For a moment, he soared.
On rhetorical wings crafted from feathers provided by daughter Ivanka and Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump launched himself into an oratorical flight that was borne out of equal parts anger, frustration and a desire to regain control of a message lost in cacophonous chatter.
It had been little more than five weeks since Trump had stepped up to the microphones after having first taken the oath of office, and delivered what is likely to go down as the darkest inauguration address in history. Listening to him, one could be forgiven thinking that he was referring not so much to the nation Ronald Reagan once referred to as a "shining city on a hill," but Gotham City instead.
The reviews were as bleak as his speech.
Now Donald Trump’s personality is driven by two primary motivations: a craving for public attention and an almost compulsive need to be always perceived as “winning.” While campaigning for first the Republican nomination and then the presidency, Trump operated on the essentially insurgent premise that any “good” or “bad” news was still news, ergo negative publicity generated by his controversial comments did nothing but ensure his primacy in each news cycle over his more straight-laced, even dour, opponents. This unabashed coverage in turn gave him instant stature befitting a celebrity, which in the 21st century’s rarefied, media-obsessed public consciousness imbued him with the same perceived stature as senators, governors, even a former Secretary of State and First Lady.
Governing though, was a very different proposition. In this sense, Trump no longer needed carnival antics to command the news. The President, in fact, IS the news. Notwithstanding the strategic roadmap for governance drawn out by Bannon, Trump’s employment of familiar unrepentant, Twitter-channelled, thin-skinned, attack-dog campaign tactics once he achieved high office magnified their puerile nature, yielded a bumper harvest in derision from those who did not vote for him, sowed confusion among wary “establishmentarian” Republicans (whose congressional votes he needs to pass his programs) concerned about his orthodoxy to conventional conservatism, and made his administration the target of comedians worldwide.
If there is one thing Donald Trump cannot stand, it’s not being taken seriously. His narcissistic ego views being derided as a personal attack on his manhood. Unwilling to be equated a “loser,” he had to get back – if nothing else in his own mind – to “winning” again. He had to act to counteract the evolving narrative and widespread consensus among domestic and foreign observers alike was of a new administration off to a chaotic, rudderless start.
The vehicle he chose was a ‘Joint Session of Congress,’ not quite a ‘State of the Union’ speech – that will come next year – but an occasion almost as grand, with both the Senate and House in attendance, along with the Supreme Court, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Cabinet as well as the Vice President and Speaker.
The person he channeled was Reagan.
Donald Trump can be a very effective communicator. He possesses charisma, an ability to project certitude and confidence, as well as projecting a roguish (or thuglike) charm. Still, up until this speech, he had neither displayed the flights of rhetorical fancy employed by his eloquent predecessor, nor looked, or sounded, credibly presidential for any extended amount of time.
To him, Reagan was a Star. Just like Trump imagines himself to be. And if the Republican standard for greatness or eloquence was how the Gipper looked, sounded, projected and inspired, then Trump could be too.
Thus, the Joint Session speech marked a profound shift, not so much of content, but of cadence and tone. Gone was the searing anger, to replaced by a statesmanlike delivery generously peppered with inspirational notes. The language was measured, lofty, with aspirations towards a unity the President had never sought while he was but a candidate. There were moments where this most unconventional of politicians, almost sounded like…a politician.
This was the inauguration address he should have given.
For all their prognostications otherwise, the American public derives a measure of stability from such familiar tones in the same way a body welcomes the familiarity of comfort food. During his long campaign Trump did little to reach beyond red-meat rhetoric as he’d shrewdly calculated that what he needed to win was to ensure the turnout of his rabid base, those who revile the very political elites that sat with him in the stands on inauguration day and upon whom he looked out from his podium Tuesday night.
There were no attacks on the media, no sabre rattling, awkward baravado and no petty squabbles with celebrities. The man who once claimed that “I alone” can fix the broken system appealed to Democrats to “get together” with Republicans in a shared effort on everything from healthcare reform to an ambitious $1 trillion infrastructure program.
He did make an effort to reach out to those who did not support him, offering to move beyond past battles. Arguing that, “the time for trivial fights is beyond us,” he strove for a soaring tone, which graciously acknowledged the recent threats against the Jewish community and the shooting of two Indian men in Kansas. In so doing he addressed for the first time accusations of indifference and insulation from the everyday reality of racial tensions in the country Reagan once referred to as “a shining city on a hill.”
His speech struck an emotional high whilst acknowledging the sacrifice of US Navy man William Owens. recently killed in an anti-terror raid in Yemen, with an oration so eloquent it prompted the young man’s widow to stream tears and stare heavenward in silent prayer to her martyred husband. The applause was thunderous, as for one of the few times during the speech, bipartisan.
Yet there was still ample evidence of vintage Trump: a steely, give-no-quarter approach to the essential substance of his hard line policies on trade (TPP = still dead), immigration (keep the bastards out – though a subtle shift to a more merit-based entry stance), a substantial defence budget increase, and counterterrorism against ISIS and “radical Islamic terrorism.” Neither was there softening on building the Great Wall of Mexico or on halting “American carnage” (though he didn’t use those words this time) on streets wracked by crime. He also offered little detail on repealing and replacing Obamacare, comprehensive tax reform, or the still as yet unofficial $1 trillion stimulus program.
As is his wont Trump could not resist touting his administration’s accomplishments, indulging in some factual hyperbole in so doing. While media outlets will doubtlessly (and rightly) question these assertions, his first few weeks (and they have been only weeks, though it might have seemed like years) have not been just sound and fury: oil and gas pipelines have been rebooted; the TPP is deader than Elvis; Dodd-Frank is being chipped away at; a commitment by Trump to eliminate two current regulations for every new one has been made; immigration raids are underway.
One speech was never going to be enough to reset a presidency, nor did it likely impress many of the steely-faced Democrats who sat on their hands for much of the occasion. There were fleeting shots of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker and a host of other presidential has-beens and would-bes doing their collective best to keep poker faces, sizing up the presidential change in tone. You could see the caution etched across their features as they realized that an optimistic, Reaganesque Trump could be a very formidable electoral foe indeed.
Trump, the ringmaster of controlled chaos, the CEO who favoured pitting executives against each other, the Disruptor-in-Chief and permanent insurgent will have to prove that he truly wants to set a new tone in the national conversation. Everyone would watch both his public appearances and Twitter feed to see if his newfound aversion to “trivial fights” would last longer that his famous nanoseconds-long attention span.
We had not long to wait and see.
As of this writing Attorney-General Jeff Sessions has become the latest cabinet member to run afoul of Vladimir Putin’s fabulously flatfooted attempt to curry favour with the President’s inner circle. Would there be a measured response from the President? Would he keep silent? Would he fire his barrels at the so-called peddlers of “fake news” he so clearly believes the liberal media to be, especially when it asks about his team’s relations with Russia?
"A total witch hunt!" the President tweeted. Words like "hypocrite" (aimed at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer), and statements like "They <the Democrats> lost the election, and now they have lost their grip on reality."
As if that was not enough, Trump escalated his attacks to, even for him, an unprecedented degree, shortly thereafter claiming that Barack Obama had ordered Trump Tower in general, and the President-elect (at that time) in particular, wiretapped. Not only was this an incendiary accusation, it was made without proof. A sitting President accusing his predecessor of nothing less than an impeachable offence.
Washington exploded. James Comey, FBI Director whose ill-timed re-opening of Hillary Clinton's email issue played no small role in halting her campaign's momentum at the crucial moment when she seemed to be pulling away in the polls from Trump, has been equally as loud in demanding the Department of Justice label the President's claims as baseless, in essence calling his own commander-in-chief a liar. Congress will likely investigate, as will Senator Lindsay Graham, no Trumpian fan.
A ham fisted attempt at misdirection? A desperate ploy to change the subject? Or is there smoke and fire, of an entirely different kind? The kind that can burn off the wax and glue holding Donald Trump in flight?
First of all, a president cannot legally order a wiretap on an American citizen. Furthermore, should a government agency be authorized to do so by a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance) court, there must be sufficient grounds of suspicion that another country may have compromised high-level contacts, in this case the incoming administration's most senior advisory ranks.
In other words, if no wiretap was ever carried out, Trump's reputation as the rumour-mongering, Dupe-in-Chief would be cemented, and his credibility severely compromised. If the court did indeed give permission, it must have had prima-facie evidence of someone in his inner circle colluding with the Russians. And the issue of Russian interference in American polity is back to front and center. Neither is a good outcome for Donald Trump.
And he is flying ever closer to the sun.