You
have to hand it to the writers of The
White House Apprentice. They have jammed more plot twists into their first
ten weeks than Lost had in six full
seasons. Indeed, it's too bad that someone already used the title
“Lost.”
In
this week’s episode, Donald Trump fully reversed himself on just about every
single thing that he appeared to believe way back in, uh, last week. Historians will no doubt come to refer to the first ten
weeks of his Presidency as the B.S. era (that is, Before Syria), and he now appears to be in a transition period that
future Schlesingers will no doubt refer to as his embrace of weapons of mass confusion.
Last
week Putin was his friend, China was an insidious, inscrutable currency
manipulator that should be able to easily handle its petulant kid brother North
Korea, Syria was some country in the Middle East that he wanted no part of,
Steve Bannon was Trump’s dark lord and master, NATO was obsolete, the
Export-Import Bank was about to be deported, and Janet Yellen had her resume on
the street.
In
seven days, each of these positions has been lifted, spun, and landed precisely
180 degrees opposite of where they had been. Dorothy Hamill, Nancy Kerrigan, and
Michelle Kwan combined would have had a tough time pulling off more triple
axels in a single week.
The
White House Haul of Mirrors began
with Trump’s stunning about-face on intervention in Syria. Only days before
Secretary of Oil and once-believed extinct tyrant-assurer
Rex Tillerson had announced that
removing Assad was “up to the Syrian people,” which is sort of like saying that revitalizing the coal industry is “up to the coal miners.” It would be
hard to send a more unambiguous statement of purposeful neglect, weary disdain,
and contemptuous disinterest.
Then,
of course, Donald Trump turned on his television,
and finally saw what pretty much everyone else in the world already knew: Assad
hideously murders his own people at a prodigious rate, occasionally varying his
methods to include chemical weapons.
59
Tomahawk missiles later, Trump enjoyed a brief refractory period during which
politicians and journalists praised his Syrian airstrike as if he had actually
accomplished something beyond a nifty PR coup at the expense of US taxpayers.
As fate
would have it, Trump was entertaining Chinese President Xi Jinping at
Mar-a-Lago when he ordered the missile launch.
Trump would later relish telling Fox Business News’s Money Honey Maria Bartiromo that he and Xi Jinping
were enjoying “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake” when the bombs
started flying.Unfortunately, as Donald retold the tale of the cake to
Bartiromo, he said that those missiles were “heading to Iraq.” Yes, Trump
really did forget which country he had launched a missile attack on.
In what is
becoming a familiar pattern, Trump had a perfectly pleasant meeting a major
world figure and suddenly everything changed. Everything. China – the country that Trump once said was “raping”
the United States through currency manipulation – was no longer a currency
manipulator. Xi Jinping would spend a
mere ten minutes – literally ten minutes,
by Trump’s own measure -- explaining the history of relations between China and
Korea to Trump, and Trump suddenly changed his tune and began talking about how
challenging and difficult it will be for China to help us contain Kim Jong-Un.
Trump’s
new found bromance with Xi Jinping came at a particularly convenient moment, as
his long-distance love affair with Vladimir Putin had just scored a
double-frown emoticon.
Putin pointed out that the United States
does not exactly have an unblemished track record of proving that nations in
the Middle East actually possess and use Weapons of Mass Destruction before
showering them with shock and awe. When Trump’s team countered with claims that
they possessed intelligence that proves
beyond a shadow of a doubt that Assad was directly responsible for the last
week’s chemical weapons attack, the Russians dismissed the evidence as if it
were a tweet alleging that Barack Obama had wired tapped Trump Tower. Give Putin and Assad credit for learning from the master. It
appears that the fastest growing U.S. export under the Trump administration is fake news.
In a week
with flip-flops large and small, the final doozy was seeing Steve Bannon in
uncontained free-fall, much like the scene at the end of Star Wars when Darth Vadar’s space craft whirls wildly off into
space, damaged but not destroyed, ominously leaving the door open for the
inevitable sequel. Bannon’s banishment
appeared to represent closure on the internecine holy war between the “White
House Democrats,” led by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Bannon’s one-man
brand of radical anti-government vigilantism.
The
victory of Kushner over Bannon has been explained a number of ways, but all are
deficient.
Some view
it to be the triumph of a more centrist realpolitik over hard-right politics of
small government, minimal regulation, isolationism, and radically reduced
government. Yet Trump’s positions on the Muslim ban, illegal immigration, and
most pointedly climate change are still on the far edge of Bannonism.
Some argue
that Kushner’s ascendance and Bannon’s fall is simply a tale of an increasingly
sagacious Trump learning that the running for office is different than running
the government. This, however, would imply that the guy who wakes up at 5:00 a.m.
on Sunday morning with an urgent need to spout utter bullshit on Twitter is
capable of nuanced insight into the difference between campaigning, governing,
or, for that matter, masturbation. Don’t buy it.
When in
doubt, it is always wise to opt for the simplest possible explanation, and in
the case of Donald Trump, only the simplest
possible explanation is even worth considering.
The
simplest explanation is this: Kushner is in and Bannon is out because Kushner’s
advice is making Trump look good, and
Bannon is out because Bannon’s advice is making Trump look bad. We have elected a President who truly cares only about one
thing: how he is personally perceived.
If you make him look good, you have a job. If you don’t, you are history.
Steve
Bannon has been behind some of the most egregious failures of Trump’s
shockingly inept first three months as President.
- It was Bannon who urged
a rapid vote on healthcare in order to force House Republicans to go on
the record about whether or not they supported the Republican healthcare
initiative. Bannon intended to use the vote to develop an “enemies list” of House
Representatives to “primary” in the mid-terms. The Freedom Caucus humiliated Trump by calling his bluff.
- Bannon urged that nothing be done about Assad's use of chemical weapons, based on his uncompromising interpretation of "America First."
- It was Bannon’s people
who attempted to manufacture evidence to support Trump’s allegation that
Obama had wire-tapped the Trump campaign. The ensuing farce – in which the
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee was revealed to have been
played like a lapdog – shattered the reputation of Congressman Nunes,
requiring him to recuse himself from the very investigation he was charged to lead.
Bannon proved himself inept, and demonstrated that he cared more about his extremist right wing principle than Donald
Trump’s personal brand. Big mistakes.
Three
strikes and you’re out. What did Trump do? You guessed it. He went to Jared!
Jared
Kushner, on the other hand, has been around his father-in-law long enough to
understand that the only thing that matters in Trump’s decision-making is what
will make Trump personally look good.
Kushner’s
standing surged with the apparently successful Mar-a-Lago meet-and-greet with
Xi Jinping.
Kushner,
interestingly, was AWOL on a skiing vacation during the healthcare fiasco.
Perhaps Kushner was just savvy enough to see a train wreck coming with no
survivors.
But
Kushner’s real coup, however, was to be on the side of those advocating a
military response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Don’t kid yourself that
Kushner or anyone else in the White House argued for that military strike based
on a position of a moral high ground. Or, for that matter,
that anyone believed that the national security of the United States of America
was at risk.
No, the
military strike was a PR bonanza for the Trump brand. End of story.
In a
single stroke, he could be seen as a macho Commander-in-Chief restoring America’s
reputation for tough, fast action. He had a clear shot to spank one of the world’s most evil
dictators for an action of unspeakable cruelty.
Most important of all, as his Presidency remains enshrouded in a cloud of
suspicion that he colluded with Russia to influence the U.S. election, the
military strike allowed him to be seen taking a hard line with
Vladimir Putin. At a time when the very legitimacy of Trump’s Presidency rests
in a cozy web of connections to Putin’s government, being seen as being highly
adversarial with Putin was just what Brand Trump needed.
There has
been plenty of specious talk about a “Trump Doctrine” lying somewhere beneath
his flip-flops, ill-conceived initiatives, and poorly-implemented orders. There are commentators who try to make a virtue
of his alleged "flexibility," or argue that his lack of a guiding
philosophy should be viewed positively... that he does not allow dogma to
dictate rigid positions. Puh-lease.
If there is an underlying principle here, it is that Trump values lying over principle. The real Trump Doctrine is transparent: Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country can do to help the Donald Trump brand.
It has
been all-too-painfully clear that history
– either in the form of centuries of human knowledge, or simply in terms of
what the White House believed last week
– is of absolutely no relevance to this President as he makes decisions of
profound global consequence based on whether they will score a bump in his
ratings. It is merely a question of "what feels right" for the Trump
brand in the immediate moment.
It appears
equally true that decisions are made with little or no forethought about their
consequences... what they might mean five minutes, five days, five months, or
five years from now. After the missile attack, Vladimir Putin warned Trump not
to strike Syria again. Did his people fail to anticipate that reaction? What
does that mean if Assad decides to gas more innocent people? That we will
get more deeply involved in Syria, and risk a direct confrontation with Russia? Or
that next time, we will simply turn away? Did anyone at the White House think
that one through before activating the launch codes?
Now, all
eyes turn east to the building crisis in the Korean Peninsula.
We have a
woefully under-educated, impulsive, and instinctively aggressive American
President on one side of the 38th parallel, and an immature, explosive,
and instinctively insecure child tyrant on the other. Ten million people live in Seoul, 35 miles
from the demilitarized zone, in easy striking distance of conventional
weaponry. If ever there was a time when we need cool heads, deep knowledge, consideration
of a full range of options, the collective input and support of global leaders, and extreme caution with military force, this is
it.
Instead,
we have a son-in-law whose expertise appears to be that
of a senior brand manager, working for a President whose only criteria in
decision making is whether something is good for Trump or bad for Trump.
Ask not whether this President is here to serve our country, ask only whether he thinks the country is here to serve him.
The answer is already clear, and it's called the Trump Doctrine.
If you would like to be on our mailing list, please send your email address to info@obameter2012.com.Ask not whether this President is here to serve our country, ask only whether he thinks the country is here to serve him.
The answer is already clear, and it's called the Trump Doctrine.
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