The founders had competing ideas of how the POTUS would operate. Federalists, of course, foresaw a stronger executive branch, the better to help establish central government’s authority and unite a new nation. Revenue streams for national priorities required coordination, and that wasn’t going to happen without a more vibrant focal point. Southern states, concerned about their slave-based economy, bristled at a more powerful President; many a southern delegate already viewed the North, with emerging wisps of abolition, warily. From the start it was clear that Presidential power would be an enduring bone of contention.
Yet and still, the foundation of US Presidential authority was to lead. More specifically, to ensure that the worst inclinations of its citizens were not allowed to either paralyze the nation’s ability to act, or lash out impulsively in too damaging a manner. History has seldom been kind to Presidents shirking their duty to confront prevailing tides that clearly portended future calamity if not forcibly addressed by White House action.
Historians, at least up until this Presidency, have deemed James Buchanan our worst President due to his catatonia as slavery in the western territories morphed into secession fever. Coolidge and Hoover had no problem coddling isolationists after WWI seemed to teach many in the hustings, who had lost fathers, sons and husbands, that minding our own business was good foreign policy. It was left to FDR to move political heaven and earth in order to aid Europe as blitzkrig threatened to overrun the continent. Since the Soviets fell on the ash heap, the GOP has polished its mantle on Reagan’s refusal to give in to the No Nuke movement of the 80’s, which turned out millions for protests here and abroad.
Good Presidents lead, it’s that simple. Which brings us to Trump, who provides us the worst of all worlds: a refusal to address our gravest national and global challenges such as climate change, gun violence, economic interdependence and nuclear proliferation by creating for his base a “brand” of activist nihilism that merely panders to their ugliest and least informed instincts. Trump’s “keeping his promises” agenda clarifies a determination to subordinate the national interest to creation of a political brand which places image above all else. Trump is Buchanan on steroids. Instead of simply allowing an unacceptable status quo to endure, he’s actively pursuing edicts (they’re too haphazard to qualify as policies) that actually reverse progress that has been made, for no other purpose than to fit an image his base now expects.
Trade protectionism has always appealed to US workers, particularly as the tab for the failure to adjust our workforce in line with the international system we created has come due. But successive Presidents from both parties have understood the economic damage trade wars promise. Moreover, they have reflected a comprehension that subsidizing US industries only promotes bad habits and ultimately makes us less competitive.
So, absent a more informed electorate, better educated on the vagaries of world trade, Presidents have given lip service to populist impulses, while attempting to tilt the debate in line with macroeconomic realities, pursuing “fairer” trade through established institutions and governing accordingly…leadership. Trump has neither the knowledge or ambition to act responsibly on such matters. Knee jerk doesn’t do justice to his reckless approach, proclaimed in tweets and absent any congressional collaboration. Its negative impact is already being felt, by Trump’s wretched core as much as anybody else.
But he didn’t pick trade fights to promote anything but the image he is selling to a base addled by grievance at the expense of facts, whose own economic interests, like the national well being, are subordinate to the delusion they now have a champion.
Even more ominous is North Korea. Nothing is as important to Trump as the myth of his negotiating prowess. Amidst a Presidency crumbling around him, as well as the chaos of an Administration with no coherent decision-making process, Trump has made delivering a deal with Kim a do-or-die proposition. He neither knows nor cares about the regional landscape any agreement will alter. American commitments to South Korea and their critical role in the maintenance of the region’s balance of power are not a Trump concern. Hasty reductions or withdrawal of US forces in South Korea would destabilize all East Asia and benefit China immeasurably, but such a possibility is not on Trump’s radar; he promised the base a deal.
Would Kim say or sign most anything to get the Americans off the peninsula? Of course he would. He has the same attitude toward contracts as Trump. Does Trump care if Kim keeps his word? Of course not, he only promised to get a deal. If Kim breaks the deal, that’s on him! Trump, like Kim, will do or say or accept anything to get what he wants. In Kim’s case it’s the removal of 35,000 US soldiers, who have been at his doorstep for more than 60 years to ensure US military involvement if he gets cute.
Trump’s objective is simply a signature on the dotted line, which validates he kept his pledge. How the consequences of “the deal” play out are not important to him. The abrupt cancellation of scheduled B-52 exercises with South Korea in response to Kim’s predictable petulance provides ample warning of Trump’s priorities.
Had Jefferson et al been afforded a glimpse into the future and got an eyeful of Trump perhaps they would have rethought some things. A moronic narcissist enabled by a collection of cowardly and craven pols may have forced some adjustments. That said, whether our adherance to the framework they did provide will doom us to the whims of a mob they envisioned a strong executive branch able to tame, remains uncertain. As for our South Korean and other East Asian allies, now forced to rely on empty assurances from ashen emissaries of a leader unimpressed with anything but his own worthless bluster – well, they may be in for a raw deal….the only kind Trump has ever delivered. BC