Idle bluster, abject ignorance, bald-faced lies, and thin-skinned petulance characterized Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The same, alas, are characterizing his presidency.
But it’s one thing for the media to cover his campaign as little more than reality TV. It’s quite another for them to cover his presidency as such. Yet that’s precisely what they’re doing – even reporting on his snarky, whiny tweets as “breaking news.”
No surprise then that they hyped his first address to a joint session of Congress tonight as if it were a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) event. Some news stations couldn’t help reinforcing this allusion by reminding viewers that he picked former WWE CEO Linda McMahon to serve in his cabinet (as head of the Small Business Administration).
True to form, Trump delivered nothing more than his all too familiar screed of wishful thinking and grandiose promises – premised mainly on alternative facts. In other words, he treated us to a “presidential” version of his campaign stump speech, which curiously enough he has made a show of delivering several times since his inauguration.
Sure enough, he previewed the manifest absurdity of much of what he said tonight by toasting himself – at a dinner for the National Governors Association on Sunday – as follows:
I can say that, after four weeks – it’s been a lot of fun – but we’ve accomplished almost everything we’ve started out to accomplish.
(Washington Post, February 27, 2017)
He then dispatched his spinmeisters to propagate the Goebbelsian big lie that he accomplished more in his first month than most presidents accomplished in their first term.
The reality, of course, is that he has the lowest job approval of any president (at 44 percent) since Gallup began tracking the early days of presidential terms six decades ago. No doubt this is because he spent most of his early days throwing twitter tantrums, waging love-hate warfare with the press, and making a show of signing executive orders that do little more than offer comfort to fools.
The hypocrisy of his executive orders is galling even for Trump. After all, he spent the past six years denouncing Obama for governing by them, despite the fact that Obama only did so to circumvent the orchestrated efforts of a Republican-controlled Congress to obstruct his policies – no matter how salutary.
Yet Trump stood before this joint session tonight and hailed his own torrent of executive orders as if they were manna from heaven that will sustain American security and prosperity for eternity. This, even though he has a Republican-controlled Congress that appears as willing to implement his policies as they were determined to obstruct Obama’s. Not to mention that everyone knows his executive orders will not survive the first day of his successor’s presidency – whether it’s Democratic or Republican.
Meanwhile, for all the boast of his accomplishments, Trump could not show that he has actually done anything to
- reform the tax code;
- repeal and replace Obamacare;
- reform immigration laws and build that wall.
By comparison, at this point in his presidency, Obama had not only signed as many executive orders, but could also show that he had already
- rescued the global economy from another Great Depression;
- granted women the right to sue for equal pay;
- laid the foundation for implementing healthcare reform (a.k.a. Obamacare).
No wonder then that Obama had a comparative job approval of 59 percent.
Still, it is noteworthy that Trump spent much of his address doubling down on his dystopian claims about some phantom threat illegal immigration poses, especially from Mexico. He dramatized this by introducing relatives of loved ones who were victims of crimes illegal immigrants committed.
This reflects his delusional belief that immigrants constitute a menacing wave that will soon have all of America awash in crime – presumably aping the native-born Americans who have already turned cities like Baltimore and Chicago into crime-ridden morasses. You probably recall this signature line from the speech announcing his presidential campaign:
They’re bringing drugs; they’re bringing crime; they’re rapists; and some, I assume, are good people.
(Washington Post, June 16, 2015)
But anyone who knows anything about illegal immigration knows that, contrary to Trump’s scapegoating and scaremongering:
Several studies, over many years, have concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.
(New York Times, January 26, 2017)
Clearly, targeting illegal immigrants in a campaign to combat violent crime is rather like targeting heroin addicts in a campaign to combat illegal drugs. Yet Trump has predicated his entire presidency on building an anti-immigrant wall – so high they can’t get over it, so low they can’t get under it, and so wide they can’t get around it.
You’d think his secretary of Homeland Security, John F. Kelly, would have disabused Trump of this folly by now. For example, Kelly could have pointed out how much the US economy depends on the manual labor of the very illegal immigrants he wants to either keep out or deport.
Of course, hope springs eternal that, for the education of President Trump, other Cabinet secretaries will emulate
- Nikki Haley, his ambassador to the UN, who disabused him of the folly that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is negotiable;
- James Mattis, his secretary of defense, who disabused him of the folly that NATO is obsolete;
- H.R. McMaster, his national security adviser, who is trying to disabuse him of the folly that gratuitously insulting all Muslims, by using the epithet “radical Islamic terrorists,” will help America defeat al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist groups.
But, believe me, building that wall will be tantamount to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face …
Incidentally, apropos of offering comfort to fools, he did just that during a pre-address interview with a gaggle of news anchors earlier today. Specifically, he proclaimed that “the time is right for an immigration bill” — as long as both sides are willing to compromise.
But this is every bit as meaningless, and makes as much a mockery of presidential leadership, as the proclamation he made during a joint press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month. Specifically, he proclaimed that the time is right for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal — as long as both sides are willing to compromise.
Meanwhile, conspicuously absent from Trump’s address was any mention of the clear and present danger Russia poses to American democracy. Given the alarms all US intelligence agencies have sounded in this regard, a plan to confront Russians, not one to pick on Mexicans, should have been the clarion call of this address.
Instead, Trump seems intent on helping Russia hasten America’s downfall. Only this explains his Manchurian-like efforts to delegitimize so many US institutions – from its independent courts to its free press; so much so that you’d think he was executing direct orders from his puppet master, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
To comment any further on this would risk beating a dead horse. Therefore, I refer you to “US Intel Says Putin Has Compromising Information on Trump,” January 10, 2017, and “The Issue Is Not Whether Russia Affected Outcome of US Election,” December 12, 2016. I warned in the latter that, despite his antic deference to Putin, Trump will have a day of reckoning soon enough – when he will have to confront Putin as the geo-strategic enemy he is.
But, believe me, ignoring the threat Russia poses will be tantamount to fiddling while Rome burns …
Still, nowhere was Trump’s three-card monte of an address more deceptive than in his failure to mention any of the campaign promises he has already broken. Most notable were his promises to
- tear up Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, which he avoids mentioning like the plague;
- move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which hung over the aforementioned news conference with the Israeli prime minister like a Damoclean sword, daring either one to even suggest it;
- drain the swamp of Wall-Street creatures who peddle so much corrupting influence in Washington, D.C., which he has only added to with his cabinet nominations.
In case you forgot, he promised to do all of these on day one. But, even if you read it with a magnifying glass, you will not find a mention of either one in this address.
On the other hand, it is noteworthy that Trump hailed the promises corporate CEOs made (he seems to think in fealty to him) to open new manufacturing plants and bring jobs back to America. But I suspect their corporate promises will prove every bit as misleading as his campaign promises.
More to the point, I am convinced that few, if any, of the policies Trump proposed tonight will ever be enacted into law. But you don’t have to take my word for it.
For here is how Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the most influential Republicans in Congress, greeted Trump’s ballyhooed budget proposal, which is supposed to pay for all of his plans to “Make America Great Again”:
It’s dead on arrival, it’s not going to happen, it would be a disaster.
(Washington Post, February 28, 2017)
And, tellingly, the declared intent of Graham and other Republicans to block his budget proposal pales in comparison to that of other Republicans to block his proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare. Which raises the question: Who needs Democrats to serve as the loyal opposition when Republicans seem this intent on doing so?
In fact, Republicans were competing with Democrats to preempt Trump’s address with warnings that, legislatively, it would amount to much ado about nothing. And it speaks volumes that the most positive thing Republicans are saying about his address is that, for the first time in his presidency, Trump struck and maintained a presidential tone … for one whole hour. Never mind that this smacks of the kind of compliment one might give a dog after it finally performs a new trick flawlessly.
That said, my version of the most famous part of Shakespeare’s Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 24-28, seems a fitting way to end this commentary:
Trump’s but a born narcissist, a rich huckster
Who blurts and tweets for media consumption
And then repeats for more: it is a ruse
Played by a con artist, full of rant and boasting,
Serving just his ego.
I urge you to bear my criticisms and warnings in mind. Especially when you hear politicians, pundits, and reporters expressing situational shock and awe at how presidential “Teleprompter Don” acted.
Of course, the media have set the bar so low for his job performance that his childish alter ego could crawl over it on all fours. But, despite his penchant for the histrionics of reality TV, it will not do for him to just play a president on TV — episodically.
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* This commentary was originally published on Tuesday at 11:19 p.m.