Building a Better Trump Administration
Two think tanks vie for status as Trump's White House-in-waiting.
I’m writing to share my latest piece for NYTimes opinion, which explores competing initiatives from the Heritage Foundation and the America First Policy Institute to staff the next Trump White House — as well as the growing tension between these rival cliques of Trumpworld. (The piece was published before Trump won the Iowa caucus on Monday; its arguments have only become more relevant.)
Both initiatives aim to avoid the acrimony, dysfunction, and back-stabbing that characterized Trump’s first term. But doing so requires balancing two assets that are only sometimes complementary in Washington — and which Trump himself displays little aptitude for distinguishing — loyalty and competence. Trump was notorious for favoring his most obsequious staffers, blithely firing anyone who challenged him, and making personnel and policy decisions in consultation with his television. The smoothly humming executive machine envisioned by D.C.’s conservative eggheads will depend, most of all, on Trump’s buy-in, on his acquiescence to a West Wing operation that places the administration’s goals above his erratic ego. (A tall order.) Though they are loath to admit it — for fear of dooming the effort — the architects of these initiatives aim to preemptively contain Mr. Trump’s worst impulses: his capriciousness, his disdain for process and detail, his weakness for sycophancy.
In my view, there is an inherent tension between the conservative egghead vision of executive rationality — of Trumpism without the chaos — and Trump’s preference for a highly personal, instinctual, and filial approach to governance. Trump doesn’t want to be contained; he wants to be obeyed. (And an underling proves his loyalty best by obeying an order that doesn’t make sense.)
Relying on a typology from Max Weber, my piece argues that conservatives are attempting to rationalize Trump’s “patrimonial” and “charismatic” governing styles — his tendency to run his executive branch more like a mafia boss and/or king than like a president — with the necessities of governing a modern bureaucracy.
Is this attempted reconciliation likely to succeed? You’ll have to read my piece, to find out. Suffice it to say, I think there’s a lot more going on under the hood of these various 2025 transition efforts than has been reported elsewhere.
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