Why John Bolton could not square the Trump circle

On the incompatible insanities of the president and his outgoing national security adviser

President Trump and John Bolton.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Alex Wong/Getty Images, MicrovOne/iStock)

When President Trump chose John Bolton to be his national security adviser, my first reaction was: Of course he did. Bolton was exactly what Trump promised: not a prudential retreat from interventionism to focus on building American strength, but a nakedly assertive American nationalism that expected all other nations to recognize who was the boss.

Now Bolton is gone, and that is also exactly what Trump promised: to fire people who are not performing to his satisfaction. Trump "disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions" and so he asked for his resignation.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.