Connecting Trump’s Dots - unconnected campaign promises based on incoherent world view
Every day, the president’s behavior becomes more worrying. One day he demeans a federal judge who challenges him; the next day, without evidence, he accuses the media of hiding illegal voting or acts of terrorism. His lack of respect for institutions and truth pours out so fast, you start to forget how crazy this behavior is for any adult, let alone a president, and just how ugly things will get when we have a real crisis. And crises are baked into this story because of the incoherence of President Trump’s worldview.
How so? The world today is more interdependent than ever. The globalization of markets, the spread of cellphones, the accelerations in technology and biology, the new mass movements of migrants and the disruptions in the climate are all intertwined and impacting one another. As a result, we need a president who can connect all of these dots and navigate a path that gets the most out of them and cushions the worst.
But Trump is a dot exploiter, not connector. He made a series of reckless, unconnected promises, not much longer than tweets, to get elected, and now he’s just checking off each one, without thinking through the linkages among them or anticipating second-order effects.
It is a great way to make America weak — and overstretched — again.
Where do I start? Trump wants to get tougher with China on trade and security. That’s not crazy. But how would I do that? I’d organize an alliance of Pacific trading nations that surround China and enlist them in a trade pact that supports U.S.-style rule of law, greater market access for U.S. intellectual property and products and promotes U.S. values — as opposed to China’s. I’d call it the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP for short.
Oh wait, President Barack Obama did that, but Trump scrapped TPP on Day 1, without, I am sure, having read it. Now there is every reason to believe our Asian-Pacific allies will fall even more under China’s economic sway and trade “rules.” How smart is that?
And by the way, why is labor in Mexico cheaper than in America? One reason is that Mexico has weaker labor rights and environmental standards. Let’s see … what would TPP require of Mexico and other signatories? That they bring their labor rights and environmental standards closer to ours.
Instead, Trump is building a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants and force companies to move to the U.S. Let’s see … what happened after 9/11, when the border crossings with Mexico and Canada were severely constricted for security? It forced some assembly line shutdowns at U.S. auto companies, like Ford, because their supply chains stretched to Mexico and Canada. The lower-cost work is done in Mexico and then integrated with higher-value-added work in America, which enables our car companies to compete on price in Europe, Japan and China.
So what did the U.S., Canada and Mexico do after 9/11? They created a North American security envelope, explained Seth Stodder, Obama’s assistant secretary of homeland security, so if you fly into Mexico or Toronto from the Middle East, our Homeland Security Department now probably knows about it.
“Since 9/11, we and our Mexican and Canadian partners have worked to secure the North American perimeter by sharing information on people and goods coming to our countries, cross-referencing that information against terrorism databases and working collaboratively to identify potential bad actors trying to come to North America,” Stodder said. If we build a wall and demand that Mexico pay for it, how long will it go on cooperating with us?
And if Trump forces all these U.S.-based multinationals to move operations from Mexico back to the U.S., what will that do? Help tank the Mexican economy so more Mexicans will try to come north, and raise the costs for U.S. manufacturers. What will they do? Move their factories to the U.S. but replace as many humans as possible with robots to contain costs.
The U.N. says there’s a record 65 million displaced migrants and refugees, mostly from the developing world, trying to get into secure places like the U.S. or Europe. Why? A mix of civil wars, state failures, climate stresses and population explosions. What did Trump do his first week? Appoint climate deniers to key posts and ban U.S. aid to health groups that provide abortion as a family-planning option in developing nations.
Trump wants to partner with Vladimir Putin to defeat ISIS in Syria — a worthy goal. But Putin hasn’t been trying to defeat ISIS. He’s been trying to defeat democracy in Syria to keep the genocidal pro-Russian dictator there in power.
Will that be our goal, too? And who are Putin’s allies in Syria? Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite mercenaries from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Will they be our allies, too? No. We will enlist Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis to help us, says Trump. Really? But he just barred them from entering the U.S. How cooperative will they be?
And whom else might this ban keep out? Remember Steve Jobs? His biological father was Abdulfattah “John” Jandali. He came to America as a student in the 1950s and studied at the University of Wisconsin. He was from … Homs, Syria.
It’s amazing what a mess you can make when you only check boxes and don’t link them.
New York Times
Donald Trump is trying to implement some sartorial rigour within his administration. According to intelligence from the White House, the president believes his staff should “have a certain look” and aspire to “be sharply dressed”. Men should wear a tie. Female colleagues have been told to “dress like a woman”, whatever that means. Perhaps he wants them to swing through the White House on tree vines, wearing jungle pelts in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Jane?
As with so many of his executive orders so far, it’s predictably disappointing. And possibly misguided. One of the few joys to find in this new world order is in observing just how uniformly shambolic and ill-matched it is. I assumed the administration’s chaotic deportment was in fact a marvellously choreographed campaign to deflect “the opposition party” from the fine details of the day.
What better way to disguise your flailing incompetence at a press briefing, for example, than by wearing a tie of such exceptional ugliness that no one will really hear what you’re trying to say? Sean Spicer knows how to make headlines. The White House press secretary’s clumsy attempts to explain the botched military operations that led to the death of civilians and a Navy seal following a raid on Yemen last week were overlooked as focus fell instead on the diagonally striped monstrosity in poison yellow and navy tied around his neck.
I just assumed the tie was sartorial spin. Call it Project Blind: dull the people to the ineptitude of your policymaking and practice by wearing an eye-wateringly unattractive wardrobe. Donald Trump’s ill-fitting suit, Fanta complexion and feathery comb-over are already well documented: but he looks almost suave compared to the unshaven Steve Bannon, with his livid red proboscis, stained T-shirts and straining shirt buttons. So slovenly is he, and so swollen with choler, he seems to ooze with an especially Chaucerian brand of humour. Watching him slumped in his flannel shirts in the Oval Office, I am reminded of The Nun’s Priest Tale: “For God’s love, as tak som laxatyf.”
Then there’s Mike Pence, who wears smarter white button-down shirts, electric-coloured ties and navy suits, with all the self-possession of a Weeble. Or secretary of defence James Mattis, cadaverous in camo. Attorney-general Jeff Sessions wears pocket-sized suits and ties in reflux yellow and spotted vermilion: he carries them both with the skittery, overly keen mien of a warm-up host.
For comic opportunities alone, I hope Trump has directed his female staffers to follow the lead of Kellyanne Conway in their efforts to look “like a woman”. The counsellor to the president is the undisputed star of this fashion circus: a feisty, former cheerleader who, to judge by the state of her inauguration ensemble, takes her style inspiration from the Peruvian refugee Paddington Bear.
; a muddle of lurid jackets and look-at-me ensembles in primary brights — citrine, vermilion, blood — that are every bit as jarring as her coarse rhetoric. She embraces the type of womanly power glamour observed by weather girls and newscasters: her sleeveless dresses testify to a woman’s right to bare arms or, in the case of the ruffled gold jacket she wore to canvass at Trump Tower last November, the right to resemble a gilded valance sheet. But time has been cruel to Conway. Where once she might have been described as perky, the first weeks in office have lent her sleep-starved, kohl-rimmed looks the ravaged expression of a raptor. I can’t wait to see what she’ll wear next.
Whatever about “dressing sharp”. It must take a concerted effort, a willingness even, to look so collectively dreadful. It’s also in keeping with the evolution (or should that be devolution?) of world-leader style. After years of slick homogeny on the political stage — slim, dark-suited, smug — we’re now seeing a return of the fashion maverick: think Yanis Varoufakis and his football manager leathers, or Nigel Farage in his Toad-of-Toad-Hall Crombie and tulip-pink ties.
Similarly, British prime minister Theresa May’s affection for a voluminous tartan suit by Vivienne Westwood has been much discussed in recent weeks. As with the fabled leopard-print shoes in which she strode to power, May has worn the suits in moments of political — and personal — vulnerability, to announce her determination to lead the Conservative party, for example, or lay down a challenging Brexit strategy. Like Spicer’s tie, the tartan suit has proven a nifty decoy: capable of sucking up headlines and loud enough to distract from the political business of the day.
It may look daft, but the wacky wardrobe is a formidable weapon: bad clothes stimulate alternative conversations, they’re diverting and normalising. Conway’s flowerpot hats are awful, Bannon’s flak jacket is filthy and Spicer’s ties are plain obnoxious, but they all throw light on the individual that wears them. They give the wearer personality. Even more significantly, the clothes are humanising: one could almost feel sorry for Spicer; while Bannon’s gorilla-like bearing has become as morbidly fascinating as his guerrilla-style of governance. It’s all quite stupefying to behold — which, presumably, is the point.
So rather than insist his aides smarten up, if I were Trump I’d order everyone to keep on clowning around: brighter ties, Hawaiian print shirts, lots of gold lamé. Dressing like a fool never seemed so wise.
