“To be on the wire is life; the rest is waiting,” intones the fictional Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse’s underrated film ‘All That Jazz.”
It’s a profoundly apropos metaphor for the hire-wire act we have seen Donald Trump perform for the last year and a half. His wrecking-ball styled presidential campaign, white-knuckled epic fight against Hillary Clinton in fall of 2016, full of half-truths, “alternative facts” (in the words of presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway), snide insinuations, and outright falsehoods have culminated in the spectacle of a dark 2017 inauguration speech and an administration barely a month old that seems like a roller coaster car with creaky wheels about to come off and its occupants hanging on for dear life.
Writing about Trump feels that way too. Every new day brings a fresh story of disarray, miscommunication, clarifications, denials and clarifications about clarifications. That makes reasoned analysis so difficult as being timely with commentary is almost impossible. For example the genesis of this article actually began a week ago but it has since been repeatedly updated to account for updated events. In fact, by the time of this publishing it’s a fair bet that new events have taken place.
The irony is that somewhere on this crazy ride there is actually a governing strategy, as formulated by Trump’s eminence grise, Steve Bannon. The sturm und drang of executive orders spewing from the President’s pen was meant to throw red meat to their core voters and dismay both progressives and non pro-Trump conservatives alike. This worked marvelously for a time -- two weeks approximately -- before the flaws to this thinking appeared. For optimal blitzkrieg (or “lightning warfare”) results, one must move fast, strike hard where the enemy does not expect, throw them off balance, and then sweep in through the gaps with a powerful follow-up to complete the kill.
The last part is where Trump’s army failed him, not being up to the task of exploiting the openings created by knocking the elites off balance. In relying on a small coterie of relatively inexperienced advisers who were obsessed with secrecy and flashy pronouncements, regularly bypassed conventional, more experienced colleagues and channels, with no time to fully vet personnel or policies, Trump now finds himself in the unenviable position of trying to reboot his presidency.
The litany of woes is barely worth repeating, so over-saturated has been the coverage (no doubt partially the result of the vengeful old media elites seeking payback for their shellacking last November): an ill-conceived and executed travel ban defeated twice in the courts with little or no backup strategy; a GOP House badly fractured over how and when best to replace Obamacare (not to mention replace it with what?) partially caused by Trump’s own wildly inconsistent views on what the policy should be; National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s resignation and the whole Pandora’s box of Russian influence over the administration once more rearing its ugly head etc etc.
Worse than these issues is the stark impression of a White House in disarray, with administration officials babbling to the press like fast running water in a brook. Kellyanne Conway offers soothing reassurance that the Flynn has the President’s confidence, only to be contradicted an hour later by Press Secretary Sean Spicer (himself hardly a consistent messenger); Vice President Mike Pence denying that Flynn ever spoke to the Russian ambassador on state matters prior to the inauguration, only to be contradicted later by Flynn himself; Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner being asked to help “fix the Middle East,” causing confusion in foreign regional governments unsure if they should speak to him or Secretary of State Rex Tillerson etc etc.
As problematic as all of these events are (and they ARE problematic), there is room for hope, and that’s because it’s all happened before. There is no other job like the presidency of the United States, no school to teach one the basics, no possible prep work (save perhaps reading up on history) that can be easily undertaken. Being president is not like running a business, governing a state, or legislating a law. It is devilishly difficult and compels even those with out-sized egos to realize that they do NOT know everything. Those that come into office thinking “How hard can it be?” invariably end up thinking, “This is WAY harder than I thought,” usually within the first 72 hours of sitting behind their Oval Office desk.
So it was in 1992 with Bill Clinton, who spent his first six months caught up in staffing woes, avatars who were never on the same page, a chief of staff who couldn’t keep order in the executive wing, nominees for attorney general who kept getting rejected by the Senate, and gays in the military all the while almost losing a budget vote even though his party was in the House majority. The great FDR overreached by trying to pack the Supreme Court with extra judges and even Ronald Reagan hit a 41% approval rating in his initial first year as a virulent economic recession took its toll. In the cases of Clinton and Reagan they both went on to win re-election by whopping margins. There is ample time for Trump to recover. And, if he manages to restore order within his operation, he may yet emerge a tougher, stronger leader (though his recent meandering news conference caused consternation as it seemed no one prepped him adequately beforehand).
Looking beyond the muddled optics and train wreck of Flynn’s resignation (and now the withdrawal of Andrew Puzder as potential Labor Secretary) actually obscured a relatively substantial time for Trump: he welcomed Theresa May, Shinzo Abe, Benjamin Netanyahu and Justin Trudeau, going some way in providing them with relative reassurance that he wasn’t quite the wild man of DC; he carefully stage managed the selection of Judge Andrew Gorsuch for Supreme Court Justice, deftly keeping onlookers in the dark on his choice till the very last minute as well as providing Democrats with the kind of candidate they will be hard-pressed to work against: reaffirmed the one-China policy; sent Defense Secretary James Mattis to reinforce America’s traditional alliances in Japan, South Korea and NATO, as well as revive the concept of Arab participation in the Middle East peace process, essentially shelving what had become a moribund two-state option in favor of what could turn out to be a more realistic option. He also re-positioned the US as less of a direct participant in the peace process, adopting a stance more akin to that of interlocutor or moderator. Further pronouncements on the need to revitalize NATO through greater European fiscal/military commitment, and the need for UN reform were necessary jolts to ossified bureaucracies.
Barring more calamitous revelations on his (or his administration’s) ties with Russia, and providing there are no more metaphorical shoes to drop (always a possibility with this President) Trump can spend the next two months of his first 100 days in power re-balancing the lines of communication in the White House, reinforcing a coherent chain of command and instilling discipline in his team’s communication, all of which are utterly necessary if he wishes to gird himself, the GOP, and the American people for the next big fight -- the unveiling of his budget, as well as the legislative priorities that will shape the next four years. It is highly likely that he will call for a vast, trillion-dollar infrastructure stimulus package ($21 billion of that going towards construction of his southern wall with Mexico), a full-on repeal and replacement of Obamacare under which “everyone” will have insurance, a significant boost in defense spending, all the while cutting back on governmental regulation while pursuing tax reform.
The merits of these ambitious policies are debatable, as are the means by which they will be executed. They will cause Speaker Paul Ryan enormous angst as he struggles to square the circle and turn them into workable legislation that can pass (notwithstanding the Republican majority) both House and Senate. He may yet be successful, for after resisting Trump’s nomination -- more than 1 in 4 GOP senators had refused to endorse him -- the Congressional Republicans have little choice but to see Trump as the imperfect vessel through which they can realize their long-drawn-out aspirations. They’ve essentially agreed to live with his occasional eccentricities, despite even his ambivalence on some of their conservative principles: right-wing judges, lower taxes, regulatory relief, a systematic diminution of organized labor, and possibly even a full-on onslaught on LBJ's social safety net.
Much of the reason behind the Trump victory was his charismatic appeal partially based on the view that he was somehow exempted from established political convention. He promised to be a disruptive force, to be the bull that breaks the china shop, to be unbound by the political correctness of the elites.
Yet these last few weeks have shown him -- and the world -- that while he may have vanquished these entities, ultimately his own hubris may end up containing a disruptive force of nature, even when that force is himself.