The peak of US President Donald Trump’s time in office, so far and perhaps forever, happened before he became the president. It was the deal he struck with Carrier, the Indiana air-conditioning company, to keep a factory open and jobs in the US. No moment was so triumphantly Trumpian; nothing has gone as well for him since.
Was the Carrier deal sound economic policy, a sober and restrained use of the presidency’s powers? Not precisely. However, it featured Trump following through on his most basic campaign promise: The pledge, delivered in rallies across the country’s stagnant reaches, that he would focus on well-paying jobs for people both major US parties seemed to have forgotten.
It was the message that helped win him the midwest, and with it the Electoral College. It was the message that Steve Bannon spent the transition boasting would lead to a realignment that would shock conservative ideologues as much as liberals. And it was a message that has basically disappeared — and with it, the president’s brief uptick in popularity — during Trump’s stumbling, staggering, infighting first few weeks in office.
As a result, right now his presidency is in danger of being very swiftly Carterized — ending up so unpopular, ineffectual and fractious that even with US Congress controlled by its own party, it cannot get anything of substance done.
The war with liberals and the media might keep his base loyal and his approval ratings from bottoming out. However, it does nothing to drive any kind of agenda, or pressure Congress to enact one. And the more the Trump White House remains mired in its melodramas, the more plausible it becomes that the Trump-era US House and US Senate set a record for risk avoidance and legislative inactivity.
Obviously, the absence of agenda-setting starts with the compulsively tweeting president. However, the role of Bannon in these first few chaotic weeks also distills the White House’s problem.
The former Breitbart impresario has a clearer-than-your-average-Republican grasp of the political promise of Trumpism — the power of a right-leaning populism to speak to voters weary of cultural liberalism and libertarian economics.
However, instead of spearheading a domestic agenda oriented around these insights, instead of demanding (or making sure his boss demands) an infrastructure bill and a working-class tax cut from Congress, Bannon has seemingly set out to consolidate power over national security policy — an arena where his ideas are undercooked and his lack of expertise is conspicuous.
In effect, Bannon is trying to be both Dick Cheney and Karl Rove — the Darth Vader of counterterrorism and the architect of a domestic realignment, except with less experience, subtlety and political support than either.
This is not going to work. (In the end, it did not work out that well for Cheney and Rove, either.)
Liberals can scare themselves about Bannon’s supposed plan for a slow-motion coup and Trumpistas can tell themselves that “disruption” is just what the ossified establishment needs. However, a White House run this way will be politically impotent long before it reaches its first midterm.
Is a different scenario possible?
Of course, because the president still has free will. (We can talk about total depravity later, Calvinists.) He has, to his credit, assembled a reasonably competent Cabinet. He campaigned, again to his credit, on a reasonably popular policy agenda. He faces no immediate foreign policy or economic crises, no threat that requires him to act sweepingly and instantly.
So there is no necessary reason why he could not wake up tomorrow and decide to show a broad deference to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Secretary of Defense James Mattis on foreign policy, while letting US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and US Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly hash out an immigration enforcement agenda.
There will be time to reshape the world order if his approval ratings ever edge back over 45 percent; for now, he could shelve plans for big-league disruptions and Nixon-to-China strokes of genius and simply take crises as they come.
Which in turn would free him — and, yes, Bannon, too — to pick a few policy themes and hammer them. And not the hardest policies, either: Let US House Speaker Paul Ryan and US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell figure out how to get an Obamacare replacement through Congress and tell US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price to prop the system up if they cannot.
From the White House, the message should be simple, boring, popular.
Americans want a big infrastructure bill. A middle-class tax cut. Corporate tax reform.
Infrastructure. Tax cuts for workers and parents. A better tax code for business.
Not a war with the judiciary. Tax cuts. Not CNN or Nordstrom’s perfidy. Jobs. Not Bannon’s theories about Islam or the crisis of the West. Bridges and roads and tunnels.
This is not complicated. In fact, it is kind of easy.
Which is good advice for anyone in crisis, new presidents included. If you cannot figure out how to handle the hardest stuff, try something simple for a while.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.