The Elastic Marco Rubio

Me in the NYT on the next Secretary of State

Photo by Michael Walter on Unsplash

I have an essay in the Sunday Opinion section of today’s New York Times entitled, “The Evolution of Marco Rubio.” It’s on the political elasticity the senior senator from Florida has displayed over the past twenty years — and what that means for his future role as Secretary of State in the second Trump administration.¹ The first three paragraphs:

When the first round of Donald Trump’s cabinet selections was announced last month, I was in Germany, participating in a round-table conversation on the future of American foreign policy. As the only American involved, I received many befuddled questions from the German interlocutors. Most of the names prompted some degree of confusion or consternation except for one: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida for secretary of state.

Compared with someone accused of statutory rape (who has since withdrawn), someone accused of sexual assault and a suspected Russian sympathizer, Mr. Rubio looks conventional. He is a three-term senator who has long been keenly interested in foreign affairs. Multiple Democratic senators have already praised his selection, to the consternation of both the anti-interventionist left and the MAGA right.

The question to ask, however, is which Marco Rubio will show up at Foggy Bottom if he gets the job next year. Will he be a hawkish, open-markets, democracy-promoting optimist or a more inward-looking, antiglobalist pessimist? Either scenario is plausible because Mr. Rubio’s worldview has, to use the argot of the Beltway, evolved over the years. As populist nationalism consumed the Republican Party, Mr. Rubio shifted to accommodate Mr. Trump’s worldview. His hawkishness has mostly persisted while his embrace of globalization curdled. Even a cursory look at Mr. Rubio’s political evolution over the years suggests that his ultimate success will not hinge on his deep and genuine knowledge of world politics but rather his ability to position himself at the dead center of the G.O.P.’s fractured ideological spectrum….

You’ll have to read the whole thing to see where I go from there. Spoiler alert: it includes a brief tour of Rubio’s myriad books and his foreign affairs writings.

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World has only a few things to add:

1. This is my first New York Times op-ed in a good long while, and it’s definitely my first for the Sunday edition.² The Times’ fact-checking edit is much more thorough than the last time I wrote something for them. And I can’t say as I blame them, given the inevitable hysteria that gets generated from a factual mistake. In this case, that fact check extended to confirming that I was indeed in Germany when the Gaetz and Gabbard announcements were made, and that it was indeed Germans who were querying me about Trump’s picks. Good on the Times for being diligent on the fact check!

2. One stray thought that I didn’t elaborate on in there: being a powerful person in Washington for 15 years will lead to the building of a personal network of former staffers, aides, colleagues, and friends. In contrast to Trump’s other foreign policy and national security picks, Rubio might — might — be able to take that network with him to Foggy Bottom, or place some of them at the NSC. That would give him another advantage in any game of bureaucratic politics. Whether that matters in Trump 2.0, of course, is another question entirely.

3. Anyone familiar with the process of writing and editing knows the phrase “kill your darlings.” We all have lines that we want to preserve that get cut because they wind up being extraneous and interrupt the flow of the piece One of my original lines that got cut from the final edit was, “Ironically, as a longtime Senator interested in foreign policy who has endeavored to stay in the ideological dead center of his party, Rubio bears more than a passing resemblance to Joe Biden.” This is true! As a Senator, Biden had a bloodhound’s nose for the median foreign policy position of his party. Rubio is no different — it’s just that the variance between neoconservatism and MAGA is much wider than the Democratic equivalent.

4. No doubt, some readers will believe I am being too kind or too cruel to Rubio. And you’re probably right in your pre-existing belief on that! Double down on it!

Again, please to read. Otherwise, enjoy your Sunday!

1. Yes, this assumes he will be confirmed. But compared to Trump’s other nominees, he will likely sail through.

2. Also, for those who care, the Times approached me about writing this and not vice versa.