Donald Trump must be judged by what he has promised. It is imperative to take him seriously and at his word: He believes what he says (at least temporarily). In politics, the 47th president of the United States is a man of conviction. Convinced of, and in love with, his own genius, he will strive to achieve as much as possible of what he sold in his campaign – whether it be for his actions at home or abroad.
It would be a mistake to imagine a calmer second Trump term, freed from his commitments of the past weeks once in the White House; or to imagine a 47th president with no ambition other than to enjoy the pleasure of contemplating himself in the role of the most powerful man on the planet.
Trump has been open about his goals. Let's start with foreign policy: He is against free trade; he is unilateralist (he doesn't like international organizations); he scorns the global South countries (the poor); he respects powerful autocrats (Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin); he hates the European Union (because it has a trade surplus with the US); he has never seemed to care about Russian expansionism, in Europe or elsewhere; he denies the effects of global warming; and, finally, he is indifferent to the nature of political regimes. The first choices he announced for his team's composition are compatible with this worldview.
Yet he also wants to change America from the inside. He intends to "fix" it. A remarkable interpreter of a majority of his fellow citizens, he knows the American people's mood. The polls have been saying the same thing for over 10 years: The country is headed in the wrong direction. Born a millionaire, a real estate development adventurer, a lover of glitz and glamour, who considers "winning" to be the highest human quality, Trump nonetheless had the right intuition about what the non-graduate middle class has been going through: A decline in their purchasing powern a regression in their social and professional status, the feeling of being scorned for their patriotic, religious and cultural convictions. Trump has been their spokesman.
The metamorphosis of a Trump-ified GOP
A talented showman, he exploited this electorate's rage. In the process, he has never hesitated to appeal to the darker side of the country's DNA (racism, sexism and violence). Along the way, he has finalized the transformation of the Republican Party, the Grand Old Party (GOP). No longer would it be the pro-globalization, pro-immigration party of economic elites, the proud bearer of American democratic missionarism. The Trumpified GOP is one of permanent denunciation of the elites, of hermetically-sealed borders, trade protectionism and withdrawal from world affairs.
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