Since Donald Trump’s election in November 2016 the most common critique of his foreign policy is that it undermines the liberal international order which has been the basis for prosperity and stability across much of the Western world for the past 70 years. Whether it be his scepticism towards the US alliance system in Europe and Asia, his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate change accords or his attacks on the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, President Trump is perceived by many as posing a direct threat to the system of global governance established by the United States in the wake of the Second World War.This criticism of Trump often conceals a more serious charge: that by undermining the liberal international order he is actually diluting the power of the American idea itself, the core set of beliefs surrounding its self-image and role in the world. Even worse is the suggestion that he is hastening the relative decline of the United States as a global power. Trump does not use the language of Pax Americana, the long-held idea that the United States is the keeper of global peace. This adds to the prevailing sense of unease among many in America and abroad. In his acceptance speech as the Republican nominee, Trump proclaimed that “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo”. In the second year of his presidency, that sentiment is hardening. That he regularly attacks the institutions and traditions of American democracy also challenges the very idea that the United States is a model for other societies to follow.Clearly the questioning of American power and purpose predates President Trump. Even before Trump’s election, Americans were undergoing a profound reappraisal of their world role. Speaking in late 2016, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that while the notion of American exceptionalism still exists, “Cold War American exceptionalism is gone” and the idea of the country as the shining city on the hill was weakening. He argued that “an appropriate adaptation is a principal task of the new administration”. In Kissinger’s view, the American public could still be convinced of this higher calling for the US role in the world, but they would require a different explanation from the one that was valid in the 1950s.Many of the leading foreign policy thinkers interviewed by the author agreed: if only the right message  and messenger  could be found, Americans might rally once more to the cause of an activist foreign policy.To date, Trump appears to reject the notion of a higher calling for the United States in international affairs. His administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy states that “the American way of life cannot be imposed upon others, nor is it the inevitable culmination of progress”. This America First approach has provoked alarm in some quarters. The slogan has been derided as “opting for insularity and smallness” instead of global leadership, and dismissed as “profoundly depressing and vulgar”For others, the America First approach strikes at the core of the American idea. Forces once seen as mutually reinforcing are portrayed by Trump to be inherently antagonistic. Robert Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of state and later World Bank president, has argued that in foreign policy Trump’s “pitting of American nationalism against the country’s internationalism” is driving a stake through the country’s very essence. “Most often”, Zoellick added, “US nationalism and internationalism have been in synchrony … and the mixture created America’s unique global leadership”. Former senior foreign policy adviser to Hillary Clinton, Jake Sullivan, sees the task now as figuring out “how to convince people that principled nationalism and internationalism are not incompatible”. This perceived fracturing of the American ethos is disturbing to an elite nurtured by long-held beliefs in US primacy.While this challenge to the tradition of American exceptionalism predates Donald Trump, he is giving it a new impetus. This Analysis examines briefly the tradition of American exceptionalism since Woodrow Wilson enunciated the country’s special calling during the First World War. Understanding the power of this ideology helps explain the unique nature of President Trump’s outlook, and what it means for US foreign policy.The Analysis then explores how, since assuming the presidency, Trump and his close advisers have sought to bring an understanding of America’s historical international role to his speeches and policies. America First has been anchored in a particular view of the American Revolution and an argument about why (to use the phrase of one of Trump’s most influential advisers) the liberal international order need not be “preserved in amber”. It looks at how the Iraq war has changed the interplay between domestic and foreign policy. Finally, it asks whether the American dream can be revived, especially for the country’s working and middle class, and with it the nation’s exceptionalism. Many believe the United States will, as it has in the past, renew and replenish its national purpose. However, that assumption in itself says much about the deep roots of America’s national identity and self-belief.

The uncomfortable reunion brought US President Donald Trump together in the same pew with past White House residents who have given him decidedly critical reviews.The late Bush was the de facto chair of the modern incarnation of the president's club, transcending contentious campaigns and party lines to bring together fractious personalities who share that rarified experience. But the staid group of Oval Office occupants has been disturbed since Donald Trump's election. And since his swearing-in, Trump has spurned most contact with his predecessors and they have snubbed him in return.

Donald Trump's crime can lead to impeachment.The U.S. Constitution states that the president can be removed from office after being both impeached and convicted for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”Treason is notoriously difficult to prove. For example, Aaron Burr – a former vice president – was caught stockpiling supplies and gathering a force to take over some of the lands that would eventually be obtained through the Louisiana Purchase. And yet, he still wasn’t convicted of treason.What exactly constitutes a “high crime” or “misdemeanor” has always been open to interpretation, but it is clear that partisan politics plays a roleTrump’s unorthodox strategies, his thin skin and harsh attacks on his critics (some would call it “bullying”), and his impulsivity, offer important lessons for leaders if we combine his tactics with research on what makes leaders successful and unsuccessful.First, we have to distinguish between obtaining a leadership position, and actually being successful in a leadership position.  The factors that get you into a leadership position are somewhat different than those that make you an effective leader. Look around at top-level leaders and they are predominantly White, male, and confident. These attributes helped Trump get elected. Being extroverted and seeming powerful also help in attaining leadership positions, again, Trump benefits. No surprises, but here’s where it gets interesting.Research on people’s “ideal” styles of leadership suggest that the majority of people’s ideal leader possesses intelligence, is hard-working, honest, and compassionate. Not surprisingly, these ideal leader qualities are those that are actually related to leader effectiveness. Trump doesn’t seem to be particularly strong in any of these areas.However, a subset of people view “strongman” leaders   those who are pushy, manipulative, conceited, and selfish  as ideal leaders to follow. Possessing these leadership qualities is labeled “tyrannical leadership” (although that term may be too strong). President Trump fits the strongman, tyrannical prototype. These type of leaders may be initially successful, but over time, followers’ support may diminish, as the leader bullies and overreaches. However, a core of loyal followers will remain. This seems to fit the bill for President Trump.A key element of effective leadership involves delegation of responsibilities to followers. This serves to both free up the leader to work on important projects, but also helps develop followers’ own leadership capacity. A truly good leader develops followers through giving them increased responsibilities and supporting their efforts. This is a cornerstone of transformational leadership.President Trump uses more of the “sink or swim” type of leadership, what is referred to as “management-by-exception.” This type of leader allows followers to take on responsibilities, but only intervenes to correct poor performance. In fact, Trump seems to allow subordinates a lot of leeway, but if they get out of line, or disagree with him, “You’re fired!”President Trump uses a whole host of psychological strategies to attract followers and keep them loyal. He is a master of using the well-known in-group, out-group bias. Singling out “enemies” who are used to solidify in-group support. Terrorists, immigrants, Muslims, and recently, Democrats, are identified by Trump as potential sources of threat to his in-group of followers. And, he has labeled the mainstream media as “enemies of the people.” Although this in-group, out-group bias builds support from Trump’s core followers, it makes it extremely difficult for the opposing groups to ever work constructively together. This causes ineffective leadership in the long run.Importantly, Trump puts himself at the center of the nation’s leadership (“I alone can fix our problems”). This is authoritarian leadership, and generally not effective in the long run. The reality is that leadership, particularly of a nation, is complex and takes the leader working in concert with the inner circle, and with others. In the long run, top-down, authoritarian leadership is less effective than shared, team leadership.Why Trump hasn’t been impeached   and likely won’t be.

In American history, if you could somehow organise the entire population into a single line, all 350 million people, ordered not by height or weight or age but by each citizen’s interest in the federal government, and Donald Trump loitered somewhere near one end of it, Max Stier would occupy the other.By the autumn of 2016, Stier might have been the American with the greatest understanding of how the US government worked. Oddly, for an American of his age and status, he had romanticised public service since he was a child. He had gone through Yale in the mid-80s and Stanford law school in the early 90s without ever being tempted by money or anything else. He thought the US government was the single most important and interesting institution in the history of the planet and could not imagine doing anything but working to improve it. A few years out of law school he had met a financier named Sam Heyman, who was as disturbed as Stier was by how uninterested talented young people were in government work. Stier persuaded Heyman to set aside $25m for him so that he might create an organisation to address the problem.Stier soon realised that to attract talented young people to government service, he would need to turn the government into a place that talented young people wanted to work. He would need to fix the US government. Partnership for Public Service, as Stier called his organisation, was not nearly as dull as its name. It trained civil servants to be business managers; it brokered new relationships across the federal government; it surveyed the federal workforce to identify specific management failures and success; and it lobbied Congress to fix deep structural problems. It was Stier who had persuaded Congress to pass the laws that made it so annoyingly difficult for Trump to avoid preparing to be president.Anyway, from the point of view of a smart, talented person trying to decide whether to work for the US government, the single most glaring defect was the absence of an upside. The jobs were not well-paid compared with their equivalents in the private sector. And the only time government employees were recognised was if they screwed up  in which case they often became the wrong kind of famous. In 2002, Stier created an annual black tie, Oscars-like awards ceremony to celebrate people who had done extraordinary things in government.Every year the Sammies – as Stier called them, in honour of his original patron – attracted a few more celebrities and a bit more media attention. And every year, the list of achievements was mind-blowing. A guy in the energy department (Frazer Lockhart) organised the first successful cleanup of a nuclear weapons factory, in Rocky Flats, Colorado, and had brought it in 60 years early and $30bn under budget. A woman at the Federal Trade Commission  had built the Do Not Call Registry, which spared the entire country from trillions of irritating sales pitches. A National Institutes of Health researcher (Steven Rosenberg) had pioneered immunotherapy, which had successfully treated previously incurable cancers. There were hundreds of fantastically important success stories in the US government. They just never got told.It was first widely employed in World War II to describe the countries resisting the fascist states. In 1941, the internationalist, and strongly anti-fascist, Free World Association published a monthly magazine called Free World. During the conflict, Frank Capra directed a series of U.S. government propaganda movies, Why We Fight, designed to explain the campaign to the American people. One of the films quotes Hitler: “Two worlds are in conflict  two philosophies of life … one of these two worlds must break asunder.” With animations produced by Disney studios, Why We Fight depicted in stark black a Nazi-Japanese slave empire in Eurasia, and in white, a free Western Hemisphere.Yet from the start, the concept of a free world was ambiguous. After all, the epicenter of World War II was an apocalyptic clash between two totalitarian states: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Around three-quarters of German fatalities occurred at the hands of the USSR, whereas only one-quarter were killed by everyone else, including the United States, the British, the French, and other democratic states.  The idea of a free world peaked during the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. government depicted a Manichean struggle between a democratic alliance and a communist realm set on world domination. At a press conference in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “The reason we call it ‘free world’ is because each nation in it wants to remain independent under its own government and not under some dictatorial form of government.