President Trump is forcing the country to live in a never-ending maelstrom. Investigations into campaign crimes, financial crimes, emoluments, hush money, a heartless, deadly, unworkable, psychodrama on our southern border, boomeranging tariffs, a government shutdown, threats against the Fed that unnerve markets, the installation of a corrupt acting AG, an abandonment of Syria and Afghanistan that aids and comforts enemies and causes one of the few competent Trump appointees, Jim Mattis, to leave, And that’s just the last couple of weeks.
The word repeated endlessly for this is chaos, but the real issue is character. In the real world, philosopher kings are few and far between. But successful presidents do come equipped with some rational political philosophy and have thought about the hard realities of governing, rather than being driven by some dime store ideology, angry prejudices and conspiracy theories. Trump, having no fixed principles other than self-aggrandisement, may sit at the Resolute Desk but is a case study in irresolution. Like Prufrock, Trump has time for “decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”
All presidents, being human, also bring with them emotional or psychological baggage that can make or break them. Some recent presidents came from privilege but were taught noblesse oblige. Others grew up in difficult circumstances to become highly motivated strivers. One was raised by a fun-loving mother and an abusive alcoholic stepfather, another by a cold mother and feckless father, a third by an education-minded, worldly, single mother aided by her heartland parents.
And then there’s Trump. He is a child of luxury, but his twig was bent in such a way as to produce a man ill-prepared for prudence, public service, and the give and take of governing. He is a man whose father was a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous, old sinner. Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire…”
Actually, that’s Scrooge as described by Dickens, but he might as well have been Fred Trump’s role model. He was an empire builder who kept score with money and divided the world into those with the killer instinct and losers. He early decided Trump’s gentle brother was a weakling and loser. Trump chose to act tough so as never to endure such rejection.
Thus, he must always win. He can never lose or be seen to be losing. No subject is of interest to him unless it can enrich him or allow him to prevail over others. Other people are of no interest except as suckers or enablers. From his father he also learned to lie, cheat and steal to advance his rise.
Fred Trump cut corners, short changed suppliers, cheated customers, broke laws, relied on law suits to bully adversaries, and regarded government as something to co-opt, bribe or evade. His last major accomplishment was to connive with his adult children to illegally dodge millions in estate tax. And it was his money, skill, and PR that helped created the myth of the Donald as billionaire real estate genius. Another scam. When Fred died, so did any Trump organization competence. What followed were overeach, serial bankruptcies, and self-parody on television.
In real estate, and on reality TV, constantly selling, boasting, lying, using other people, strong-arming people, promising future benefits that never arrive worked like a charm. The same techniques were also useful in campaigning. Trump found a pitch that would work, and sold the suckers, but had no plan of how to deliver on his grandiose promises.
But in politics and government, life isn’t a zero sum game where you can win or lose. It is a dance of compromise and accomodation. You can’t kill your foe or pack up the gypsy caravan and skip town after you fleece the marks. You’ll face the same adversaries and allies when seeking tomorrow’s deal. Another issue will require another negotiation. Often the details will be complicated and arcane. Often study will be needed to hash out revisions and devise alterations. It’s a bad business for a person with more ego that brains and no patience whatsoever.
The salesman could care less about details. All he wants to do is make the pitch, make the sale, bank the proceeds and move on. Trump’s self-obsession, laziness, carelessness about facts, disinterest in complicated processes with many moving parts make him uniquely dangerous.
This is particularly the case since he never had a day’s experience in any large endeavor. He dodged the draft when Fred Trump bribed podiatrists to invent bone spurs. No need to salute a higher rank, follow orders or be part of a team. He never worked for a large corporation which also requires cooperation by many departments and divisions, managers, workers, specialists, the coordination of many skills and tasks to achieve shared goals.
The only hierarchy in Trump’s experience was a family business that was essentially a one-man band. All reports were to Fred Trump, and then to Donald Trump. It was not a hierarchy but an autocracy. No other opinions were needed or welcomed but that of the owner.
Does Trump care at all that pulling out of Syria may entail the risk of a resurgent ISIS, create distrust among allies we may need in the future, benefit regimes not friendly to our country or ideals? No!
He cares about looking strong and decisive. He may care about pleasing Erdogan and Putin so that they will look with favor on building Trump properties in their countries. He cares about pleasing his isolationist base and cares what right wing megaphones like Limbaugh and Hannity say about him. He can’t bear to be told he isn’t a winner. He can never shake the terror of being a loser. He will turn on a dime if he senses a threat to his bottomline or brand.
If a government shutdown or tariff or invasion or capitulation or border policy hurts thousands or millions of innocents but is popular with his base and the alt-right media, it’s a win. If a strategy fails to placate Ann Coulter, it’s a loser and he’ll renege.
Since you are only as good as your last sale, as big as your tallest building, as important as your latest ratings, as popular as the number of retweets you accumulate, you must spend most of your waking hours watching FOX, tweeting trash, stroking the base.
There is never any time to think, assess, plan, organize since there’s always another condo to sell, mark to con, rally to address, enemy to attack — to get more money, fame, or cheers. Thus, the maelstrom, and the danger we face. Since Trump will not change, to survive we will need to exchange him for a safer, more reliable model before we are all sucked into the vortex. Happy New Year.