09 March 2017
The Good Don
The real President Trump?
by J.R.Thomas
Now you see him, now you don’t. Will the real Donald Trump please stand up? Certainly he stood up in Congress last week and shocked all who saw him there, and the millions watching on TV. He was reasonable, calm, witty, even self deprecating (a bit), determined to draw people together and reflect all shades of opinion on his march to make America great again. Those who have followed Trump on his haul to the top job know that he can do this style – exemplified in his eloquent and elegant concession speech after being heavily beaten in the New Hampshire primary a year ago; but he does not do it often.
But on Saturday night the President sat up late, or at least his Twitter feed did, and accused Mr Obama of having the Trumpian phone tapped. Mr Obama, if he were that sort of man, might have best replied “I cannot possibly discuss matters of national security” and left it at that, winding up the President who maybe, just maybe, was winding up Mr Obama. But Barrack is a serious man and issued a denial, saying that the president does not have the authority to issue wire-tap instructions. And he doesn’t, though he can point out matters of national security to those well resourced agencies who are so authorised, in appropriate circumstances.
Those agencies have also risen furiously to the bait, or cheek, or lie, denying that they have done any such thing. As their record on admitting to things is not great, that may not be the end of the matter, although at the very least if they were tapping Presidential candidate’s phones one would expect them to have a reason to do it, or the sense to do it very discreetly. This is all a bit of a storm in the proverbial, but what is not good is that the President is making an enemy of his own national security services, and whilst he might, and correctly, argue that nobody is above the law, it is not a good idea to get on the wrong side of those who administer it. And it is an odd thing to do. The Donald has certainly suffered from hints and leaks which have appeared under the doors of both the CIA and the FBI, and he is cross about it, but secret agents, charged with all those secrets to keep, do often seem to have an urge to chat, or at least their “friends” do. Mrs Clinton suffered from this, both during her period of office as Secretary of State, and when she was running as a contender for the Democratic nomination, and after. But the service does seem to take its oath of office pretty seriously when it comes to the office of the President, and little comes out about the life and record of a sitting President. Or hasn’t, historically. That may be about to change.
Back to that Presidential speech to Congress. It was the sort of speech that Presidents tend to make at this stage in their Presidency, inclusive, moderate in tone, a bringing together and a healing after the divisiveness inherent in a long election campaign. It was the sort of speech that you might have expected at the Inauguration; and the sort that conciliates not the Democrats – there is no conciliating them for the foreseeable future – but maybe the wobbly Republicans whose support The D will need if he is to get some of his dreams into legislation. To persuade what after all is still the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan to support some big spending moves, even the more popular military ones, is not going to be easy; and whilst many senior Republicans are not going to come out too strongly against protectionism -“no more exporting of American jobs” is not an easy mantra to argue against, certainly in the same succinct style – this is still the free trade party at heart.
So here is The Good Donald and The Bad Donald, if you like to adopt the thinking of the more liberal press. The Good Don does not play well in the liberal part of the wood, whether because he is boring and does not sell newspapers, or because they so disbelieve it that they can’t be bothered to spend much time on it. One has the impression that Mr Trump also prefers The Bad Donald; it is more his style; succinct, simple points aggressively expressed, sound bite politics, and much in tune with the approach of a busy businessman with a short attention span and much to do. His core constituency seems to quite like the style too. Those who voted for him (or say they did – sanctity of the polling booth and all that) are pleased with him so far; he is a man who has not moved much from his electoral promises and his crisp communication is the change of approach from the ponderous pronouncements of the old elite that they were looking for. Mr Trump’s approval ratings among that group are exceptionally high; but they are exceptionally low amongst those who were against him in the first place, whose direst dreams are presumably starting to look only too real.
It is difficult to criticise a politician who keeps to his promises. (The one area that there does seem to be evidence of genuine movement is on healthcare, where there appears to be some back pedalling on Mr Trump’s pledges to abolish Obamacare. It looks as though there will be change but given that it is aimed at helping many of the poor urbanites who voted Trump, he may see merit in more modest change than his campaign suggested.) But the dim golden promise of dawn is always followed by the bright light, and what will occur even to the loyal electorate sooner or later is the realisation that Donald’s Twitter does not do anything other than get up the noses of the urban elite; that is possibly a worthy objective in itself, but not doing much in practical terms to “Make America Great Again”. The Donald may really want to make the world a better place – and this column somewhat nervously continues to give him the benefit of the doubt by believing that this is his objective, if only to achieve his place in history. But the United States is not Trump Enterprises and its President is, we suggest, going to need considerable subtlety to create the conditions vital for delivery of his programme.
To succeed he has to persuade a surprising range of people that it is in their best interests to go along with his objectives. Not in their best interests in the Mafia sense of the word, we hasten to add. He needs to avoid getting every Presidential nominee for high office held up in endless resistance in Congressional approval hearings; he needs to get wavering Congressmen on his side rather than against him, doing little deals here and there to get vital support – an airport terminal for a funding allocation, a wall bill for a bridge (not that bridge, Mr Christie).
When Ronald Reagan took office in the grim days of 1980 he actually had, in terms of the state of the economy and the prevailing political and economic orthodoxy, a much greater hill to climb than does Mr Trump. Ronald did it, and ended his two terms as one of the most acclaimed and popular Presidents of all time. A lot of that was down to Reagan’s charm and humour and obviously sparkling good intentions, a good man who loved his country and who became inspirational to many Americans. It got him a lot of goodwill on Capitol Hill, and even those who remained opposed to him found it prudent to recognise his popularity. Which is why, Donald, now is the time for Good Donald to show your inclusive and uniting side – and lock away that damn Twitter feed.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the ShawSheet
