TRUMP CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY
TRUMP 101
SURVIVING
THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY
On the ninety-ninth day, the
president announced that nuclear war on the Korean peninsula was possible. On the one-hundredth day Trump held a
victory rally in Pennsylvania while protestors took to the streets throughout
America and much of the world to protest the president’s policies regarding
climate change. On the one hundred
and first day the president defended his invitation of Philippines president
and butcher Rodrigo Duterte to the White House.
It is fitting that the last days
of Trump’s first one hundred highlighted the greatest dangers of his
presidency: nuclear war, climate change and his egregious disregard for human
rights. The first two can fairly
be characterized as risking the end of the human race as we know it. The third is a direct threat to the
democratic form of government for democracy cannot exist without deep respect
for human rights. What will
tomorrow bring?
Trump is right about one thing: One hundred days is an arbitrary
distinction. It is a small but
significant sample. But like the
January barometer for the stock market, it has some measurable value in
predicting the future.
After one hundred and one days
of a Trump White House, we can draw a number of conclusions:
1. Donald Trump wanted to win the White House but he did
not want to run the government. Recall that
strange report during the campaign that he offered policy, domestic and
foreign, to governor John Kasich of Ohio if only Kasich would endorse him and
become his running mate. It seemed
too bizarre to be true back then.
It does not seem so now.
The president has turned virtually all policy matters over to his
son-in-law Jared Kushner – a man whose inexperience equals that of the
president.
If Trump wanted and expected to
become president, why didn’t he spend a moment in preparation? It is clear he knows very little about
the complex issues that awaited his arrival in Washington. He was going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict over a long weekend. He
was going to repeal and replace Obamacare in the blink of an eye – who knew
healthcare was so complicated? He
was going to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure. It would be so easy. Not today, boss. He was going to pull out of NAFTA and
CAFTA on day one. Now, he appoints
commissions to study the problem.
He’s in over his head and he
knows it. Unfortunately his ego
will not allow him to sit on his hands and do nothing. He must act and there lies the
danger.
2. Donald Trump has no philosophy, no ideology and no
grounding principles of government to guide him. He
believes his unpredictable quality serves him well. Maybe it did in real estate transactions but as
commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military, it can result in
unnecessary wars that never end.
If all goes perfectly wrong, it can result in nuclear holocaust.
3. The Trump administration was divided from the
beginning. In the beginning the dark knight Steve
Bannon was clearly in charge. He
had his buddies and allies, including the Russian connection – National
Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson – and they had his back. But when the protestors, the media and the opposition turned
up the heat the Russian connection peeled away and Jared Kushner became the
president’s closest adviser. Is
there unity in the White House now?
Definitely not. Bannon is
still kicking around the halls. He
will not go quietly. Maybe he
holds a few trump cards of his own.
4. Russia Gate may well die a natural death. Oh, there was collusion. Trump’s team met with Putin’s people on numerous
occasions. They shared
information. Trump’s people knew
in advance what WikiLeaks would dump in the days and weeks ahead. They coordinated their campaigns.
Unfortunately, we do not know if
Donald Trump was in the circle. He
had no need to know. His advisors
gave him his schedule and told him what to say. Yes, Donald had his spontaneous moments but the broad
strokes of his campaign were given to him. Bannon was the man who made Trump president. Not Kushner. Not Ivanka. Not
Kellyanne. Bannon.
Tillerson could go down. Bannon and Sessions should as
well. But Trump will probably escape
relatively unscathed. Should he
have known? Yes. Did he know? Maybe not.
5. The Trump administration is guilty of gross
incompetence. In real estate, you can always walk
away from a bad deal. In
government, there is only one congress and only a handful of legislative
opportunities. In politics, you
don’t roll out a major legislative initiative like healthcare unless you have a
good idea you’ll win. You can say
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan sabotaged Trump. You can say it was the Freedom Caucus. Whatever. Trump stumbled out the gate and got trumped. Even as the new and improved healthcare
bill squeaks by the House, the Senate is poised to strike it down. The celebration, reminiscent of George
W. Bush’s Mission Accomplished, was premature.
In Washington, failure begets
failure. Trump doesn’t get
it. Kushner doesn’t get. At the moment, Bannon doesn’t care. This mess belongs to the
president.
6. Donald loves adulation and the only love he gets now
is when he drops a bomb. Nobody loves Donald for releasing toxic
chemicals into the air and water.
Nobody loves him for judicial appointees. Nobody loves him for executive orders that never seem to
matter. But everybody loves him
when he drops a bomb. Will they
still love him if he escalates the ongoing wars? That is an open question. Americans are tired of war. Trump promised to stay out of war. Can he get away with raising the flag and pounding the drums
of war? I don’t think so. Not this time. This time it will be as it was for LBJ
who dropped out of the presidential race rather than face the antiwar
movement. Trump may hate us – the
protestors, the dissidents, the resistance – but he doesn’t want to be the most
despised president since Richard Nixon.
7. The president will keep his campaign promises on
climate change and Supreme Court appointments. The
issues are interrelated and together they represent the greatest damage this
White House can do short of nuclear war.
Trump loves coal and believes
that all environmental concerns are secondary to economic interests. Left to his own and his Republican
allies, they will wait for the rising tide of global warming to swallow Miami
before they will yield an inch.
They don’t believe in science.
They don’t believe in renewable energy. They don’t believe that pumping carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere has any significant effect.
They don’t believe that releasing toxic chemicals into the water supply
will kill and maim humans and animals alike. At least they pretend they don’t believe.
They sit in their golden towers,
protected from the suffering masses, and go about the business of amassing
fortunes. They will erect
monuments to greed and allow the natural wonders of the world to crumble. They will fracture the earth for
natural gas and drill for oil in Monument Valley. They will build a bridge over Grand Canyon and let the
Colorado River run dry. They will
dig up ancient burial grounds and deface sacred lands with hotels, oil
pipelines and residential development.
They will destroy the planet and build a rocket to the moon so that they
and only they can escape the fallout.
THE
ROLE OF THE RESISTANCE
The great hope was and is that
Trump could be successfully impeached in less than a year. That almost certainly will not
happen. As long as the
Republicans control both houses of congress they will protect the president
from Russia Gate. It is obvious. They don’t like Trump. Many of them don’t believe in his
policies. But he delivered the
White House to Republican hands and they will go to great lengths to protect
him from disgrace.
But do not believe the
resistance doesn’t matter. It
matters more than ever. The only
thing that holds the president and his party back is the resistance.
Even as the prospects of
impeachment grow dimmer with every day the investigations in the House and
Senate stall and fail to deliver, the cry for impeachment in the streets must
be heard. The politicians may
forget; the people cannot.
This president, knowingly or not,
was elected by the corrupt influence of an adversarial foreign power and a
meddling FBI director whose true motives are not yet known. If we are not able to take this
president down then we must cripple him.
We must make it impossible for him to conduct business as usual. Politically, we must push forward to
the midterm elections. Without
control of the House or the Senate it will be difficult to mitigate the harm. With control of the House or the
Senate, we would control the agenda.
An investigation of the
president’s conflict of interests would compel him to release his tax
returns. The investigation of his
connections to Russia and Putin’s determined effort to elect Trump would gain
momentum. The heat would bear down
on every inhabitant of this White House like the oppressive humidity of a
Louisiana summer. They would hide
in their rooms or retire to spend more time with their children. Their every action would be under a
microscope. The pressure would
paralyze.
They will act impulsively. Trump will fire anyone who even looked
at a Russian spy novel. Even
Ivanka and Kushner will step down in the hope they can save their business
empire.
And the chips will begin to
fall.
This is the hope: that the
resistance born in the first 101 days of Trump will remain strong and grow into
a movement that gives birth to a new kind of government, the kind of government
that many have promised but few have delivered – a government that not only
responds to the people but engages and protects the people’s interests.
As anyone who has read the late
great Howard Zinn knows, the struggle never ends. As Neil Young said, rust never sleeps. The people must remain alert, informed
and ready to take action. The
people must stand in constant, unified resistance to the forces that will
always seek to exploit them and the natural resources that support us all.
The Trumps succeeded in
exploiting our democracy because the institutions that control and dominate our
political system have failed in a fundamental way. The people know by raw instinct that no one in government –
from the local council to the state house to the halls of congress and the oval
office – represents their interests.
People are not human beings with
needs and desire. They are digits
in a database. They can be
manipulated for political gain.
Well, it didn’t work this last
time around and I suppose that’s the good news. The Clinton machine crashed and burned and failed to defeat
a crude political neophyte – a con man and pretender who worked his magic
tricks on a public ready to believe.
Perhaps the most astounding
development of all is that those who formed Trump’s base, who worked for him,
voted for him and contributed despite the candidate’s pledge to finance his own
campaign, remain loyal to this day.
It would be a mistake to dismiss
these people outright. If they are
watching at all they have seen Trump without his mask. They know he is inept. They know he changes his positions like
a laborer changes shirts. They
know he is not a man of his word.
They stick with him because they have seen no evidence that anyone else
has changed.
Politicians of both parties
continue to play their games.
Senators weeping like small children over the demise of the
filibuster. Threats and
counter-threats over a self-imposed deadline for funding the government. Calculated responses to launching
missiles and dropping bombs in faraway lands.
It’s all theater and the people
see through it.
What do we do about all
this? We do what we’ve always
done. We keep working for change –
each in his and her own way. We
push our elected leaders for actions and answers. We vote for people who break the mold. We contribute what we can when we see
the potential for real change.
We can take heart from the
recent presidential election in France.
While Marine Le Pen gets most of the publicity, perhaps the more
important lesson is that the two parties – Socialist and Republican – that have
controlled French politics for half a century lost their grip on the reins of
power.
Can it happen here? Why not? Of course it is easier to upset the established order in a
parliamentary system like France.
Of course it might have been easier before the Supreme Court opened the
doors to unlimited corporate financing of elections. But it is still possible. The candidacy of Bernie Sanders demonstrated the potential
of small individual contributions in a presidential election. That it has carried over to some degree
in congressional elections under the reign of Trump is encouraging.
Congress continues to suffer
some the lowest approval marks in history. Trump’s approval continues to hover at 40% -- another
historically low mark. When
government is this unpopular in a democracy, the people are begging for
change. The people are so fed up
with our officials that in the last election many who voted for Trump were
willing to listen and consider the Bernie Sanders alternative. This is not a philosophical
divide.
The issues that Trump and
Sanders had in common were their antiwar stands, trade policy and rebuilding
the infrastructure. Those issues
should define the next generation of candidates. That Trump cannot deliver does not mean that the issues will
vanish. His ultimate failure on
healthcare – both with congress and with the people – suggests the people want
Medicare for all. That is another
issue that can win elections.
Trump and Sanders stood for
basic, comprehensive systemic change.
No one currently in power gets it – or if they do, they are unable to
advocate a position that does not attract corporate contributions. If the politicians we have cannot
deliver we must find new politicians.
We need independents to take their rightful place in the body
politic.
It can happen. We have to believe it can. The first goal is to win the Senate in
the midterm election. If we win
the Senate, there is a chance we can win the House – even with gerrymandered
districts. If we win the Senate,
we can stop Trump’s regressive appointments to the Supreme Court. We can force him to moderation. If we win the House, we can enact
electoral reforms, prohibit gerrymandering and push the ball forward on
Medicare for all, infrastructure spending and fair trade.
If we take the House or the
Senate we can weigh this president down with serious investigations armed with
subpoena powers. There are a whole
lot of people in the Trump White House – including Trump – who are praying that
doesn’t happen. The resistance
must make it so.
The fact that Trump has no
philosophy is an opportunity. He
would be open to a Clinton pivot.
Just as Clinton became a champion of conservative causes – trade policy,
welfare reform and deregulation of Wall Street – so Trump could become a
champion of progressive causes.
Trump doesn’t care who loves
him. He just wants to be
loved. He wants to be led. He wants someone to take hold of the
reins and tell him what to do.
Let’s take that role and run
with it.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF
THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES, GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION, WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT,
NUMBER NINE, A PATRIOT DIRGE, RANDOM JACK AND OTHER WORKS.
