Bracing for the unintended consequences of Trumpism
The second I finished watching President Donald Trump fawning over Vladimir Putin in Helsinki — refusing to defend the conclusions of his own intelligence services about Russia’s interference in our 2016 elections — I knew I was seeing something I’d never seen before. I was seeing a U.S. president put Russia first, not America first.
On each key question — how much Russian agents were involved in trying to tip our elections, how that issue should be further investigated, and Putin’s behavior on the world stage generally — Trump embraced Putin’s explanations and excuses over the judgments of his own spy agencies, Justice Department, European allies and bedrock American values.
I like what Arnold Schwarzenegger said to Trump afterward: “You’re the president of the United States. You shouldn’t do that. What’s the matter with you?”
What’s the matter with you? I don’t know the definitive answer to that question, but I know that it will be an increasing problem as we enter Phase 3 of the Trump presidency.
Phase 1 saw Trump unhinged but bound — bound by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis,
Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Economic Adviser Gary Cohen. Trump said and did plenty of crazy stuff, but these aides limited the damage.
Phase 2 has seen Trump unhinged and unbound. Trump has neutered Kelly, distanced himself from Mattis and sacked Tillerson, McMaster and Cohen. He replaced the last three with men so hungry for their jobs that they were ready to step over the bodies of their predecessors, whom, they knew, were pushed out for standing up to Trump.
Watching longtime anti-Russia hawks — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton — shucking off everything they’ve said over the years and ignoring Trump’s coddling of Putin and his trashing of the FBI in order to grab jobs they’d long coveted is witnessing careerism, sycophancy and cynicism on an industrial scale.
But that sets up Trump Phase 3: unhinged and unbound and unintended.
What are the unintended consequences of a U.S. president simultaneously starting trade wars with China, the European Union and Canada, putting Russia first over America first, preferring Putin and other autocrats over our traditional democratic allies, slashing corporate taxes and supercharging the national debt — without any compensating tax increases or spending cuts — ignoring climate change, breaking the Iran nuclear deal and now threatening war with Iran, limiting immigration into our already tight labor markets, steadily eroding Obamacare and violating so many norms of how a president should behave toward his staff, allies and Americans not from his own party?
What are the unintended consequences of all of these at once? Maybe there will be some good consequences — maybe China and Iran will cave to Trump’s demands; maybe the economy and stock market will continue to surge.
What I know for sure, though, is that no U.S. president can break so many long-standing relationships, ignore so much basic science and economics and violate so many norms of behavior without unintended consequences.