What's missing is the importance of alliances. GDP of the US alone is more or less the same as China plus Russia. GDP of all NATO states plus Japan and Korea is more than twice as large. Destroying alliances has a cost; it must be hoped at least the great viziers of Trumpistan will realize that (the sultan himself won't).
Really great deep-dive into this topic. I’m curious though where potential national security personnel like Elbridge Colby or Marco Rubio fit in this quadrant? I’m assuming Colby would be a “prioritizer” while Rubio would be a “primacist”?
This is an excellent first cut at what's coming and how to start thinking about 2025 and forward. The 2x2 captures the dynamic very well. My sense is that the prioritizers will have the ball first and a lot turns on how well or poorly they deal with the actual reality on the ground.
Of course! It's the stupid quadrant that will have power under trump (kill CHIPS, million percent tariff on everything, foreign aid to Putin!). We're going to get belligerent blister and policy to rot American power, production, and innovation as quickly as possible..
I'm not so sure—although I cannot rule it out, every administration comes in with a big agenda and confronts reality. It's hard to see Arizona Republicans voting against CHIPS when TSMC has a large facility just outside of Phoenix (where I live), as well as that seems such a lower priority than all many other things the administration will have to deal with.
Have you watched the last eight years?! Arizona Republicans will vote to kill their own children with measles (RFK at HHS) and take away their own jobs if he starts demagoguing them and threatening a primary.
I can see you still have a lot of feelings to process about yesterday. So maybe circle back when you're feeling better.
But to answer your question, yes. Politicians are single minded seekers of reelection. And many of them know that the most Trumpian candidates lost in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Kari Lake just lost, "bigly" (to coin a phrase), for the second straight time. The reason many Republicans were cow towing to Trump these last eight years are the same reason I expect that they'll start to break their own way: eventually his influence will fade (as it has for Obama, Bush, and Clinton). Of course it never goes away, but eventually partisans start looking to the next race, the next king-maker, and the next election.
Ha. You're right. On the other hand, I can see you have your head in the sand about the real danger we're in. Trump has reawakened and grown the authoritarian/fascist streak in America. It used to be aimed at African-Americans. Now it's libs and foreigners. But it's always been there.
There is a clearly real chance trump and his devotees will succeed in turning the US into an electoral dictatorship a la Hungary. It's denial to pretend it means nothing that for the first time in US history 1/3 of the country, and all the leadership of a party that half the country votes for, believe elections they lose are illegitimate and it's morally right for them to ignore/reverse them if they can. We have no idea what the cadre of far right acolytes who are going to run the country with only supplicants and sympathetic cowards in congress will be able to accomplish in the next four years. Maybe it's only a 5-10% chance that was our last free presidential election, but it's a real chance there's never been before. Dark times.
My understanding has always been that a big chunk of the Restrainers are actually more extreme: That the US should just withdraw to its borders and stay out of world affairs almost completely. That would e.g. mean letting China & Russia do whatever they want (invading Eastern Europe, taking over Taiwan, trying to control Japan, etc.) as long as they don't directly attack the US. In the WWII example it would've meant letting Germany conquer all of Europe, as long as it leaves the US alone.
I hope that those folks are just a small powerless minority on Twitter, but I'm not sure.
What's missing is the importance of alliances. GDP of the US alone is more or less the same as China plus Russia. GDP of all NATO states plus Japan and Korea is more than twice as large. Destroying alliances has a cost; it must be hoped at least the great viziers of Trumpistan will realize that (the sultan himself won't).
Really great deep-dive into this topic. I’m curious though where potential national security personnel like Elbridge Colby or Marco Rubio fit in this quadrant? I’m assuming Colby would be a “prioritizer” while Rubio would be a “primacist”?
Seems right yes!
I track Rubio as an internationalist. See my follow up essay: https://scholars-stage.org/republican-debates-on-china-a-political-compass/
This is an excellent first cut at what's coming and how to start thinking about 2025 and forward. The 2x2 captures the dynamic very well. My sense is that the prioritizers will have the ball first and a lot turns on how well or poorly they deal with the actual reality on the ground.
Of course! It's the stupid quadrant that will have power under trump (kill CHIPS, million percent tariff on everything, foreign aid to Putin!). We're going to get belligerent blister and policy to rot American power, production, and innovation as quickly as possible..
I'm not so sure—although I cannot rule it out, every administration comes in with a big agenda and confronts reality. It's hard to see Arizona Republicans voting against CHIPS when TSMC has a large facility just outside of Phoenix (where I live), as well as that seems such a lower priority than all many other things the administration will have to deal with.
Have you watched the last eight years?! Arizona Republicans will vote to kill their own children with measles (RFK at HHS) and take away their own jobs if he starts demagoguing them and threatening a primary.
I can see you still have a lot of feelings to process about yesterday. So maybe circle back when you're feeling better.
But to answer your question, yes. Politicians are single minded seekers of reelection. And many of them know that the most Trumpian candidates lost in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Kari Lake just lost, "bigly" (to coin a phrase), for the second straight time. The reason many Republicans were cow towing to Trump these last eight years are the same reason I expect that they'll start to break their own way: eventually his influence will fade (as it has for Obama, Bush, and Clinton). Of course it never goes away, but eventually partisans start looking to the next race, the next king-maker, and the next election.
Ha. You're right. On the other hand, I can see you have your head in the sand about the real danger we're in. Trump has reawakened and grown the authoritarian/fascist streak in America. It used to be aimed at African-Americans. Now it's libs and foreigners. But it's always been there.
There is a clearly real chance trump and his devotees will succeed in turning the US into an electoral dictatorship a la Hungary. It's denial to pretend it means nothing that for the first time in US history 1/3 of the country, and all the leadership of a party that half the country votes for, believe elections they lose are illegitimate and it's morally right for them to ignore/reverse them if they can. We have no idea what the cadre of far right acolytes who are going to run the country with only supplicants and sympathetic cowards in congress will be able to accomplish in the next four years. Maybe it's only a 5-10% chance that was our last free presidential election, but it's a real chance there's never been before. Dark times.
My understanding has always been that a big chunk of the Restrainers are actually more extreme: That the US should just withdraw to its borders and stay out of world affairs almost completely. That would e.g. mean letting China & Russia do whatever they want (invading Eastern Europe, taking over Taiwan, trying to control Japan, etc.) as long as they don't directly attack the US. In the WWII example it would've meant letting Germany conquer all of Europe, as long as it leaves the US alone.
I hope that those folks are just a small powerless minority on Twitter, but I'm not sure.
Honestly just this post is worth my yearly subscription. And I've only read half of it.
thanks for the compliment!