Trump and Cruz's 'Protectionism' Reveal a GOP National Security Identity in Tatters

LAS VE­GAS—The ex­changes that drew the most at­ten­tion in this week’s crisp and re­veal­ing Re­pub­lic­an pres­id­en­tial de­bate fea­tured Marco Ru­bio against Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush against Don­ald Trump, and the en­tire Re­pub­lic­an field against Pres­id­ent Obama’s na­tion­al se­cur­ity re­cord.

But none of those ex­changes may in­flu­ence the Re­pub­lic­an Party’s fu­ture as much as an­oth­er line of ar­gu­ment the de­bate dra­mat­ic­ally sharpened: the case from sev­er­al of the con­tenders against the for­eign policy leg­acy of George W. Bush and even Ron­ald Re­agan.

Some of that cri­tique came from a fa­mil­i­ar place: the liber­tari­an skep­ti­cism of en­gage­ment abroad and ag­gress­ive law en­force­ment at home ex­pressed by Rand Paul. More telling was the brist­ling but in­su­lar vis­ion of Amer­ica’s role in the world presen­ted most com­pre­hens­ively by Trump and largely re­in­forced by Cruz.

That ap­proach braids skep­ti­cism of for­eign mil­it­ary en­gage­ment, hos­til­ity to im­mig­ra­tion, and res­ist­ance to free trade—what op­pon­ents call isol­a­tion­ism, nativ­ism, and pro­tec­tion­ism.

See also: SPECIAL REPORT: When National Security and Nativism Collide

The em­brace of these ar­gu­ments by the two can­did­ates now lead­ing in na­tion­al polls is both a chal­lenge to the out­ward-look­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ism that has long dom­in­ated the GOP, and an­oth­er re­flec­tion of how the party’s in­creas­ing re­li­ance on work­ing-class white voters is destabil­iz­ing its in­tern­al de­bates.

For dec­ades, most Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers have taken the op­pos­ite views, sup­port­ing a ro­bust Amer­ic­an role abroad, ex­pans­ive im­mig­ra­tion, and free trade. In re­cent dec­ades, that in­ter­na­tion­al­ist Re­pub­lic­an con­sensus was most ar­dently ad­vanced by Re­agan and George W. Bush, each of whom backed leg­al­iz­a­tion for un­doc­u­mented im­mig­rants, ex­pan­ded trade, and a vi­brant Amer­ic­an role in lead­ing oth­er na­tions to­ward great­er free­dom.

Wide­spread dis­il­lu­sion­ment over Bush’s ef­forts to bring demo­cracy to Afgh­anistan and Ir­aq at the point of an Amer­ic­an gun cracked that con­sensus in­side the GOP after he left of­fice.

The first vol­leys came from liber­tari­ans such as Paul, who called for abandon­ing Bush’s re­cipe of ag­gress­ive in­ter­na­tion­al mil­it­ary in­ter­ven­tion and heightened do­mest­ic sur­veil­lance. But Re­pub­lic­an re­ceptiv­ity to the liber­tari­an ar­gu­ment against an over­reach­ing na­tion­al se­cur­ity state has eroded amid grow­ing con­cern over IS­IS and ter­ror­ism. That re­ced­ing tide is one reas­on Paul’s pres­id­en­tial cam­paign has sputtered.

But the liber­tari­an re­treat hasn’t re­stored the dom­in­ance of the in­ter­na­tion­al­ist con­sensus, es­pe­cially in the ideal­ist­ic, demo­cracy-cru­sad­ing form that the second Pres­id­ent Bush em­braced. In­stead, Trump, joined on most is­sues by Cruz, has re­vived a strain of con­ser­vat­ive “de­fens­ive na­tion­al­ism” that traces back through Patrick Buchanan’s 1990s pres­id­en­tial cam­paigns to the heart­land isol­a­tion­ists of the 1930s (whose ral­ly­ing cry Cruz channeled on Tues­day when he said he rep­res­en­ted an “Amer­ica First for­eign policy”).

Across the ter­rain of in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ment, im­mig­ra­tion, and trade, Trump presents an agenda that is mus­cu­lar and bel­li­ger­ent but ul­ti­mately de­fens­ive. Trump’s world­view rests on the be­lief that Amer­ica needs walls, both lit­er­al and meta­phor­ic­al, to pro­tect it from a du­pli­cit­ous and dan­ger­ous world. That de­fi­ant but dark per­spect­ive uni­fies his call to build a gi­ant bar­ri­er across the Mex­ic­an bor­der, tem­por­ar­ily ban Muslim vis­it­ors, im­pose “a pause” on leg­al im­mig­ra­tion, and re­ject free trade deals. It also in­fused the power­ful in­dict­ment he de­livered at the de­bate of the Middle East in­ter­ven­tions by Bush and Obama.

“In my opin­ion, we’ve spent $4 tril­lion try­ing to topple vari­ous people that frankly, if they were there and if we could’ve spent that $4 tril­lion … to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the oth­er prob­lems … we would’ve been a lot bet­ter off,” Trump de­clared. “The people that have been killed … and for what? It’s not like we had vic­tory.”

As Carly Fior­ina quickly ob­served, Trump there soun­ded like a Demo­crat. But his se­cur­ity vis­ion de­cis­ively de­parts from the Demo­crats’ in sup­port­ing an un­res­trained bomb­ing cam­paign against IS­IS, in­trus­ive sur­veil­lance at home (in­clud­ing at mosques), and, of course, in por­tray­ing both un­doc­u­mented Mex­ic­ans and Amer­ic­an Muslims as po­ten­tial se­cur­ity threats.

Cruz star­ted in the Sen­ate try­ing to bridge the GOP’s liber­tari­an and in­ter­na­tion­al­ist strains. Some of that sur­vives in his op­pos­i­tion to ex­pans­ive gov­ern­ment-sur­veil­lance powers. But mostly Cruz has drif­ted to­ward a Trump-like de­fens­ive na­tion­al­ism: He’s prom­ised massive bomb­ing against IS­IS while re­ject­ing oth­er in­ter­ven­tion in the Syr­i­an civil war, and aban­doned his earli­er sup­port for both free trade and leg­al­iz­ing un­doc­u­mented im­mig­rants.

While Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham force­fully de­fen­ded the in­ter­na­tion­al­ist leg­acy in Tues­day’s un­der­card de­bate (even de­clar­ing, “I miss George W. Bush”), neither Ru­bio nor Jeb Bush, the lead­ing top-tier in­ter­na­tion­al­ists, ar­tic­u­lated that per­spect­ive nearly as ef­fect­ively in the main event. Their hes­it­a­tion may re­flect a lar­ger de­bate com­ing from Re­pub­lic­ans over how much to ac­com­mod­ate the in­su­lar sen­ti­ments Trump has crys­tal­lized with­in their co­ali­tion, par­tic­u­larly among the blue-col­lar whites un­der­pin­ning his sup­port.

Peter Wehner, a shrewd former George W. Bush aide, says Trump’s de­fens­ive na­tion­al­ism “is a hos­tile in­va­sion of tra­di­tion­al Re­pub­lic­an and con­ser­vat­ive views [and] all-out as­sault on Re­agan-ism [that would] … des­troy the party.” But Jonath­an Last of the con­ser­vat­ive Weekly Stand­ard, a magazine that or­din­ar­ily cham­pi­ons Bush-style in­ter­ven­tion­ism, wrote after the de­bate that Re­pub­lic­ans must ad­apt “to the totally new co­ali­tion of voters” Trump has as­sembled “around a new set of na­tion­al­ist ideas.”

Like everything else in­volving Trump, that ad­apt­a­tion may prove a wrench­ing pro­cess for the GOP’s polit­ic­al and in­tel­lec­tu­al lead­ers.