2016 ELECTION/FOREIGN POLICY/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “After months of hugging dictators and dissing democrats, Donald Trump is now seen around the world as a deranged toddler—symbolized by the Trump ‘blimp baby’ that flew over Britain this summer and is now embarking on its own world tour. But beneath all the crazy talk that comes out of the president’s mouth (and Twitter feed), there may be reason to think that some of the ‘unpredictable’ policies he so relishes could work. Last fall, noting that 25 years of sanctions haven’t worked against North Korea, Trump decided to shake things up, threatening to ‘totally destroy’ that regime if it didn’t dismantle its nuclear threat. And lo, Kim Jong Un began talking—and reportedly dismantling a missile site (though he appears to be continuing work on new missiles, and the two sides are currently stalemated over further moves). As for Russia, yes, Trump said unpardonable and decidedly unpresidential things at the Helsinki summit in July. And there is little doubt Russia meddled criminally in the 2016 U.S. election. But Trump also might have had a point when he said, ‘I hold both countries responsible’ for current tensions, though the comment provoked howls of outrage on both sides of the aisle. Washington has been meddling in other countries’ democracies for a long time, and it might be useful to drop our self-righteousness and acknowledge, at least to ourselves, that one country’s ‘democracy promotion’ is another’s DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0.”
–Michael Hirsh, “Surprise! Trump’s Disruptive Foreign Policy Could Be Working,” Politico, September 5, 2018