The era of U.S. international leadership is over. How do I know? Because President Trump so decreed in his inaugural address. He put the world on notice: Henceforth, America will be looking out exclusively for No. 1.
Do the people, whose instrument Trump claims to be, share his vision of an insular America? We’ll see, but it’s hard to find a popular mandate for Trump’s retro-nationalism in the 2016 election results.
No doubt plenty of Trump voters respond favorably to his “America First” message, but the president seemed oblivious to the reality that he presides over a closely divided country and political system. After all, he was U.S. voters’ second choice for president, by a non-trivial margin of nearly 3 millions votes.
Polls on the eve of the inauguration found that he is the least-popular new president in memory (with an approval rating of just 45 percent) and a solid majority of Americans on Election Day said Trump is lacking in presidential temperament.
Continue reading at The Hill.
