USA TODAY International Edition
TRUMP NO STATESMAN DESPITE FLIPS
He’s not learning , rethinking and toiling to perfect our union. He’s seeking approval.
The most striking aspect of this initial chapter of Donald Trump’s presidency is how thoroughly it has exposed his protean political character. This should not come entirely as a surprise. In his prior lives and careers as a real estate developer, playboy and reality TV star, Trump transmogrified himself on multiple occasions. Over the past several decades in the political realm, likewise, he switched parties more often than he switched mistresses and wives. But Trump has now begun to jettison campaign stances and promises at a pace that, even by the standards of his own past, is frantic.
To Trump the candidate, China was “raping” the United States. Now the Chinese are no longer even “currency manipulators,” much less rapists. On NATO: “I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete.” The Export- Import Bank, once slated for elimination as a piggy bank for Wall Street elites, is totally amazing. Federal Reserve Board head Janet Yellen, whom candidate Trump wanted to can, is a great gal. President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has abruptly gone from good to bad. The candidate who opposed a humanitarian intervention in Syria is now engaged in one. The list of reversals grows ever longer. INCURIOUS AND IGNORANT The Bloomberg View columnist Ramesh Ponnuru is plainly correct when he points to the absence of ideology in these shifts: “Trumpism doesn’t exist. The president has tendencies and impulses, some of which conflict with one another, rather than a political philosophy.” Without intellectual buoys, Trump will always be searching somewhat randomly for direction.
But, of course, the direction of Trump’s shifts has not been random. The hard- edged populism of the campaign is waning. Its chief theoretician, former Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon, reportedly fears having a “shiv” thrust into his back. At the same time, the so- called “Democrats,” a cabal of not- so- crypto liberals led by daughter Ivanka and son- in- law Jared Kushner, appear to be ascendant.
Whether this represents progress or regression depends on one’s political viewpoint. But it raises a fascinating question about the quality of Trump’s mind. With his administration suffering one humiliating defeat after another in Congress and the courts, is the 70- year- old Trump showing that, contrary to expec- tations, he is capable of learning?
If by learning, we mean that Trump has thrown himself into the hard work of understanding the intricacies and nuances of managing our sprawling federal government, the answer is no. Trump remains as incurious and ignorant as ever. “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” he pronounced as his health care bill went down the drain. Even with the immense resources of the CIA and the National Security Agency at his disposal, the “shows” — mostly Fox News — appear to remain his principal source of intelligence. SEEKING REWARDS But there are modes of learning quite different from the arduous labor of investigating a subject, examining it from all angles, and thinking it through. Trump may be unusually adept at one of those alternative modes. Given the right kind of punishments and rewards, rodents can learn to navigate a maze flawlessly. They may wholly lack an understanding of the layout of the system in which they are entrapped, but responding on a primitive neural level to stimuli, they figure it out.
“I’m an intuitive person. I didn’t read books,” Trump told Time last year in a discussion of how he had answered a question about NATO and how he makes policy decisions (“off the cuff”). Over the course of his entire life, the man who is now our president has been a single- minded ( and uniquely successful) seeker of publicity and an equally singleminded ( if not always so successful) seeker of adulation. With his approval numbers at historic lows, in changing direction Trump is doing what he has always done and what he does best.
Here is how to understand the turnabouts and tergiversation (” to continue ambiguously arguing your point even though you know you are incorrect”) of his first 100 days in office. They all lead away from his limited populist base and toward approval from the broad American center, and they stem not from any rethinking of means and ends, of principles and objectives. The Trump who is heaving his campaign promises overboard one by one is not a statesman toiling to perfect our union. He is an intuitive creature, avoiding shocks and seeking rewards, turning this way and that as he attempts to master the routes of a labyrinth he strove mightily to enter but still comprehends only dimly.
Gabriel Schoenfeld, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors and the author of Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law, was a senior adviser to the 2012 Romney for President campaign.