PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I’ll answer the question in the headline with a simple proposition: It is because the subject is so important that it deserves thought and study even as someone like me focuses more on issues in Oregon than in the world.

In a piece in the Wall Street Journal, former State Department official, Robert B. Zellich, describes Trump’s foreign policy “as a style of deal-making with uncertainty and brinkmanship, without a plan for what comes next.”

Zellick continues that Trump’s foreign policy “reflects his instinct for political realignment at home, based on celebrity populism.”

To Zellick and many others, populist movements feed off grievances and impatience with traditional politics. Frustrations—whether generated by economic distress, social displacement, or cultural challenges—fuel skepticism about institutions and elites. Challengers (who want to become the new elite) attack traditional leaders as out of touch, incompetent and corrupt.

Sound like Trump?

He rallies his supporters by proclaiming what Zellick calls “three presumptions of populism.”

• First, populism professes to reflect the will of a scorned people. Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables.” The will of the people is intolerant of the give-and-take of pluralism.
• Second, populism finds and blames enemies, domestic or foreign, who thwart the people’s will – or at least “some of the people’s will.” Trump has mastered creating such scapegoats.
• Third, populism needs “the leader,” who can identify with and embody the will of some of the people. Like other populist leaders, Trump attacks the allegedly illegitimate institutions that come between him and the people. His solutions, like those of other populists, are simple. He contends that the establishment uses complexity to obfuscate and cover up misdeeds and mistakes. He claims he will use his deal-making know-how to get results without asking the public to bear costs.

Trump’s foreign policy, if you can call what he does and how he acts a “policy,” revolves around himself. He is, as we have seen time and again, a narcissist.

Mr. Zellich writes that, on Trump’s recent trip to Asia, “foreign leaders took his measure. They played to his narcissism. He in turn basked in their attention, diminishing his own country by blaming past presidents, and preened with promises of great but unspecified things to come.”

His ego also makes him comfortable with authoritarian leaders as his recent trip showed. Presidents Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte play to Trump’s ego, as has part of the Saudi royal family.

Thus, Mr. Zellich adds, “other countries are preparing for a world in which they can expect U.S. demands but can no longer rely on American leadership.”

A smart U.S. foreign policy ought to rely on cementing alliances with friendly nations and even reaching out to potential enemies to discuss areas of possible collaboration in a world that often appears to be on the brink of more war.

That’s what other presidents have done, though, in this piece, I am not advocating the ideas of former president Barack Obama, who, for all his personal credentials, spent more time on the world stage apologizing for America than advocating for it.

Trump’s foreign policy represents a break from postwar presidents of both parties, reaching back to Harry S. Truman. Other presidents led an alliance that recognized U.S. security is connected to mutual interests in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East.

Past presidents believed that the U.S. economy would prosper in a world of expanding capitalism, governed by rules and practices that matched America’s competitive and dynamic markets. Over time, U.S. foreign policy strove to expand human rights, liberty and democracy. Trump dismisses this U.S.-led international system as outdated, too costly and too restrictive of his case-by-case deal-making.

A letter to the editor writer in the Wall Street Journal said the other day that “Mr. Zoellick’s assessment of President Trump’s foreign policy misses one point: The train of American world leadershiup has left the station and is not coming back,” in what the writer called “a multipolar and nuclear world.”

So, what next? From my post in the Western States, my hope is that Trump will become more strategic rather than just tactical. My hope is that he would rely on his experienced staff, especially former military leaders, for advice and counsel. My hope is that he would drop Twitter which only inflames the foreign policy atmosphere. And my hope is that he would let his ego rest for the good of the country.

False hopes, you say. Perhaps. But hope is better than one of the alternatives, which is despair.