In 2016, it was easy to understand why social conservatives held their noses and voted for the twice-divorced philanderer and pornographer who was reported to be outsourcing his judicial nominations to the Federalist Society. They were doing the best they could — though I think there was a better argument for staying home. Likewise, conservatives who would like to see the United States adopt a less belligerent foreign policy can be forgiven for choosing not to elect the architect of the adventure in Libya that has given us, among other things, a migration crisis that may well destroy European social democracy forever. Why not take a chance on a man who thought that his past support for the Iraq war was stupid enough to want to lie about it?
The difference between these two — hardly mutually exclusive — sets of priorities is that success is easier to assess in the former case. At the presidential level organized social conservatism means essentially one thing: appointing the right justices to the Supreme Court. When it comes to foreign affairs things are far more complicated. While Trump hasn’t exactly earned himself a place on next year’s shortlist for the LennonOno Grant for Peace, it is also the case that all of his supposed failures — bombing Assad’s forces in Syria, staying the course in Afghanistan, increasing border tensions with Russia — would have been pursued by his opponent. On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to imagine a Hillary Clinton presidency attempting, much less achieving, something like Trump’s remarkable if inconclusive summit with Kim Jong Un or breaking, even nominally, with the foreign policy establishment on the issue of Syria.
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