Most U.S. allies are sure to be worried by the choice Americans made on November 5. Many observers are confounded by voters’ willingness to roll the dice and reelect the intemperate Donald Trump as president. But Americans have long had an outsize risk tolerance, a characteristic that is integral to both the dynamism of the country’s economy and the vibrance of its society. As the poet Robert Pinsky wrote in 2002, American culture is “so much in process, so brilliantly and sometimes brutally in motion, that standard models for it fail to apply”—an analysis the election result only reaffirms.

Since his arrival a decade ago on the national political stage, Trump has broken the Republican Party and rebuilt it in his image. The GOP is no longer the party of figures such as Senator Mitt Romney and the late Senator John McCain (for whom I once worked), both of whom ran unsuccessful presidential bids on traditional Republican platforms. In their place are figures such as JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, and Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri, who hew more closely to Trump’s brand of populist politics. American voters delivered a resounding victory for this new brand of conservative leadership. It is right and proper that Trump now get a chance to enact the policies he campaigned on and the latitude to respond to events as they happen, supported by a cabinet and an executive-branch bureaucracy that are responsive to his direction. It is in the United States’ interest that its president succeed.

But making Trump’s presidency successful does not mean simply adopting his ideas wholesale. Any new administration needs to square its sweeping campaign rhetoric with the realities of market behavior, fiscal constraints, and the actions of U.S. adversaries. In Trump’s case, the former president’s unpredictable, even erratic approach to decision-making could lead to foreign policy choices that reduce American power and increase the risk of conflict. It is therefore especially important to find ways to pursue Trump’s goals while avoiding potential harm.

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