Category Archives: Donald Trump

Donald Trump, Government, Politics, Society, United States

Political animosity in the United States and the rapidly spiralling fear

UNITED STATES

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The U.S. intelligence agencies are sworn to defend America from attack.

Intro: From the outside, it must seem like a script-writer’s dream.

Salacious and unverifiable reports of Donald Trump’s private life have been circulating among US media outlets for some months. US intelligence agencies believed that many of these reports have been sufficiently credible that they chose to brief President Barack Obama and Mr Trump.

Understanding the nature of the accusations is important. The decision by US intelligence has largely been shaped by two factors. The first is the information and credence given to them by federal agencies. The second, that the man in question is the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world, not a private citizen, and that his actions could have a direct impact on all of us.

Mr Trump has now blamed the intelligence agencies for allowing these uncorroborated reports to be leaked to the media, and has compared these actions as being like those of the Nazis in wartime Germany.

What has become a bit lost in the political storm and plethora of everything that is happening is the first admission by Mr Trump that Russia had been behind the hacking attacks on the Democratic Party during the election. Previously, the President-Elect had claimed the intelligence agencies had got these matters wrong and were directly involved in a political witchhunt against him. Sworn to defend America from attack, US intelligence agencies must be bewildered.

From the outside, it must seem like a script-writer’s dream. As the plot deepens – from what sounds much like the subterfuge within a spy novel – where should attention be focussed?

Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson told his Senate confirmation hearing that Russia probably was behind the cyber-attack, that it has pursued military action to further its own interests (in Syria), and that weak US leadership had allowed Russia to become dominant.

As chief executive of Exxon Mobil, the most profitable oil company in the world, Mr Tillerson previously sanctioned multibillion-dollar deals with Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft. He was duly awarded an Order of Friendship by the Kremlin.

Contrasting this against such language used by President-Elect Trump should seem more than trivial. Mr Trump denied all the allegations saying it was ‘phoney stuff’ and only ‘sick people’ could come up with ‘that crap’. He said that CNN was ‘fake news’ and described Islamic State as ‘number one tricky’.

The world would have noticed in President Obama’s farewell speech in Chicago the eloquent tribute he paid to his wife, Michelle. Mr Obama said: ‘You took on a role you didn’t ask for and you made it your own with grace and grit and style and good humour. You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody.’

We should know the difference between rhetoric that inspires optimism as against that of fear and loathing.

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Donald Trump, Government, Politics, Society, United States

The 58th presidency of the United States looms

UNITED STATES

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President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated on January 20, 2017, at the United States Capitol.

Intro: Donald Trump now needs to be presidential. From January 20, what he says and how he acts will soon no longer be a preamble or rehearsal in garnering support.

DONALD TRUMP made some extraordinary pronouncements during the U.S. election campaign. Alongside his current Twitter feed, one which gives insight into his thinking and intentions, Americans will be awaiting his anointment as president with a mounting sense of either delight or dread.

The Trump show will shortly begin. As the most powerful man in the world he will be under the spotlight as never before, holding centre stage, with everyone watching. From January 20, what he says and how he acts will soon no longer be a preamble or rehearsal in garnering support.

Following the announcement in November of his election victory, the president-elect gave a surprising reaction after meeting the man he will replace at the White House.

He spoke of his “great respect” for Mr Obama and said he very much looked forward to taking his counsel in the future.

Fine words, and we should hope they are true. Mr Trump would do well, too, to pay equal deference to the US’s top intelligence officials who have briefed him over Russia’s interference in the presidential election.

Many observers, not just in America, but elsewhere, will have reacted with dismay and disbelief to Mr Trump’s previous attempts to rubbish the case as a political witch hunt by people smarting from being “beaten very badly” in the election. If this is a sign to come, Mr Trump needs to battle against his own instincts.

Being president is entirely different from being a presidential candidate, when the objective – as we have clearly seen – is to discredit your opponents and come out on top.

The Oval Office is all about nurturing allies and building alliances. Whilst the Republicans will hold more of the cards than the Democrats did under the current administration, a position in which Mr Trump is likely to get all his policies enacted, he will soon find out that no one person can do it all.

The new White House communications director Sean Spicer has pledged that the incoming president will listen to intelligence briefings with a “100 per cent” open mind. We trust that will be the case. Mr Spicer implicitly stated that Donald Trump would be prepared to listen and understand how the intelligence services reached their conclusions. He also stressed that a rush to judgment was not in the US’s best interest.

Many will hope that the president-to-be will also take that counsel. Standing up against the establishment and the political machine during the election campaign is one thing, which might win a few votes from the disaffected; but, as president – or more importantly commander in chief – Mr Trump is going to have to work with these people.

Trust will need to go both ways. Otherwise the world will undoubtedly become a more dangerous place.

There have already been many questions over Mr Trump’s relationship with Russia, no more so than the business interests he and other members of his government have there. There is expectation that Mr Trump will do things no previous president has done.

But, he must also understand there are things he has to do and ways he has to act. Mr Trump will have many advisers, though many will wonder whether he can take their advice on important matters of the state.

As global insecurity increases, Mr Trump cannot be allowed to be a loose cannon.

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Donald Trump, Government, Politics, Society, United States

The election of Donald Trump is a blow for liberal democracy

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President-elect Trump has openly challenged the liberal and democratic openness of government. It’s a stance that will have wide-reaching consequences in the West.

Intro: How democracy can now fix itself, if at all, is a dilemma that will not be easily solved. But, if it is to survive, it must find a way

THE ELECTION of Donald Trump as President of the United States, still so raw for so many people, has repercussions that may well extend beyond the two main candidates and their two parties. The outcome of this bitterly fought contest may even have plunged western systems of government into an existential crisis from which they may not recover.

Mr Trump’s electoral triumph was rooted in his attacks on the ideals, laws and institutions on which his country is based. His contempt for democracy, for that is what it seems to be, is one shared by more than 60 million people who gave him their support.

Since the declaration of Mr Trump’s victory, the sporadic outbreak of demonstrations that have followed across the US would probably have happened no matter the events of recent days. The participants have no-doubt been emboldened by one of Mr Trump’s more recent tweets which has blamed the skirmishes on “professional protestors” who have been “incited by the media”. Such comments contradict the apparent unifying tone Mr Trump gave in his victory speech.

Questioning a free speech and the right to assembly goes against the spirit of the first amendment of the constitution, one which President-elect Trump supposedly prizes so highly. But against the irascible and bad-tempered nature of his campaign it should not come as a surprise.

Despite the protestors having spread from state to state for four nights in a row, with a few isolated incidents of violence, describing them as “revolutionary” would be an overreaction, even though this has been one of the most heated weeks in US political history.

The anger expressed in these demonstrations, however, is indicative of a serious concern facing not just Mr Trump and his administration, but also countries around the world who follow a similar system of government.

Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime prime minister, famously said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, but even he could not have foreseen the deep fault lines that are now being exposed within western democratic models of government. In the context of the US election, if it can longer prevent a situation as unconscionable as a serial liar, misogynist and racist wrestling control of the most powerful elected office in the world, is democratic governance not failing us?

The obvious consequence is that division will grow more pronounced as the political establishment drifts further apart from an angry and disenfranchised electorate.

The West has long cherished its free and democratic ideals. Yet, the Trump campaign vociferously rejected vast swathes of the supposed liberal order. Mr Trump rallied against globalisation, international security conventions and worldwide trade deals, while he has also openly challenged and questioned the impartiality of judges and the electoral process.

The millions of people who agreed with Donald Trump’s stance have ensured that the core institutions that allow democracy to function are now very much under threat.

How democracy can now fix itself, if at all, is a dilemma that will not be easily solved. But, if it is to survive, it must find a way.

 

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