Trump tries for a reset on the political front

WHERE policy was concerned, the story of US President Donald Trump's first year in office was simple: The populist of the campaign trail, the man who won the Republican nomination and the White House by ignoring conservative orthodoxy and promising the moon, was replaced by a president who essentially ceded control of his agenda to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and spent his limited political capital pursuing conventionally right-wing policies - unsuccessfully on healthcare, successfully on taxes, but in each case without much moderate or bipartisan support.

There are many reasons - one for almost every tweet - that Mr Trump arrived at his first official State of the Union address as a wildly unpopular president despite a reasonably strong economy, but his failure to follow through on his campaign's populist promises is high on the list. So you could read Tuesday night's remarks (a better idea than listening to their somewhat soporific delivery) in part as an attempt to hit the reset button, to pitch himself as a centrist dealmaker rather than a predictable ideologue, to leave the legislative struggles of his first year behind and get back to selling people on things they actually want.

Thus, even as he touted his tax cuts, Mr Trump effectively buried further efforts at Obamacare repeal by suggesting that the repeal of the unpopular individual mandate sufficed as healthcare policy. There was no mention of deficit reduction or spending cuts, nor of the entitlement reforms dear to the heart of the House Speaker just behind him. Apart from a long riff on immigration and a nod to judicial nominations, the conservatism of the speech was heavy on generalities about flag, faith and family, with more polarising issues such as abortion mentioned only by implication. Apart from the Islamic State, North Korea and Guantanamo Bay, the foreign policy section was strikingly empty. America First, it seems, means not having to bore viewers by bringing up anything about the world beyond our shores except our enemies. And then for domestic policy, there was a list of ideas that Bernie Sanders might campaign on in 2020: cheaper prescription drugs, a US$1.5 trillion gusher of infrastructure spending, even a promise to pursue paid family leave. Not conservative ideas, these - but mostly popular ones.