The White House and the Republicans only recognize as true dangers those events or moments that threaten their party's hold on power, or which might discomfit the president and drive him to his phone in a desperate attempt to relieve his sense of narcissistic injury by firing someone. Warnings from the U.S. intelligence community about foreign attacks, or the sight of a Walmart soaked in blood, are merely public relations problems. A stray comment from one of the Fox and Friends morning lightweights, however, is a crisis that requires immediate executive action — or tweets.
Democrats are today's realists
To a foreign observer, American policy might not seem to have changed all that much over the years of alternating rule by Democrats and Republicans. All of them continued to agree on the basics of capitalism and constitutional order, whatever their other disagreements. But Republicans always staked out the hardest ground on national security, a principled position rooted in the natural conservative pessimism about the dangers of an anarchic world.
