Trump Doesn’t Know What Power Is

In January, Stephen Miller gave a blustery and revealing interview to the CNN journalist Jake Tapper. Flush with the triumph of the military raid to abduct Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, Miller was taking a victory lap. America was done being the world’s nice guy, footing the bill for a global order that no longer served its interests. From now on, he said, the gloves were off. America would act boldly and with unapologetic force to impose its will on the world.

This was seemingly the purest expression of Donald Trump’s theory of power, spoken by perhaps the most hard-line member of the administration. Indeed, America is the most powerful........

© The New York Times