TRUMP TRACES NIXON’S PATH: President Trump. Now More Than Ever?

Most presidents want to start with a bang. Donald Trump is looking to outdo them all. Over the weekend, the administration made important progress in the Western Hemisphere, bringing hostages back from Venezuela and driving Panama out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. On Monday, Mexico and Canada barely avoided hefty tariffs by launching new border security initiatives. Trump then sent Elon Musk to launch a hostile takeover of the United States Agency for International Development, restarted the maximum pressure campaign on Iran, and, flanked by Benjamin Netanyahu, announced his plan to seize and rebuild Gaza.

Not for the first time, Trump has astonished and confused friends and foes alike. Just weeks ago he denounced the Biden administration for giving “unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders.” Now, he is talking about making Canada the 51st state and adding Gaza, Greenland, and the Panama Canal to America’s overseas possessions. America seems to be contracting its international commitments while also expanding.

Trump is not, however, the first president to befuddle observers by talking about retrenchment and acting boldly: Although they hail from the opposite sides of the country and grew up in very different circumstances, Trump is walking in Richard Nixon’s path.

Except that Watergate was cooked up by left after Nixon’s 49-state reelection sweep in 1972. In contrast, Democrats threw everything they could at Trump during his first four years in office – and his four years out of office. To mix gaming metaphors here, in badly overplaying their hand, he’s clearly seen how their playbook works, and in his whirlwind first two weeks in office, is reacting accordingly.

Question: like Nixon, when will Trump begin to garner the proverbial “strange new respect” from the left who once professed to despise him?