American Id: a devout reflection on Trump

Even at this early stage – less than one week after his election – Trump seems to have been domesticated. He will deport fewer illegals than Obama (it will be hard to find more than  2.5 million with criminal records). The wall is to be a fence. Obamacare will last. The chair of the Republican party is his chief of staff. All in all, not exactly Mr Smith going to DC.

On the campaign, it was SO different. Orange/blonde/whatever hair (extensions), spray tan, groping women’s pussies (America indeed had a choice; which serial rapist they wanted in the white House) , sending Hillary to jail without due process, and the last chance for the USA before the 11 million became legal and voted. In short; American Id.

The best writing on him (WSJ) pointed out that in his property developer world, it does not matter what you say. Indeed the final contract explicitly says all previous verbiage is to be discarded. So what will happen?

Trump is constrained by two factors; those who voted for him and his own character. The former, particularly evangelicals.  will insist on recission on Roe vs Wade. They may go a lot further than he wants in gay “marriage” etc. That latter breaks down into defects in temperament (he has anger issues) and, more importantly, knowledge. At his best, he will insist that “white trash” gets back to work like coal-mining; yet American dominance is currently based on violation  of civil society norms in companies like AirBNB, or the cosmic levels of copyright violation  in Facebook, Youtube etc, not rust belt industry.

It is the mark of a tragic character to be brought down by his virtues. Trump will prove that extends also to scum of the earth. as for us in Ireland, and given his adoration for eminent domain./ compulsory purchase, surely we should take his Doonbeg/Doughmore golf course from him?

good friday 2017 It has lived down to expectations.The astonishing addition is that trump will clearly go to war rather than have his contacts with Russia during the campaign focussed on by the media.

We are entering an era of dictators with nukes - Kim, Xie, Putin and now Trump. The US was so busy selling its democratic values to the rest of the world as an exemplar that it lost its own democracy.apart from e-voting, manipulation of the voting rolls etc,  Obama made no attempt to curtail the powers of the executive prsidency, including the one that allows Trump launch a nuclear attack within 4 minutes. As has been pointed out, about the time for writing one of his ill-considered tweets.

It is ironic that the powers that Erdogan is looking for in Turkey - appointing a cabinet etc - are vested in the presidency in the USA. No attempt has been made to implement the provision in the US constitution that limits war-declaration to  congress; as a result of something trump saw on CNN, the US is now at war with Syria. The good news, such as it is, is that Trump will likely go to war with N Korea as his main focus, as Syria will be a red rag to the russians. 

He will introduce conscription a la Vietnam after Kim invades the south. The result will put the US and SE Asia in paroxysms for the remainder of our lives.