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President Trump is thinking about dispatching more troops to Afghanistan. Given his past insistence on withdrawing American forces, one might have expected this switcheroo to raise eyebrows in Washington and the media. Yet it hasn't.

It's viewed instead as another instance of Trump's deference to the generals in his administration. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster are backing the request for 3,000 to 5,000 more troops by the top American commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson.

It's a tiny increase by the standard of 2011, when more than 100,000 American soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan. Currently, there are only 8,500 U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan.

But Trump's contemplation of sending troops overseas is significant despite the small numbers. It's an example of his habit of reversing himself and taking a Republican position he had earlier attacked. Mere consideration of a buildup of any size, even if he nixes it, is a change.

Trump's populist and isolationist riffs have fueled fears he would shrink America's role as the world's superpower and defender of freedom, human rights, open sea lanes, and free markets. His kind words about Russian president Vladimir Putin added to the anxiety.

The opposite has happened. He's reversed President Obama's embrace of Iran and instead backs a Middle East alliance in opposition to the Iranians and their Russian allies. He ordered the bombing of Syria for using chemical weapons. He supports NATO after calling it "obsolete" in last year's campaign, though he made Europeans nervous when he didn't explicitly endorse the obligation of NATO countries to defend any member under attack.

"This is starting to look like a more conventional Republican foreign policy than campaign rhetoric suggested," columnist Michael Barone writes. Yes, it is.

There's more. We learn from Josh Rogin of the Washington Post that Trump told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March that he wouldn't get involved in the Ukraine crisis. Two months later, his administration, led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, is seeking to negotiate an agreement ending Russian interference in Ukraine.

On trade, killing the North American Free Trade Agreement was a staple of Trump's stump speech. But now that he has an opportunity to do so, he's balked. This came after he reversed himself on currency manipulation by China, claiming the Chinese have stopped their tinkering.

Back here, Trump was always close to Republican on taxes and spending. But he's grown closer. He and Republican congressional leaders are putting together a single plan for tax reform. They also agree on deep cuts in the budget for 2018.

While the president endorsed repealing and replacing ObamaCare in the campaign, he didn't have a plan for carrying it out. So he's attached himself to House Speaker Paul Ryan's proposal.

The list goes on. Anyone who expected Trump to insist on mass roundups and deportation of illegal immigrant must be disappointed. Trump has allowed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to establish sensible rules, with deportations at roughly the rate as occurred under President Obama.

Just this week, Trump received praise for his latest round of well-regarded judicial nominations.

How did all this happen? The Atlantic's Ron Brownstein has a good explanation. Trump, once elected, found himself "with few potential appointees steeped in his agenda and few other party power centers committed to its most distinctive elements, like the reconsideration of free trade and international alliance," Brownstein wrote. Trump, "as if through magnetic force, is finding himself pulled by this power imbalance toward the agenda that dominated his party before he arrived."

I have a simpler explanation. Trump didn't have anywhere else to go for an agenda. It had to be traditional Republican policies. There was no alternative.

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The rallies and protests against congressional Republicans attract large crowds. And while thousands show up at town halls to ask about health care, they seem more interested in harassment. But the real focus of their anger is Trump. They're still mad at candidate Trump, less so President Trump.

So here's a question: Does the left-wing uproar mean the likelihood of a wave election is growing and will doom Republicans in the next year's midterm election? It's quite possible, but I have my doubts.

We've seen bands of furious voters before. The anti-Vietnam war demonstrations looked like world-changing events at the time. Nixon won the presidency in 1968 and 1972 anyway. The Tea Party uprising on the right didn't seem to be as big a deal in 2009 and 2010. Thus it was a surprise when Republican won 63 seats and captured the House in 2010.

Will linking Republican candidates to Trump next year be sufficient? In 2016, Republicans could choose how to deal with Trumpembrace him, ignore him, or split from him. All three postures worked. It won't be that easy in 2018.

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In his new book Understanding Trump, Newt Gingrich writes about the "antelope and chipmunk" theory of political leadership. He says it explains Ronald Reagan's approach to governing. "It's one I have shared with President Trump and his team," Gingrich writes. It goes like this:

The president must be a lion. Lions cannot hunt chipmunks, because even if they catch them the lions will starve to death. President Reagan was a lion. He was focused on three things: defeating the Soviet Union, growing the American economy, and reviving the American spirit. Those were his antelopes, and he refused to get bogged down in chipmunks.

Every time a chipmunk ran into his office, President Reagan would listen patiently, and then say, 'Have you met my chief of staff?' That's how Jim Baker amassed the largest chipmunk collection in the world.

I have been encouraged to see that President Trump, as commander in chief, is focused on the antelope and is not getting drowned by the chipmunks. One of his first actions as president was to give more authority to military commanders to conduct strikes against terrorist targetsHe doesn't need to add an extra layer of decision making.

Meanwhile, when President Trump uses his voice to discuss national security, he has mostly kept the focus on the big picturedefeating radical Islamic terrorism, as well as standing for American values.

This is a pretty good explanation of how Trump operates. Except for one thing: It doesn't account for his daily bombardment of tweets. They hunt chipmunks.

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Recommended reading. How Bob Dylan learned to write great songs. He read great books.

Good advice for those who obsess on Trump.

Read the rest here:
Trump Is Behaving More Like a Republican - The Weekly Standard