Incoming

Some years ago, I was attending a change of command ceremony between two officers with considerably different attitudes.  One of my friends leaned over and summarized the situation as, “We’re changing from a touch of class to a touch of crass.”  How’s that for a way to segue into the inauguration of the new President of the United States. 

 

It’s hard to know what to make of Mr. Trump.  He has said many things during his run for office and it is hard to know what was only a candidate’s rhetoric and how much he really means to carry out.  For example, will he really build a wall along the entire Mexican border?  Unless he intends to use force, I don’t see how he intends to make Mexico pay for it.  The same thing goes for tearing up NAFTA (it takes all the affected nations to agree to renegotiation) or the Iran nuclear treaty (there are several countries that are signatories). 

Mr. Trump seems to believe that he can carry out his agenda without any repercussions from the US people, from congress or from foreign governments; that there will be no tit for his tat.  And too much of his rhetoric is based on false hopes and premises. 

 

One of the loudest things said by many of his supporters concerned the ravages of the rust belt where so many factories have closed down in heavy industries like steel and automaking.  The truth is that, despite some car and steel manufacturing being moved off shore, there are probably more vehicles being made in the US than ever before, both by domestic and foreign car makers.  The reason for the rust belt is that such manufacturing has shifted from northern, traditionally industrial states, to other states in the south such as Tennessee and Alabama.  The reason many have moved or located there is that these states are “free to work” states where union membership cannot be forced.  For this, Mr. Trump is willing, even eager, to cut the US off from international trade without which the US will hamstring its economy.  In today’s world, no country can afford to ignore trade.  The imposition of exorbitant tariffs on imported goods will probably not sit well with the World Trade Organization or with countries importing US goods.  Retaliation against this will probably lead to more retaliation and so forth.  Mr. Trump may even withdraw from the WTO, again to the long term detriment of the US.

In his inaugural speech, President Trump firmly stated that America would become a very inward looking country, much like the isolationist and America First movements of the 1920s and 1930s.  It was only after the tragedy of the Second World War that America realized that, with its power and wealth, it had a duty to reach out to the rest of the world starting with the economic and democratic rehabilitation of Europe and Japan.  Although there have been some problems along the way, Viet Nam and Iraq comes to mind, this has been the US stance for over 70 years.  What happens when this is shattered?  Again we don’t know, but it seems like a risky experiment to me. 

Much has been made by Mr. Trump (and now our own Kevin O’Leary) that he is such an accomplished businessman that he will make a great President (Prime Minister); that the fact that he is not a professional politician somehow makes him better.  So let me ask you – if you had a bad tooth, would you rather go to a plumber or a dentist?  If you needed medical care, would you rather go to a medical doctor or an historian?  If you needed your car fixed, would you rather go to a doctor or a mechanic?  So isn’t it better to be governed by a good, experienced politician than a rich businessman?  For rich businessmen like Donald Trump to think otherwise is pure arrogance.  For so many people to think otherwise is pure foolishness.  If you think otherwise, please name one rich businessman who became a great President or Prime Minister.

Mr. Trump suffers from two things that make him unpredictable and potentially dangerous – arrogance and ego.  He has the arrogance of the top businessman who has always been able to run things as he wishes and has never had to start from the bottom, in their world where there are a few winners and lots and lots of losers.  And he has the ego to think that only he counts and has the right answers to everything.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish the man or America ill.  I hope he can succeed in improving things both for the American people and for the world.  Maybe better relations with Russia will make for a safer world.  But what of China, particularly if he isolates it or starts a trade war with that country?  Maybe he will improve the economic prospects for average Americans, but it is hard to see how he can improve on the 4.7% unemployment rate that the US currently enjoys.  Maybe he can defeat ISIL, but will he leave another void in the Middle East after he turns inward afterwards?  

“May you live in interesting times.”

Chinese curse

It will be interesting to watch the next few months as his presidency ramps up.  We will have a better sense then where his world is going.  I said once that I thought President Obama would have a hard time to living up to all of the expectations put upon him.  I now say that President Trump is going to have a hard time making good on all the promises that he has made.  But only time will tell.

Outgoing

Last week, President Barack Obama gave his farewell speech to a group in Chicago.  It was also nationally televised.  I don’t know how many of you listened to that speech, but I did.  I found it almost spellbinding, highlighting as it did his gift of oratory and his gracious manner.  Nowhere in the speech did he say anything derogatory about the incoming President, but he did emphasize to ordinary people their responsibility to uphold democracy.  It was a fitting end to his eight years in office.  I hope it is not the end of his public service.

At the time of his inauguration in January 2009, I wrote a letter to the editor concerning his presidency.  I quote it here:

“As Barack Obama is sworn in as the forty-fourth President of the United States, I for one wish him the very best.  His journey to this esteemed position has truly been extraordinary.  I hope that he can achieve the change and hope that he has come to epitomize.  I do fear that his biggest challenge will be meeting all of the expectations that so many people have placed upon him.

Mr. Obama has been hailed as the first African-American President of the US.  That is certainly very laudable, but also somewhat sad.  It is sad because we still have to point out his racial uniqueness as part of his description.  Sad because we, Americans and Canadians, still see a person’s skin colour, racial origin, gender or religion as a valid descriptor of the person.  Many years ago, I served under the first African-American Admiral in the United States Navy, Rear-Admiral (later Vice-Admiral) Sam Gravely.  He was a very fine officer with a wonderful sense of humour and, in my opinion, fully deserved to be a flag officer.  In later years, General Colin Powell was an outstanding Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.  In both these cases, their skin colour, racial origin, gender or religion had very little to do with their success. In the same way, I think Barack Obama will be a good or even great, US President.  We will only become a truly mature society, however, when these outward traits are no longer considered matters worth noting when selecting the best person for the job.”

As he settled into the job, Mr. Obama was referred to less and less as “the African-American President” and more as the President, and this was good.  But there were still some who considered him as illegitimate for the job, including the incoming president who tried hard to prove that President Obama was not a native American, even going so far as to question his birth certificate. But that has all passed now.

My assessment is that Mr. Obama has been a good president.  He got some signature legislation through a recalcitrant congress.  He did not involve the US into any more foreign entanglements, and this is what he has been criticized the harshest for.  But we have to remember the mood of the country at the time of his arrival.  The US was then caught in the ill-conceived war in Afghanistan and the fiasco in Iraq that he inherited from his predecessor.  If you want to read about how the Iraq war went bad, I recommend the book “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005” by Thomas E. Ricks.  At the time of his start in office, President Obama knew that the American people were tired of these two wars, and wanted no further foreign entanglements, and in fact were getting sick of Iraq in particular where things just seemed to be getting worse.  He undertook to wind down American involvement in these two wars, which proved to be significantly more difficult that anyone probably envisioned.  This made any further involvement in Middle Eastern wars, such as Syria, very unpalatable.  If there is one lesson in history when it comes to wars, it is to avoid at all costs getting entangled in someone else’s civil war.  It inevitably forces you to choose sides and almost always leads to major complications when you have to get out of it.  Unfortunately many on the right of the political spectrum forget that warning despite the fact that America has had to learn that lesson several times since 1945.  I think Mr. Obama knew that lesson and was willing to take the political flack to avoid it.

When we contemplate such wars we should remember the following admonition:

“Every War Must End”

“Thus it can happen that military men, while skilfully planning their intricate operations and coordinating complicated manoeuvres, remain curiously blind in failing to perceive that it is the outcome of the war, not the outcome of the campaigns within it, that determines how well their plans serve the nation’s interests.  At the same time, senior statesmen may hesitate to insist that these beautifully planned campaigns be linked to some clear ideas for ending the war….”

And,

“. . . fighting often continues long past the point where a ‘rational’ calculation would indicate that the war should be ended.”

From “Every War Must End” by Fred Ikle as quoted in “My American Journey” by Colin L. Powell, General (Rtd) US Army.

On the domestic side, he succeeded in passing a health care bill which, despite being flawed, was one of the most progressive moves in many years.  Even Bill Clinton was unable to accomplish that.  He also managed to overcome crises over the debt ceiling and got a budget approved after several years of congress’s failure to do so.  The growing US debt was another reason to avoid costly foreign adventures.

In all, faced for most of his tenure with an obstructionist congress, I would judge Mr. Obama’s administration to have been quite a success.  History will, of course, pass its own judgement as time passes.