Trump knows how to rattle cages, without setting anyone free

I have a piece in today’s New York Times. It’s a contribution to the “Room for Debate” section. The question on the table: “Is Trump’s Foreign Policy Really That Unreasonable?”

Here’s a sneak preview of my reply:

Rather than dismiss Trump’s claims in his New York Times interview as “unreasonable,” we should take seriously two of them — less for what they say about him than what they reveal about his critics.

…

During the Bush years, we had a name for laptop bombardiers willing to fight America’s wars with other people’s blood. But liberals today don’t talk about that. When a high-level official in the Obama administration says, “We are ready to give our lives” in defense of Latvia, liberals don’t ask, “What do you mean ‘we’?”

So Trump poses a version of the question. Not because he cares about the poor or people of color — his focus is on who pays the bills — but because he knows how to rattle cages, without setting anyone free.

But go check out the whole thing over there.