trump didn’t realize — or no one told him — that it might not be a good idea to criticize the hugely expensive ($7 trillion to $11 trillion) and mistaken policy decision “we” made by going back into Iraq in 2003. This was based on a hugely erroneous CIA determination that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program as part of an even larger and pervasive “WMD Program.”
This erroneous determination was called a “slam dunk” by GWB’s CIA Director [a Clinton holdover] and was advocated in the U.N. by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell — something Mr. Powell has tried to “walk back” ever since, and with his support of Barack Obama in the 2008 election and vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
And going into Iraq and staying there for way too many years was wrong — dead wrong to the extent of nearly 5,000 U.S. troops killed and the wounding of 32,000 more. Yet, and before the 2016 election, Mr. Trump was roundly criticized by the GOP’s Washington elite and the so-called neocons — and was also not supported by GWB nor most seniors in the past GWB administration. Was it that Mr. Trump didn’t understand that no one — absolutely nobody — in Washington takes blame for anything that goes wrong? Perhaps.
However, Mr. Trump’s election in 2016 was also a huge public rejection of “foreign wars” of most all kinds, as well as a “grassroots” endorsement of Mr. Trump’s view of Washington as “the swamp.” And after the election the economy boomed and Mr. Trump’s popularity increased significantly.
• Mr. Trump’s choices for many senior officials were fundamentally flawed.
If one looks at who Mr. Trump initially selected for his key staff and cabinet positions, one also wonders what dynamics were going on at/in the White House — and how/why Mr. Trump selected who he did, especially in the national security, foreign policy and intelligence area of expertise.
Also, many of the supporting staffers in these key areas [that Mr. Trump may not have selected] came from Senate and House congressional staffs, most of which had no experience in the executive branch, let alone at senior levels. These were mostly failures waiting to happen — and they did. Add this to the fact that Mr. Trump kept way too many “holdovers” on the National Security Council staff and it was no surprise that the White House was rife with leakers.
These dynamics are perhaps explainable by the tremendously disorganized Trump campaign organization that materialized for the 2016 election — there certainly was no “organization” about it in the national security, foreign policy and intelligence areas, nor were there identified leaderships there.
Those who identified themselves as such had mostly never served at senior levels, nor did they stay around for long — sometimes only a matter of days. What has persisted — from the early days of the Trump campaign — is the presence of relatively junior “door keepers” who control access to senior leadership, while themselves lacking significant expertise or experience.
There have been some exceptions, but very few: Mike Pompeo has done the complex job as secretary of State as it should be done, and has been a rare talent in the Trump administration in the area of foreign affairs, national security or intelligence. Another very positive exception is John Ratcliffe, who has excelled as DNI. Unfortunately, the Pentagon remains mostly in disarray with no clear civilian leadership example of the likes of Cap Weinberger, Donald Rumsfeld or Harold Brown.
• Had COVID-19 not happened, Mr. Trump — even with the baggage noted above — would have been reelected in a landslide.
There seems little debate about this reality, all of which has hatched conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory. Notwithstanding this, our media facilitated sustained coverage of the pandemic that focused blame on the Trump administration and ignored coverage of events that clearly faulted state and local officials. Perhaps the most dramatic example being the many thousands of seniors killed by the virus in New York nursing homes.
Where do we go from here? Seventy-five million people voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 — 10 million more than voted for him in 2016. This is not just a “sizable minority” but a huge portion of American political influence that will continue to support our free enterprise system and oppose socialistic ideas that increase government involvement in our lives. Donald Trump was not a flash in the political pan and his many economic successes will not be forgotten. Instead, they will be the standard by which any new administration will be compared.
• Daniel Gallington served in a series of senior national security policy, intelligence and arms control positions.
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