What Donald Trump did on his summer holiday
28 August 2017
This week across America, millions of children will be getting ready to go back to school and returning home that evening with their first work assignment - an essay with the title: "What I did on my summer holidays." Now imagine for a second you're Donald Trump, and you've just been given that piece of homework. I think the first thing you're going to do is ask for a few extra sheets of paper because, what a summer. From distant, foggy memory, I also seem to remember that the one other instruction you got from the teacher was to make it descriptive, and not too much of a list. Well, sorry about that, Miss. This is what Donald and his pals in the White House got up to: And this is the quiet season. This is the still, millpond of August when nothing happens; when days are long and news bulletins are slim, when surfing dogs and the battle of the bake-offs should dominate the news cycle. Barack Obama's former chief of staff, and now the Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, tweeted at one point that he was going to nominate the White House for a Tony award for most drama. Not best drama. Just most. There is no shortage of pundits and political professionals in Washington who will tell you things can't continue like this, and that there is no way that Donald Trump can last a full four years in office. There is a degree of wishful thinking in that for some people. For others it is a genuine, cold-eyed assessment. I am unconvinced. For a start the drama, the chaos and noise are what this president thrives on. If he hated the drama, he wouldn't stoke and provoke as much as he does. Where it does matter is in his relationships with the lawmakers on Capitol Hill, with the business leaders across the country, with the money men on Wall Street, with the military high command who seem to have bristled at the way their commander-in-chief is behaving and with his fellow leaders around the world. Just consider for a minute his threat to allow a government shutdown if he doesn't get funding for the border wall with Mexico. The president says it's making good on a campaign pledge: the lawmakers, still under their breath, say: "Yeah, and the other part of the pledge was that Mexico was going to pay." He has publicly lambasted the Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. On any number of occasions. How does that help him to get an infrastructure bill passed? How does that help to get tax reform through? And then there's the Trump base. Has support for Donald Trump fractured? Yes, a bit. Do the polls that chart approval ratings for him make alarming reading? Yep, the numbers disapproving seem to be rising, and the approving seem to be dwindling. But his base is still 100% with him. Cheering, whooping and lapping it up. He is their man, fighting the system and draining the swamp and taking on the establishment. Just look at the crowds in Phoenix, Arizona, last week. You see, I think there is a perfectly plausible scenario where by a squeak and a cigarette-paper width of margin he gets his legislative agenda through. In which case in 2020 he could go to the American people and say: "Look, I delivered on what I promised." There is perhaps a more likely set of circumstances where he is blocked and thwarted - and fails on all the big legislative tests - no repeal and replacement of Obamacare, no significant change to the tax code, no wall with Mexico, no change to America's crumbling infrastructure. But that doesn't mean it's over for Trump. He then goes to the country and says: "The system is rigged. Draining the swamp is going to take even longer than I ever thought. Parts of the Republican leadership need to be swept away. The fight goes on. We'll Make America Great Again." And that brings us to Donald Trump's ego - and maybe a choice that this White House must confront as it takes stock of this chaotic summer. Does Donald Trump want to go down in history as a heroic failure, or the winner who turned things around with his relentless energy and deal-making nous? If it's the latter then he needs to start nurturing all those people he has alienated, and in record fast time. And if it's the former, then carry on with the rallies that pump up the base and leave many others feeling queasy.
And then there's the Trump base. Has support for Donald Trump fractured? Yes, a bit. Do the polls that chart approval ratings for him make alarming reading? Yep, the numbers disapproving seem to be rising, and the approving seem to be dwindling. But his base is still 100% with him. Cheering, whooping and lapping it up. He is their man, fighting the system and draining the swamp and taking on the establishment. Just look at the crowds in Phoenix, Arizona, last week.
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What about his supporters?
You see, I think there is a perfectly plausible scenario where by a squeak and a cigarette-paper width of margin he gets his legislative agenda through. In which case in 2020 he could go to the American people and say: "Look, I delivered on what I promised." There is perhaps a more likely set of circumstances where he is blocked and thwarted - and fails on all the big legislative tests - no repeal and replacement of Obamacare, no significant change to the tax code, no wall with Mexico, no change to America's crumbling infrastructure. But that doesn't mean it's over for Trump. He then goes to the country and says: "The system is rigged. Draining the swamp is going to take even longer than I ever thought. Parts of the Republican leadership need to be swept away. The fight goes on. We'll Make America Great Again." And that brings us to Donald Trump's ego - and maybe a choice that this White House must confront as it takes stock of this chaotic summer. Does Donald Trump want to go down in history as a heroic failure, or the winner who turned things around with his relentless energy and deal-making nous? If it's the latter then he needs to start nurturing all those people he has alienated, and in record fast time. And if it's the former, then carry on with the rallies that pump up the base and leave many others feeling queasy.
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Future success?