I hate to depress you but Trump could be President for eight years
SIx months into the Trump presidency, the best news is that we are all still here. To say that is not facetiousness — since January this great office, with its power to blow up the world, has been in the hands of its most unstable holder since the Declaration of Independence.
Before and since his inauguration, Trump threatened or promised showdowns with China, North Korea and Iran, repeal of the ‘Obamacare’ health insurance scheme, a tax cut for the rich, abandonment of Nato, big infrastructure spending and an embrace of Russia’s President Putin.
None of those things has yet happened. Instead we have seen bizarre spasms of policy-making, of which the most recent is this week’s tweet that he will ban transgender Americans from serving in the military — a relatively trivial issue which will probably not survive legal challenge.
But what of the bigger picture: has the Trump presidency revealed itself as impotent — cause for mirth rather than for the many tears liberal Americans have shed since last November? The U.S. stock markets seems to think so, judging by their climb to dizzy and arguably irrational heights.
Yet the greatest challenge in world affairs is to establish stability based upon mutual trust and respect, and there is not the remotest chance of achieving this with Trump in the White House.
Target
Ask Jeff Sessions, the senator from Alabama who became his attorneygeneral, but is now a target of Twitter assaults by the President, who denounces him as ‘very weak’ and ‘ beleaguered’ and has repeatedly indicated that he may fire him, for the same reason he sacked the last FBI director — for failing to halt investigations into the Trump clan’s links to Russia.
Ask his fellow Republicans, whom he daily rubbishes and threatens, or the procession of aides he has ditched. It is no surprise to anybody that Trump gives hell to his enemies. What shocks his own party is that he is also unswerving in abusing politicians who are supposed to be his friends.
The great liberal intellectual, Senator Pat Moynihan, warned a quarter of a century ago about the danger of ‘ defining deviancy down’ — accepting deplorable behaviour as a new norm. He was writing in the context of crime, but today his words strike a chord in judging a man whose deceits, ignorance and invective are increasingly beyond satire.
When he makes a speech with nothing outrageous in it, some greet this as evidence that he is growing into the job. In truth, such an evolution is impossible for a man of his temperament.
The Washington Post last week headlined a poll that showed ‘ only’ a quarter of Americans approve of their chief executive. Yet what seems amazing is that one in four still think Trump terrific.
They care nothing for the Russia probes, which they dismiss as part of the conspiracy against him by the liberal media and Washington establishment. They are fascinated by his exotic and glamorous family, straight out of the celebrity TV dramas that are their staple diet.
Evangelical Christians, a powerful political and social group, remain behind Trump, even though his values and history would seem to fit better at a satanists’ convention.
They see simply a straightshooter who is prepared to stick up for the white middleclass and blue-collar workers who believe they’ve been betrayed by a political class more interested in prioritising the interests of minorities over those of ‘real Americans’.
The rich in Palm Beach, where the President runs an own-brand Versailles on his golf course at Mar-a-Lago, still defiantly describe Trump as a ‘ real gentleman’, and hark back to their implacable loathing of Hillary Clinton to justify sustaining support for him.
I will hazard a speculation, that wherever the special prosecutor’s investigation of Trump’s Russian links winds up, he will escape impeachment unless he is seen to overstep the boundary into clinical insanity. The latter outcome is possible, but at present the Republican majority in both houses of Congress has no appetite for crucifying their own man in the White House.
Erratic
The Democrats remain in chaos, and failure to win key elections since January confirm their inability to cash in on Trump’s erratic conduct.
The people of the profoundly divided United States confront each other across No Man’s Land from trenches in which there is such hate, such stubbornness, that no armistice seems attainable.
What is most striking about the Trump presidency is that it has achieved so little. This can partly be blamed on the White House preoccupation with fire-fighting scandals, but it also reflects his lack of political experience and unwillingness to stick with any issue long enough to see it through.
A host of appointments, including some key European ambassadorships, remain unfilled because nobody has gotten around to them. Many candidates back off because they see the miseries that befall those who accept high office: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — former head of the oil giant ExxonMobil — is among key figures said to be thinking of jumping ship.
It is tough for world leaders to do any kind of business with a President whose word cannot be trusted for five minutes, a problem that I raised here back in January. It would be naïve for anybody to swallow Trump’s promise of a ‘really good’ trade deal for Britain after Brexit, with or without the chlorinated American chickens that have been kicking up negotiating dust.
A further unknown is what may happen when Trump’s supporters see the big things he promised, above all repatriation of jobs from abroad to ‘ Rust Belt’ areas, do not happen for the simple reason they are economically and industrially unsustainable.
Trump, seeing himself politically embattled at home, might emulate Putin and embark upon some spectacular gambit abroad.
What is almost certain is that he will not yet have identified such an action himself, because he makes up his script for every scene as he shoots it.
He never knows what he is going to say until he opens his mouth, which creates consequences that would be comic, were not the speaker President of the United States. He has already done immense harm to respect for his country in the eyes of the world — and may yet do more.
I keep watching my old friend Lt General H.R. McMaster, the very able and utterly honest army officer who accepted the role of National Security Adviser after his predecessor had to resign for lying about his Russian connections.
McMaster will never be party to anything reckless or dishonourable, and his presence — like that of the smart Marine General John Mattis who serves as Secretary of Defence — represents a critical insurance policy for the security of the Western world.
Enemies
A real danger persists that Trump in one of his mad moods could trigger military action against North Korea, Iran, or some other enemy he has not thought of yet. But as long as those two men are on board, I am cautiously hopeful that we may escape Armageddon.
I believe Trump will survive — possibly even win a second term in 2020. This will not be because of substantive achievements in office, which are likely to remain meagre, but because he remains the standard-bearer for tens of millions of anti-big-government, anti-immigration, antiestablishment Americans who hate the liberal elite, and will go on feeling that way.
They seem willing to keep forgiving him the broken promises and collapsed policy pledges. Amazing though it seemed to his enemies last November, they liked the cut of his jib then, and they still like it now.
His presidency is likely to deepen the polarisation of U.S. politics, and indeed of American society. As for the rest of us — if we can survive Trump without being blown up or driven into a global economic disaster, we shall have cause enough to give thanks.