How to square Trump's Syria attack with his campaign rhetoric

A lot of the news coverage of President Trump’s decision to attack a Syrian airfield focused on how this represented a huge about face on Syria policy, but I think there is a way to square the attack with his broader campaign rhetoric. Don’t get me wrong. I am well aware of Trump’s tweets from 2013 both warning President Obama against attacking Syria and demanding he get Congressional approval for any strike. I think those are fair game and the Washington Examiner has highlighted those tweets. There’s also no denying that Trump blasted the idea of the U.S. getting involved in more Middle Eastern wars throughout the campaign. But I also think that the popular emerging coming of age narrative of a man who feels the weight of the presidency on his shoulders, shocked into action by emotional images of gassed children, is a bit too limiting, and it neglects a common thread of Trumpism.

Going into the 2016 election, many Americans, especially many Republicans, were unhappy with the past 15 years of U.S. foreign policy. This group of people came to hate the prospect of perpetual war in the Middle East that they experienced during the Bush years, but they also viewed President Obama as a total wuss and wanted America to seem strong. The core Trump voters were not philisophically Rand Paul style non-interventionists. They were the type of people who cheered on “shock and awe” during the initial Iraq invasion, but didn’t like the idea of America spilling blood and treasure forever to keep Arabs from killing each other.