TRUMP'S DRAMATIC CROSSROADS

WILL PROTECTIONISM OR DYNAMISM SHAPE THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?

- STEPHANIE SLADE

A POPULAR MEME depicts a road diverging. In one direction is a many-towered palace glistening in the sunshine. In the other is a crumbling castle beset by storm clouds and eerie purple lightning. The point of the image, known as “Dramatic Crossroads,” is not hard to apprehend: A single starting point can lead to very different outcomes depending on the path one chooses.

At the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, two unusually distinct possibilities await, and skirmishing has already begun between proponents of the two visions. Trump seems to find each appealing in its own way, so it’s hard to guess which path the new administration is more likely to take.

In a surprisingly thoughtful keynote speech at last summer’s National Conservatism Conference, Vivek Ramaswamy took a stab at clarifying the situation. The entrepreneur and onetime presidential candidate drew a distinction between the “national protectionist” and “national libertarian” wings of the ascendant American right. According to Ramaswamy, both options are nationalist in that they try to put America’s national interests ahead of other considerations. (This he contrasted with the “neoliberal” consensus of the 1990s and early 2000s, which supposedly prioritized economic growth at the expense of national security and national unity.) “I think it’s been decided, as obviously as it possibly can be, that America First is the future direction of the Republican Party,” he told me the day after his speech. “From where I sit, the most important debate for the country to have is the intra–Republican Party and even intra–America First debate” about how best to advance the American cause.