Even as Donald Trump continues to mire the United States presidency in racist dirt and thuggish tweeting, the wheels of American justice grind on digging up the Russia scandal and, top leaders of the President’s own Republican Party have now begun backing away from their man in the White House. In East Asia, North Korea reacted to the thousands of US and South Korean troops, warships and planes practising invasion near its shores with yet more rocket test launches. The three medium range rockets launched reportedly were pus vedillas.
As the world watches the decay at the heart of what was once the ‘leader of the free world’ (so-called), a hint of a positive political development was heard from the Persian Gulf region: the Saudi Arabian government and Iran have reportedly begun indirect talks seemingly to patch-up ties. And shorn of its platitudes, bombast and clumsiness, President Trump’s much awaited policy speech on Afghanistan was so much a continuation of previous US policy that sighs of relief were heard around many capitals.
The world, used to more than a century of US imperial power and an accompanying repertoire of refined democracy and high culture, today watches in amazement as an American President messes up things in a big way from the very start of his presidency. In the US itself, so used have Americans been to professionalism – whether dropping A-bombs or building democracy – that they are unable to believe what they are seeing happening in the White House. They simply did not believe that a purported ‘billionaire’ could be this unprofessional!
Even though, in his election campaign, Donald Trump displayed many traits wholly at odds with the comportment and protocol required of an American head of state, many Americans were so seduced by the grandeur of their republic – mighty, as it is – that they gave him the benefit of the doubt. The watching world community, many of whom live under dictatorial buffoons (Sri Lanka had just unseated one), understood the nature of the man and, at first, did not believe that the citizens of a ‘model democracy’ like the US would actually elect him as their head of state. Despite the many warnings by their own commentators – including some pro-Republican analysts – Americans voted Trump into the White House and waited to see him perform in his elected office.
And what a performance it has been! True to his TV persona, Trump has been ‘performing’ from the moment he took oaths. If Republican Party politicians had thought that Trump’s performances were carefully thought out ‘acts’, aimed at specific political objectives, they were sadly mistaken.
Even today, critical media commentators in news media outlets lambasted by Trump continue to wonder why he crudely attacks top Republicans on whom he should depend to get his policies implemented. Increasingly, however, people are beginning to realise that Trump, personally, never had ‘policies’ in the sense of systematic ideas for governing a giant state and economy, let alone navigating complex global geo-politics.
All that Trump did in his election campaign was to mimick regular politicians (his best public performance was only on TV) and instinctively pick up slogans that appealed to him and to people who thought like him. This was a social constituency so aptly described by his main political rival, Hillary Clinton, as a “basket of deplorables”. Of course it was the last thing Clinton should have said of any vote bank while campaigning for the presidency and such elitist condescension certainly did not earn her votes.
How ‘deplorable’ this particular vote bank is can be seen in all the crudities expressed by Trump and all his racist and authoritarian stances adopted by him to appeal to that constituency, now seen by all as his ‘core constituency’.
Now, barely half a year into his four-year presidential tenure, the list of Trump’s blunders and crudities is long. And his actions are not all just ‘blunders’.
Most scarily, the most serious issue facing him is the suspicion that either he, or at least his election campaign associates, colluded with Russia to misguide American voters with anti-Clinton propaganda so that he could win the election.
That Trump or his associates, actually thought that such an attempt at collusion with the country’s main geo-political rival state could have avoided detection by their own surveillance agencies (being among the world’s most efficient) goes to show their mediocrity. Worse, in the first two weeks of the Trump presidency, no less than three top newly appointed officials were caught lying in their security clearance procedure that they had had no contact with the Russians. Earlier, during the campaign, one campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had to resign after it was revealed how close he was to Moscow.
Those caught trying to mislead their own state security on such a crucial matter at the very start of the presidency included: the Attorney General (former Senator and ex-federal prosecutor Jeff Sessions), National Security Adviser (Retd. Gen. Mike Flynn), the Special Senior Adviser (his son-in-law Jared Kushner).
Then, when it was revealed, that quite independent of any politics, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had already detected Russian covert intrusions pertaining to the presidential election and had begun a probe into any Trump links with Moscow, President Trump attempted to block the investigation. He went as far as sacking the head of the FBI and was even overheard boasting about this sacking to the visiting Russian Foreign Minister! The boast is recorded in the White House transcript of that meeting.
The close advisers he appointed around him have been either tainted with a Russian connection or with White racist politics. Just last Friday yet another Presidential Advisor (Sebastian Gorka) tainted with such a White racist reputation left his job. And the previous week it was ‘chief strategist’ Steve Bannon. And two weeks earlier it was Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci who left in a flurry of very pubic obscenities after just eleven days in that post. And before that it was White House Chief of Staff Rience Priebus who left because Scaramucci felt that he was leaking to the media.
And before that it was White House Spokesman Sean Spicer (a Repubican Party regular) who resigned following Scaramucci’s appointment.
The very first to resign – within weeks of being appointed in January – was National Security Adviser Mike Flynn who is now under criminal investigation in connection with the FB I Russia probe.
And Trump is the first US President to be under investigation by not just the FBI at the very start of the presidency but also by some key Congressional Committees, including the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and Judiciary Committees.
The list of Trump misdemeanours is too long to print here. Other serious ones include the continued public lambasting of the Attorney General Jefferson Sessions, a reputed former conservative Republican Senator and the first Senator to support Trump during his election campaign. This sustained public humiliation of the a key party stalwart has angered other Republicans.
Last week the US media was full of reports about an angry telephone exchange between the President and the Leader of the US Senate, Republican Senator (and veteran US politician) Mitch McConnell. Trump reportedly shouted obscenities at the elderly Senator who is the Republican group leader in the Senate.
American news media is reporting that McConnell has begun telling associates and Republican donors that he thinks that Trump is not likely to last his four-year term.
Other Republican Senators and politicians have already been publicly questioning Trump’s suitability to continue as President. Some independent commentators have even questioned Trump’s mental state give that, as head of the US armed forces, he has his finger on the ‘nuclear button’ – the procedure that launches a nuclear attack.
Some Democratic Party opposition politicians are openly discussing procedures to impeach Trump, but such constitutional moves can only come when the US Congress, now controlled by the Republicans, initiates the process.
Trump’s continued harping on the theme of White racism and support for racist actions by extremist splinter groups and, last week, his pardon of a Police Sheriff in Arizona state convicted for contempt of court (originally convicted for racist treatment of illegal migrants) have further worsened his reputation of unsuitability to govern.
Analysts are now beginning to believe that the current US President may not sit out his term. It is possible that Trump’s Republican colleagues in COngress may want to keep him in the White House as long as his popularity with the electorate ensures more votes for them in the mid-term Congressional elections next year. Then they may move to either impeach him or harass him to the extent that he resigns to avoid further humiliation.
What an outcome for someone who promised to “make America great again”!