Trump’s Benchmark

The Soapbox // Gedalia Guttentag

It’s two weeks after the elections, and barring a judicial miracle or a 2024 comeback bid, there won’t be “four more years.” So it’s time to ask: What is President Trump’s legacy?

Start with foreign policy. Like it or not, Trump will go down as a revolutionary, having radically reshaped three of the US’s global relationships. He almost single-handedly created a bipartisan consensus that China must be challenged, and it’s hard to see Biden reverting to the status quo ante. Likewise, his cold shoulder of Europe has shaken up the Old World’s elites, who are now aware that Uncle Sam won’t foot the bill for their defense. And if Biden rejoins the Iran Deal, the new Gulf-Israel alignment might well grow stronger.

But however he’s remembered on foreign shores, perhaps Trump’s biggest legacy is at home, in the GOP. That’s because he’s redefined what an unapologetically conservative Republican administration means. Ironically, the man whom a majority of voters saw as a non-conservative, according to a 2016 Gallup poll, has set a new benchmark in conservative ambition for the Republican Party.

For decades, even as conservatives took power, they talked more of free trade and muscular foreign policy than about reversing liberal cultural inroads. But in the course of four years, Trump smashed the glass ceiling of previous religious legislation. At a pre-election rally last month, Vice President Mike Pence called Trump “the most pro-life president in history” — and with good reason.