"Where Trump Came From--and Where Trumpism Is Going"--WSJ

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This remained true even after he became president. In policy terms, Mr. Trump generally was true to his campaign promises. He pledged to throw out and renegotiate Nafta, and he did so. He promised to impose tariffs on Chinese goods to force Beijing into trade negotiations and he did so, though with limited results. He promised to build a border wall with Mexico and force the Mexicans to pay for it, which didn’t happen, of course, though he kept returning to the theme. He appointed the conservative judges whom he had promised by name. He cut taxes and regulations, and the economy hummed.

Yet he also made his presidency almost entirely about himself personally rather than the broader movement he was trying to lead. “This guy was totally unaware of both the machinery that is available to him and how the whole team should be working together,” says Edwin Feulner, longtime leader of the conservative Heritage Foundation and head of domestic policy on the initial Trump transition team. That personalization prevented the Trump movement from sinking deep roots. As American Compass, an organization of young, conservative economic thinkers, concluded in a retrospective analysis: “Trumpism cannot be declared a ‘success’ or a ‘failure’ because it did not exist. The administration, which neither emerged from nor erected institutional infrastructure or an intellectual framework, lacked both overarching vision and an integrated policy agenda.”

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