Deep State Supporters Fear

Deep State Supporters Fear This Senator Is Advising Trump by EN-AB

03-01-19 03:01:00, 

The Blob is freaking out that Rand Paul is helping Trump keep his campaign promises on war

“Welcome to the world of President Rand Paul,” blared the headline at The WashingtonPost. In the piece that followed, columnist Josh Rogin took President Donald Trump to task for reportedly listening to the Kentucky senator too much.

“Several U.S. officials and people who have spoken directly to Trump since his Syria decision tell me they believe that Paul’s frequent phone conversations with Trump, wholly outside the policy process, are having an outsize influence on the president’s recent foreign policy decisions,” Rogin writes. “Officials told me that, throughout the national security bureaucracy, everyone is aware that Paul’s voice is one to which the president is paying increasing attention.”

“The existing concern over Paul’s influence on Russia policy has now boiled over with respect to Syria,” Rogin worries. He also warns, “In the run-up to 2020, Trump should realize that most Republicans—and most Americans—favor a robust U.S. foreign policy.”

This is Washington groupthink disguised as mainstream consensus. Polling this year has showed that most Americans are opposed to “robust” endless wars. Trump shouldn’t fear Republicans becoming disenchanted with his recent foreign policy decisions: according to a recent Morning Consult poll, the president’s support within his party remains sky high.

The idea that promoting a more restrained foreign policy is somehow a political liability reflects more what elites think voters should believe, not what they necessarily believe.

But why let reality get in the way of a good Beltway narrative? “Ideally, Trump will soon realize that adopting Paul’s vision for the future of U.S. foreign policy is not only dangerous for our national security but bad politics as well,” Rogin insists.

Is this even remotely true given what we know about America’s recent foreign policy and political history?

That Trump has now roundly bucked the advice of virtually all of his foreign policy advisors—so much so that his secretary of defense resigned in protest—is certainly unprecedented in modern American politics.

That’s the point.

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