There is a conflict at the heart of the incoming Trump administration’s political project. There are two.
The first centers on economic policy – or, more fundamentally, the role of government.
One camp, exemplified by Elon Musk and traditional big business, sees Trumpism as a celebration of individual grandeur and unfettered capitalism. The second camp, including economic nationalists and the crunchy hippie types of RFK Jr., believe that Trumpism has a mandate to try to change American society, including attacking the practices of big corporations that don’t fit their nationalist views.
The second centers on foreign policy—or, more fundamentally, America’s purpose in the world.
One camp, exemplified by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sees the United States as the world’s rightful leader, with not only the right but the obligation to assert its will around the world. Another camp, exemplified by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sees the United States as a more modest country whose interests are served by less involvement in other countries’ issues, such as the Ukraine war, but more violently involved when core American interests are at stake. bet
Of course, there are areas of overlap between these groups. Both sides of the role-government divide believe America would be better served by a mass deportation campaign; Both sides of foreign policy advocate aggressively confronting China and waging a global war against jihadist groups like ISIS.
Yet these overlaps are limited and partial points of convergence between deeply divided ideological currents. The real connective tissue between the various Trump 2.0 factions is the hatred of the cultural left and the “deep state” in Washington. The leftist counter-culture war has more or less become the central ideological tenet of the modern Republican Party.
On the campaign trail, it’s easy for Trump’s various allies to coalesce around this shared animosity. But in governing, the administration will be forced to make choices in areas where its leaders disagree at a fundamental level, leading not only to internal conflict, but potentially even policy chaos.
Trump explained the alliance’s contradictions
Every administration has internal disagreements. Usually, however, these disputes occur within a relatively narrow band: the political party they come from is mostly clear about what it stands for and why. For example, the Biden administration has generally agreed to more redistributive economic policies, even as some policy issues, such as how big the post-Covid stimulus should be, have been the subject of major internal debate.
In contrast, the Trump-led GOP is ideologically disengaged. Its nominal ideology is Trumpism, but Trumpism has little in the way of a defined ideological core. Its core principles, total personal loyalty to Trump and a general liberal nationalism, are flexible, acknowledging a wide band of different policy views on different issues.
In the first Trump administration, the key battle ended up being just how much respect the Trumpist sentiment deserved. You had Trump in the Oval Office, but he was surrounded by establishment figures like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Chief of Staff John Kelly, who saw their work as controlling his worst impulses.
The situation will be very different in the second Trump administration. Mattis and Kelly types have either been excommunicated from the party or forced to bend the knee The question now is not whether Trumpism is leading the party, but what Trumpism really stands for.
One way to think about the divide on this question is which part of the classic “Make America Great Again” slogan different camps emphasize: America or Greatness.
On domestic policy, the “greatness” side includes Kasturi, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the traditional Republican business elite. They see the attack on the “deep state” as, in part, a war against government red tape that stands in the way of progress, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. Trump, for them, is proof that a man left to his own devices can change the world. They aim to unleash similar spirits across the country and, coincidentally, advance their own business interests in the process.
In contrast, the “America” camp is more inclined to emphasize collective solutions to America’s collective problems.
Major proponents of mass deportations and across-the-board tariffs like Steven Miller and Peter Navarro are not free marketers almost by definition. J.D. Vance aims to rebuild America along more conservative Christian lines, including curbing the power of secular big business when he believes it threatens the organic unity of American society. RFK Jr. and the “Make Americans Healthy Again” movement don’t see the war on government as a campaign to shrink government, but rather to redirect their energies to issues they think are really important (vaccines, fluoridated water, and other such crank health concerns. ).
The foreign policy divide falls along similar lines.
People like Rubio and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz lead to “greatness.” They believe that the United States is destined to lead the world and should work to ensure that it remains securely atop the global power hierarchy. Challengers to the existing American-led system, such as Russia and especially China, must be aggressively countered and, if necessary, hostile dictatorships such as Iran must be brought into line by force. The Americas must be prioritized, Monroe-Doctrine style, in favor of far more aggressive policies toward Latin American left-wing dictatorships like Venezuela and Cuba.As Rubio did in Trump’s first term)
Other camps, including Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Selection Tulsi Gabbard, support a narrower form of nationalism. Although they believe in American military power, they care little about aggressively defending the existing political system. If Russia wants to annex parts of Ukraine, they suggest, that’s not really an American concern. The United States should instead kill its enemies, advance its narrowly defined interests, and protect its borders—up to and including Launching a war in Mexico to fight drug cartels and human traffickers.
I do not mean to say that these camps are fundamentally opposed. They are part of the same administration and share many of their boss’s key insights and enemies. They all agree on “Make America Great Again” as a slogan but disagree on which part of it should be emphasized.
In reality, this could lead to a whole host of predictable and significant conflicts within the administration.
When RFK Jr. moved on to plant new ones Regulatory barriers to pharmaceutical researchWill big pharma and biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy try to stop him?
When billionaires suggest financing an extension of Trump’s tax cuts By cutting the social safety netWill Christian populist JD Vance stand up for the meek?
When pushed for Marco Rubio Regime change in VenezuelaWill the alleged anti-imperialist Tulsi Gabbard try to bring him back?
None of these contradictions are hypothetical. Each is eminently predictable based on what the figures involved have done in the past and what they promise to do in the future. If left unresolved, they threaten to create a kind of policy dissonance, with different parts of the US government acting in direct conflict with each other, depending on who they answer to.
If and when Trump takes steps to address them, will he do so consistently? Will he say one thing in public and do another in private, as happened so often in his first term? Or will the resolution so consistently favor one group over the other that we can finally begin to say that Trumpism has a little more meat on its ideological bones?
There is only one honest answer: we don’t know. But we can be sure that the stakes are high for the Republican Party, the country, and perhaps the entire world.
This story was adapted from the On the Right newsletter. New versions drop every Wednesday. Sign up here.
