A Hundred Days and Counting

The first artificial and arbitrary deadline for judging new governments was upon us this weekend, and it seemed like a good time for me to reflect on the good, the bad and the all too plentiful ugly that has characterized this period. To be honest, President Trump was absolutely right when he said that the hundred day period is meaningless, though he had set that benchmark for himself repeatedly, and then promptly claimed that he'd had one of the most successful opening acts of all time. That claim, like so many others, is all hyperbole, of a pattern readily recognizable in his utterances. But what is the reality?

As a liberal, I'm not really in a position to render impartial judgment; my own biases ensure that I will judge harshly. And given the chaos that undeniably swirls around this administration, it is easy for a critic to find fault with almost everything that President Trump has done. I will start with the low-hanging fruit - the lack of government appointees (or rather, lack of nominations for numerous positions), the constant overheated rhetoric, the inability to leave campaign mode and settle down to actual governing, the increasingly shrill attacks on the press, the seeming lack of understanding on any and every topic that affects the country, and perhaps most scary of all, the careless and offhand use of military force with no thought of the consequences of any US action. There is plenty to choose from, and be scared by in that list but for me, the greatest failure is that refusal to acknowledge even the slightest need for course correction, or personal accountability, be it in ordering a bloody military raid on Yemen or firing his National Security Advisor for numerous lapses in judgment and behavior, or in making wild and unsubstantiated (and probably totally false) charges against the former president. That President Trump is unprepared for the role he has sought and won is beyond doubt, and his own words admit as such. He has admitted, seemingly with absolutely no self-awareness, that healthcare policy is difficult and then absolutely and casually reversed his position on China as a currency manipulator when he was schooled in monetary policy by the visiting Chinese president - he again quite offhandedly admitted that he'd known nothing about Chinese government policy on a topic that had formed a huge part of his campaign promise. Then just this past week he said in an interview that he'd never expected the job to be so difficult; it is a toss up on whether to be more scared that he is casually admitting this with one breath and claiming undeserved mantles of greatness and accomplishment in the next, blithely ignoring the yawning contradictions in his own statements, or that he truly believed his own campaign rhetoric that the job of president was so easy that an accomplished businessman could walk in and do a better job without even exerting himself.

And yet, I am forced to admit that the apocalyptic terms employed by my fellow liberals are widely off the mark - this president's track record is a lot less terrible than it might have been. Much of what he's done, and most of his cabinet appointees are in line with his campaign promises and general GOP policy line. He has tried to rescind the Affordable Care Act, a promise and priority of both his campaign and the whole Republican Party; and yet, with the whole government controlled by one party, they've failed to even get legislation to a vote in the House, never mind passing it or getting it to a Senate vote. Tax breaks have been a GOP staple for more than three decades. Appointing a climate denier to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a private school advocate and anti-regulation partisan to the Department of Education and other similarly Orwellian appointments are well in line with prior promises. Liberals need to admit that none of this is surprising and that any GOP president would have done the same; they also need to admit that the US electorate, in their wisdom or lack thereof, has endorsed President Trump's policies. One might claim that Trump did not win the popular vote, or that only 27% of eligible voters (46% of 58% turnout) supported him, but the bottom line is that he won, and over 40% of the electorate did not object to his stated policies enough to even vote. Voters, though endorsement or apathy, also delivered the House and Senate to the GOP, giving President Trump full control of the government. In 2009, President Obama won a similar mandate to enact a liberal policy and did so. It is only fair, that no matter how dangerous we think this president's ideas and actions, we still respect the will of the people. That does not mean standing down and giving the GOP a free hand, but simply acknowledging that much of what is being now enacted is the choice of the American people, through their acts of commission or omission.

It is also important to note that President Trump has not done all that much in overturning the previous administration's policies. There have been some highly publicized executive orders, signed with much fanfare, but in the end, President Trump has not enacted but a fraction of the conservative and populist agenda he promised and most of the acts that liberals most fear have remained in abeyance. This is not a mark of approbation for his restraint however, but a censure of the strongest degree - things are not so bad, because this president is terrible at his job, and not really interested in the business of governing. The GOP sponsored alternative to Obamacare has sputtered in part because Trump is not invested in actually replacing it with a real alternative; unlike Speaker Ryan or the Freedom Caucus, Trump has no strong conviction on the matter and his lack of a core belief impacts his ability and willingness to force new legislation through Congress. For all his talk about making deals, he has shown absolute disinterest in actual negotiations, with holdouts in his party and much more so with the opposition, and is quite happy to see the matter die in Congress so long as he can deflect the blame to someone else. For most part, his impact will be through acts of omission rather than overt commission, a lack of action that certainly shapes public life as much as active intervention, and his largely invisible Cabinet is in keeping with that path. He has appointed people with less government experience to some positions, actually reducing the impact they might have on changing government policy; in many cases, most policy will remain in the hands of career bureaucrats for a while, and things will continue unchanged till his appointees gain full understanding and control of their departments, and that situation is delayed further by the lack of supporting cast for many of those Cabinet members.

The other, and significantly overlooked aspect of President Trump's government is how closely is reflects his own personality and business model. While President Obama won plaudits for creating a Cabinet of Rivals by keeping Defense Secretary Gates, and appointing his party opponent Hilary Clinton to Secretary of State, his cabinet reflected his broad policy vision and was guided by him. By contrast, it is not clear what the corresponding vision is for President Trump, and his closest advisors appear to share very different worldviews on many different topics. His own overriding interest is not public policy or political promises so much as TV ratings and public adulation, and he seems content to pass off photo opportunities and bombastic claims as perfectly acceptable alternatives to actual achievement. At some point he may have to deliver or risk losing the support of his most fervent supporters, but that day is not now and it will be long past a hundred days before the bill is due. Till then, I am simply grateful that his lack of experience and even greater lack of interest ensure that he will do much less real harm than a true believer with skills to match may have achieved.

Wisdom of Balaam

When choosing to get involved in war in the Middle East, consulting a man who has just been chastised by his donkey is as wise a course as any, and President Trump may well have followed just such a course before unleashing a barrage of missiles against the Syrian government last week. To be sure, he couldn't have received worse advice than the counsel that led him to issue an ultimatum within just hours of a reported chemical weapon's attack in Syria. Confounding all conventional wisdom, within a day of his warning, he followed it up with an attack that had plenty of shock and awe but not a great deal of anything else, including if not especially effectiveness.

Not only did the US warn the Russians ahead of the strike, with details of the intended target - a warning that had to be given to avoid unwanted Russian casualties, but which the Russians promptly passed on to their Syrian hosts apparently - but within hours of the strike, the Syrian air force made a point of conducting operations from the attacked air base. And for good measure, they chose to attack the same town that was at the center of the controversy, a studied middle finger to the US military and one that raised questions about the efficacy of the strike. The Pentagon's initial briefing indicated that there was significant damage to planes at the base, but one cannot help but wonder if the Syrians hadn't moved their planes and suffered only cosmetic damage. In the world of smoke and mirrors that is war in the Middle East, we may never know the facts.

But what we do know is that the US president declared that the use of chemical weapons crossed all sorts of lines (a phrase that's sadly reminiscent of Friends' Joey) and then followed up that statement by declaring that US vital interests were at stake in Syria. This is interesting - a charitable view might be that President Trump saw the attack as violation of the agreement made with his predecessor and an unacceptable affront to the honor of the nation. One may also argue that President Trump saw the use of chemical weapons as something that could not be left unchallenged and unpunished for the lesson it may send to other nations. However, both the previous and present Administrations have turned a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons that do not meet the definition of chemical weapons - Assad has used chlorine gas, as well as other equally barbaric methods of war. He has fought his people and his enemies with every weapon and tactic at his disposal and till days before this apparent red line, the Trump Administration had looked benignly upon his actions and even changed the tone of the US policy toward his continued rule.

Even a week after the strike, we have not had any further explanation about how US interests were endangered in Syria, or how the situation had changed from one week before - I would be amazed if we ever got that explanation from this government. Perhaps, more scarily, the government has articulated several different paths going forward, and they do not offer clarity for either friend or foe. The president has argued that it's foolish to elaborate on one's plans ahead of action, likening it to providing the enemy with one's plans, but there is a huge difference between maintaining tactical secrecy and strategic clarity, Today, our allies don't know exactly how the US plans to proceed, whether we will be wading into the Syrian quagmire or standing on the sidelines, or playing a limited role with surgical strikes. The players in Syria are as much in the dark and the danger is that heightened expectations of US intervention on one side, or a feeling by the Syrian government and its allies that the US is just posturing and will not actually act forcefully, or a volatile mixture of both, based on conjecture and false readings could push the Syrian civil war to a bloodier level of carnage. It could also suck other regional players directly into the war, raising the risk of a wider war or destabilizing delicately balanced nations like Lebanon, Jordan or Iraq. It's hard to see that this is in the vital interests of the United States, and this is why the previous Administration chose to remain only marginally involved and was so careful about managing the risks. At this point, no one knows the US policy towards Syria, and that is more dangerous than even the unbridled interventionism of President Bush. At this point, rightly or wrongly, there is going to be a perception that events in Syria are a consequence of this singular US action and we will own the fallout. The one, and only, saving grace in President Trump's unconventional approach to government is that he will likely reject any responsibility for the consequences of his action and simply refuse to own the mess that is Syria.

One of the hallmarks of the last president was deliberation; critics on both sides of the partisan divide were in agreement that President Obama sometimes deliberated too much and too long. One cannot level the same criticism at this president. Decisiveness is often a virtue in a leader, but swift decision should be based on principles. So far, every action of the president this week has been absolutely opposite from his stated position before - the US is engaged with NATO again, involved in the Syrian war, is working with China and has suddenly realized that dealing with North Korea is extremely complicated (kind of like health care policy). And the danger of such sudden changes in direction is that no one can make long term plans - not governments, not businesses and not individual - when one doesn't know if today's ally will be tomorrow's enemy. Winston knew that feeling in 1984, now we all get to learn it.