Trump’s opponents claim that he lacks an overarching policy regarding everything from trade to immigration to diplomacy. They want to understand the totality of his thinking so that they can better evaluate his positions. But that’s neither what he wants, nor how he operates. He does whatever is necessary to control the narrative and to keep everyone guessing. He makes one outrageous, impolitic comment after another, at seminal moments, and then sits back and waits. Opponents respond to the tone and the brashness, but again and again they miss the point.
In some respects, President Trump’s method is remarkably effective.
His list of legislative achievements may be short—but the “fake news” doesn’t report the full extent of his behind-the-scenes activities. With one hand, he tosses enough outrageous bones to the liberal media to keep them salivating over the significance of his words or actions, while, with the other hand, he is distributing meat to his base under the table. Eviscerating regulation meant to keep the population safe, while convincing them that all he’s doing is relieving business of the onerous regulations that suppress growth: Dismantling the State Department and the ERA. Remaking the judiciary in a way that reflects conservative social policies. And pushing the economic principles that have guided him through a fifty-year career as a real estate developer.
For the doubters among my readers, yes, the President is guided by such principles. He does have a belief system. It may be based on beliefs that are either unacknowledged unarticulated, but they have served him well over a long career of buying, selling and developing real estate. We do ourselves and our country a disservice if we don’t examine them closely. He may not do truth or personal integrity very well, and perhaps he has no interest in–or grasp of—detail. And yes, these actions may make him a puppet of power brokers whose own objectives are probably far more nefarious than his own. But we have only to look at what he’s done in the past to see what he wants to do in the future.
The first Trump Principle is the use of leverage.
Donald Trump’s real estate ventures have relied on massive leverage, using other people’s money to buy or build buildings, resorts and golf courses. In the process, he’s won and lost, but when you lose other people’s money, all you lose is reputation. Based on his own experience, reputation seems to have been a minor consideration in determining success or failure.
The second Trump Principle is manipulation and extortion of those he contracts with.
That includes bankers, tradesmen, contractors who build, furnish, polish, floor, roof and landscape his properties. They’re all pretty much expendable, and his experience shows that there are always others willing to take on his work. These are the middle classes, whom he routinely stiffed by refusing to pay what he contracted for, using his deeper pockets and unending legal maneuvers. They just gave up, unwilling to bankrupt themselves in lengthy court battles.
To this second principle of manipulation and extortion, let’s add a third relevant maneuver: the use of the legal system to achieve his objectives.
The spirit of the law is irrelevant. What counts is finding lawyers able and willing to use it to advantage. At least in the Trump universe, it seems there are no shortage of those.
So how do fifty years of real estate experience find expression in this man’s presidency?
We need to look no further than the tax reform bill that was just enacted into law. The new bill takes money from the middle class and pushes it up to the top. This is leverage, on a massive scale, like the way Developer Trump used other people’s money at little financial risk to himself. Put money into the hands of the mega-rich, and they will “build buildings,” expand their empires, ostensibly creating jobs for the laboring classes. The fact that trickle-down economics doesn’t work is not the point. The point is that there is an economic theory underpinning the policies.
The promise that this new tax bill will result in tax savings for everyone is patently false—but that’s not the point, either. The details are unimportant, and besides, the middle class, from whom this money is being taken, is expendable, just as the contractors who walked away from Trump-signed contracts rather than involve themselves in long and costly legal disputes.
It’s also possible that the Democrats’ demonization of the tax bill will, in the short term, backfire. At least some taxpayers who don’t expect a decrease in their taxes will receive one, resulting in incremental Trump-base growth.
More harmful than the long-term consequence of the tax bill is the damage done to our political discourse by increasing suspicion of fact-based journalists, doublespeak, acceptance of debased communication, and the prohibition of words that go against the administration’s agenda. At times, it feels like being caught in a tale of adolescent boys trying to figure out how governing works. At others, like the run-up to some of the most shameful periods in recent history, both at home and abroad.
It is not sufficient to concentrate on the reported chaos in this White House, or the degree to which this occupant feels beleaguered and victimized, or the possibility of Mueller’s investigation resulting in any significant change. His arguments are not articulated in any coherent form—and perhaps that’s his genius. It will be difficult to field a candidate capable of opposing him if we can’t codify his arguments, drive a truck through them, and show voters a better alternative.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images