As you know this blog is critical of Trump’s social conservatism and climate change denial, but respects the reasons he won and supports many of the practical ambitions that he projects and which have given hope to millions of Americans regular politicians ignored.
On the face of it the Trump Presidency is little short of a fiasco. That is the quick take by the rest of the world on extraordinary events in Washington. By conventional judgment this is about right. Not only are there enormous legislative gaps and failures, but fighting among White House staffers is now in the open. The Republican party is becoming ever less co-operative with a White House they find embarrassing. The media are in overdrive with talk of internecine warfare, leaks, Russia, and plots. They scent blood and know that a failed presidency provides material to make many of them rich. So is it all over for Trump?
No it is not. What you see in the United States is a political civil war between professional politicians and their outriders of both parties and a President elected because he was not a politician and sent to Washington, in his own words, to drain the swamp. So far he has hesitated with the pumps, while trying to work with the extraordinarily ill disciplined Republican party in Congress. It is clear that enterprise is now doomed to fail. So the White House is being purged of politicians and replaced with business people and generals. The President likes billionaires and generals.
Seasoned political observers lament the absence of political experience within this maverick administration, failing to see that this is the whole idea. No longer will the game of politics be played, so politicians are not needed. Instead stuff is going to happen a different way, to cut adrift the self indulgent grandstanding and ridiculous investigations which have paralysed the Capitol, detaching it almost entirely from attention to the everyday needs of the American people and the pressing issues in the international arena.
This new amalgam of Trump, his generals and billionaires will have to face the politicians down. They must end this Russia obsession and get a working relationship with Putin, without which not a single one of the crises around the world will be resolved; they must sort out tax cuts and infrastructure investment, and come up with a workable health care system which provides for everybody without excessive cost. All of that will boost growth and improve the lives of ordinary people. The Republicans will have to find common cause that helps their country and their President and the Democrats will have to get real and understand that Hilary lost not because of Russian hackers but because American voters chose somebody else.
Trump’s challenge is simple. He either drains the swamp or drowns in it.