Trump Bashing – Lost Rationality

30 January 2017 Politics Comments (1)

Now in his function for 10 days, President Trump attracts all critiques, all one-sided, all pointing to wrongs of all kinds, most sustained by a self-serving moral high ground. This is at least with what European media are flooding us in their 99+% plurality.

I shall repeat myself: as good was the news of the non-election of Hillary Clinton, so bad was the election of Donald Trump; for the U.S. of A. as well as for the rest of the World (if it exists at all for Mr. Trump). But now, we must make do with what we have.

What astonishment, what awe: an elected president is beginning to act in accordance to what he said he would do! How long will he be able to sustain such politically suicidal course?  However, there is some hope: even Mr. Obama signed an executive order in the very first days of his presidency that may help him getting the Nobel Peace prize; but 8 years later, Guantanamo is still not closed.

But what are we speaking about? Tweets, hair style, conservatism, disrespect of women, maverick postures, populism? We better concentrate on what the USA may become over at least the next four years.

In an interesting article, fairly free of anti-Trump bigotry, five professors of the Harvard Business School analyse what is at stake in having this business man cum president, and having to cope with a program that he may be inclined to follow.

Experienced in real estate development he should be transaction oriented, deal making rather than looking at the more general underlying financial and economic framework. But a country is not successful by making deals; what counts is the shape of its institutions and rules, forming a viable environment that must serve everyone, including minorities, opponents, and neighbours from all over the World. Thus, it will be interesting to see if he will be able to interact constructively with more complex systems such as the Congress, or multilateral foreign affairs; and within his own government.

There is no doubt that he has shown fantastic leadership abilities: taking the size of entire crowds, and moving them, including capturing members of the press. An open question is how he will deal in stress situations, when enthusiasm and ready-made catchphrases must leave place to more sensibly reasoned reactions.  His non-stoppable tweets leave us to think that he is more thin-skinned than he would like to believe.

Nobody will dispute that Mr. Trump’s victory stems from a populist platform (this is a fact, not a judgment). But his challenge is now to deliver while remaining connected to his constituency; and that one is not around Washington. He needs this continuing support to exert pressure onto Congress; otherwise his fire will be dying. Will he remain coherent and demonstrate integrity? If not, this popular support may vanish quickly.

He promised deep reforms: corporate and personal taxes, a conundrum difficult to simplify without taking huge risks; health insurance different from Obamacare, the content of which is not yet clear; trade relations as if it could be one-sided (and he should know better than others what deal making means); stopping environmental and climate excesses, although without spelling out what to keep and what to dump. And to create jobs, as he would have magic powers beyond swelling the deficit. What will be his method to set-up something intelligent (≠ dumb), and that works?

International relations are already laden with suspicion, fear, or plain incomprehension. Before all, no one has any clue about what he intends to achieve, with Europe and NATO, with Russia, in the Near and Middle East, within the Americas, and with China. Here too, any belief in unilateralism will soon reveal itself an impossibility, even for the strongest military power on Earth. We just must hope that he will appreciate this before any fatal escalation will have initiated irreversible moves. This calls for responsible behaviour.

All these questions are not addressed by the Trump bashers. They maintain a complacent and politically correct hate. It resembles the situation that prevailed at the beginning of the Reagan presidency. Most of these bashers are just digging deep in their own selves to project their darkest instincts on a person whom they don’t understand. Neither do I understand him, albeit without having to hate, and keeping a quite critical eye.

Summary in his style, with 140 characters, spaces included:

Big questions, tough stuff. A lot on the plate. Still, no one knows what are the true objectives and if any strategy exists to achieve them.


Merci de compartir cet article
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1 thought on “Trump Bashing – Lost Rationality”

  1. I agree completely. I don’t like him as a person but would still like to see how he functions as the CEO of USA, without being swayed too much by advisers, sycophants and corporate profits. I;m curious to see how the economy would raise funds without taxation of a reasonable sort and at a fiscally supporting level. Promising is one thing, and managing to deliver is another. As a friend of mine said, the only two politicians who promised and tried to stick by their promises – but didn’t quite succeed – in the last 100 years were the guy who wrote Mein Kampf and the guy who triggered off Watergate. Third time lucky perhaps!
    Give him some space to manoeuvre and let us see what he is really capable of. At the most he may be able to shake a smug and complacent nation out of its complacency. That’s how he started off!

    Reply

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