Today we step back from the testosterone infused back slapping accolades afforded our president’s military exploits to examine the troubling series of events that led to their implementation.
Anyone who reviews Donald Trump’s speeches, interviews and tweets over the past 20+ months can only come away with the realization that our president is a compulsive liar. Based on his public comments it appears he is incapable of speaking without uttering a falsehood.
Tens of millions of Americans chose ignore that unconventional truth and rewarded Donald Trump’s lies by handing him the most powerful office in the world. While this historical phenomenon is troubling on its face it pales when one considers how Trump’s unbridled fabrications and adjunct incompetence are effecting the country’s reputation among allies and friends. For as we witnessed time and again this president will go to extraordinary lengths to prove his false narrative; even at the expense of national security.
(Point of personal privilege: I wish someone would explain to me why conservatives, particularly Evangelical Christians, who were so repulsed by the moral deficiencies of the Clintons are now willing to look the other way while an adulterer and self-proclaimed sexual predator roams the halls of the White House.)
In order to be an effective president one’s friends and foes must have reasonable confidence that the person making policy means what he says. Clearly that is not the case with this president. According to fact checkers, in 500+ days in the political arena Donald Trump has changed his political views 141 times.
Trump supporters say that he is learning and growing within the job. That would imply that there was a seriousness to his original policy pronouncements that have evolved over time. However there are volumes of interviews with experts on various subjects who have left meetings with the president astonished by his lack of knowledge of the subject at hand.
I would suggest that the president’s policy beliefs are more impulses whose retention or elimination are based solely on the amount of positive feedback they generate from his supporters and the press. If there is one thing that we know about this president it is that ideologically speaking it is all about Trump winning. The details of the debate mean nothing so long as Trump comes out the other side looking like a winner.
Candidate Trump made a number of promises to the American people. Most of them have fallen by the wayside; either do to the incompetence of his administration or the disingenuous nature of the original statements. Trump’s Mexican paid for wall, his Muslim ban and his attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare are all lying in a political ditch. Passage of his promised tax reform and large infrastructure bill are threatened by the inability of the self-proclaimed “great deal maker” to convince members of his own party to fall in line.
Part of the dysfunction within this White House is that the president has surrounded himself with a team of loyalists that have zero experience in governing. In some cases he has filled important positions inside the government with loyalists who have no experience in the field they are supposed to manage. In other areas has brought in former lobbyists who in many cases are influencing policy in industries where they recently earned their living. His campaign appointments are collectively the richest ever to serve the government causing one to wonder how any of this helps the common man. Candidate Trump campaigned on fixing a rigged system and draining the swamp. President Trump has clearly forgotten that promise.
It is widely known that Trump is a transactional decision maker giving little thought to prospective or the consequences of the decision at hand. Often times the last person in the room has the greatest influence. Part of the failure of this administration is that Trump has named persons of questionable experience and integrity as his most senior advisors. Upon taking office Trump named Mike Flynn as his National Security Advisor. Flynn, a paid lobbyist of the Turkish government and pal of Vladimir Putin has been shown the door. He also brought in Steve Bannon as Senior Policy Advisor. Bannon, a self-proclaimed Leninist, served as editor-in-chief for the not so reputable Breitbart News website. Bannon is still in the West Wing but his roll has been diminished thanks to his botched handling of the Muslim ban and Obamacare repeal.
Replacing these two questionable advisors are members of Trump’s family: 36 year old son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose government experience is zero and claim to fame inheriting his millionaire father’s real estate holdings. Added to the mix is Trump’s daughter and Kushner’s wife, Ivanka. Ivanka Trump will bring her invaluable experience as a fashion designer to the Situation Room.
According to Trump’ son Erik, Trump’s decision to send 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria was largely motivated by Ivanka’s emotional reaction to the videos of babies choking to death as their lungs filled with sarin gas. Jared brings an element of surprise to the table, having lied on his application for a security clearance by failing to disclose his multiple ties and meetings with representatives of the Chinese and Russian governments. Jared’s omission is a felony punishable by a fine and up to 5 years imprisonment.
Ivanka’s intervention is particularly telling because it is on matters of national security where Trump’s lies and incompetence are most disconcerting.
Trump promised to end America’s long standing position as the world’s lone indispensable power. Per Trump; gone are the days of America acting as the world’s policeman. America’s intervention into foreign internal conflicts a thing of the past. “I am not president of the world.” Trump proclaimed. “I am president of the United States.”
Like most simple minded beings craving attention and acceptance, Trump can be easily moved by positive reinforcement. Trump has learned that nothing gets him a “thumbs up” like a strong use of military force. Plus it affords the added benefit of diverting the public’s prying eyes from his personal scandals and cozy relationship with the Kremlin.
In less than 100 days in office, Trump, the self-proclaimed isolationist: ordered an airstrike in Iraq that hit the wrong target and killed 14 civilians; ordered a special-ops attack in Yemen that resulted in the death of 39 civilians, the death of a Navy Seal, three wounded Seals and the loss of a $76 million dollar aircraft; ordered boots on the ground in Somalia; the launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria; dropped the Mother of All Bombs on a target in Afghanistan; got into a war of words with the Supreme Leader of North Korea and sent Carrier Strike Group One steaming toward the Korean Peninsula.
Conservative politicians and a host of media talking heads hailed Trump’s muscular show of force. Washington Post Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Charles Krauthammer joyously proclaimed: “America is back!”
There’s that positive reinforcement we were talking about. Good to know that all America needs to do to reclaim her rightful place in the world is blow up a few things.
Trump has announced that he has ceded his authority to act militarily to “his brilliant generals”; an abdication of civilian authority over the military unintended within the tenants of the constitution. Trump doesn’t care. Easier to deflect blame should anything go wrong.
The situation with North Korea is reaching critical mass. It is less than comforting to know that the advent of a nuclear holocaust rests on a game of chicken between one incompetent, unhinged, overweight, narcissistic leader with a bad haircut and another.
Thankfully, Jared and Ivanka will be there to provide counsel.
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