There are two Donald Trumps. We liberals see an ignorant, sadistic, immoral, bigoted, authoritarian narcissist, as revealed by his own words. But there’s another Trump, who is invisible to liberals: a sensible conservative Trump. This is the Trump described by people who are themselves sensible conservatives. They think that we liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome should put aside what Trump says and concentrate on what he does. Some sensible conservatives are Financial Times readers, who have made this argument to me in thoughtful emails. I’ll set out their case, as I understand it.
Sensible conservatives often open with the disclaimer that they don’t like Trump. They wish he’d talk and post less. They explain that he says wild things in order to appeal beyond the sensible-conservative base to the wider field of Maga types. He’s just doing marketing, one entrepreneur told me.
Sensible conservatives describe a smart Trump whose vulgar words disguise effective policies. Take, for instance, his pressure on European states to fund their own defence. We liberals fixate on his outrageous threat to “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to recalcitrant Europeans. But sensible conservatives explain that he’s the first US president to achieve the long-standing American goal of getting Europeans to raise defence spending. (Liberals would argue that Vladimir Putin did rather more to achieve that, by invading Ukraine.) Sensible conservatives add that Trump was tough enough on Putin as to be the only recent American president not to experience a Russian invasion. In their view, to misquote Theodore Roosevelt, Trump speaks loudly and carries a big stick.