The Until-it's-Not Presidency

I hardly know where to begin to even think about White House politics right now. Or maybe it is just that it's unclear to me whether I should even be thinking about policy rather than the personality of the person at the top of the chaotic heap in Washington. 

The only thing I get any hold on with him is that things are as they are until they are not. Trump is serious until he is joking. Trump likes someone until he does not. Trump enthusiastically supports a policy until he does not. Trump wants what his base wants until he does not. He says that everyone loves the most popular president in history until there are hell holes like New Jersey where they do not.

It's like watching that scene in the movie The Exorcist when the girl's head turns in a complete circle.

When I was in grad school, lo those many years ago, we studied new criticism, the fashion of that day, which actually had some interesting perspectives on creativity until literary nihilism (deconstruction--nothing means anything) chased it away. One of the new critical ideas I most appreciated was the concept of literary irony. Simply explained, it meant the capacity to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time and believe sincerely in both of them.

I would have to say that President Trump has apparently mastered it.

But, having said that, I am skeptic enough to say that there has to be a unifying principle somewhere that puts the apparent contractions in service of a larger concept. In fact, most of the White House staff tries to do just that: explain Trump's contradictions as part of a grand scheme based on the political philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli.  That is, President Trump is putting America first, they say, and that means everything makes sense.

Well ---

Having studied sixteenth-century Italy and having read Machiavelli's book, The Prince (which I strongly doubt that Trump has), I find this hypothesis doubtful.  While justifying the need to dissemble, Machiavelli says lying and betraying friends cannot be called a virtue. They should only be used if directly tied to the survival of the state, and then only with careful consideration.  For some reason, I do not find Trump demanding that people lie about his crowd sizes and berating allies for making him look bad has any hint of the nobility of purpose that Machiavelli had in mind.

If the prince is to worry about protecting his citizens and the survival of the city state as Machiavelli proposes, Trump, it seems, is quite happy to strip health care from thirty plus million of his citizens and to hang out to dry various people who work for him. Take care, Machiavelli says, not to make unnecessary enemies.

I can't wait to read Sean Spicer's book.

Increasingly, I and a large number of others, are having to accept sadly that any larger purpose on Trump's part is not tied to America but rather to the ego needs of a television personality who judges himself by his ratings. I'm rather surprised that the White House is not producing television shows that present an issue of the day and then invite the viewers to phone in their votes as to what the president should do.

In the future, I hope that our presidents are thoughtful enough to have read the great political thinkers, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Jefferson, Payne, Marx, and Mill among them. I also hope they have a shrewd understanding of human motivation and a principled stand on the future of the planet. Like Machiavelli I hate to see the waste of unnecessary wars, and, like General Patton, I hate to see us pay twice for the same piece of real estate.

So why does Machiavelli have such a bad rap? It's because he was a pragmatist and people wanted to believe they were more noble than that. But he is describing political reality as it existed in a sixteenth century Italy divided into warring city states that fought not only each other but also the Vatican. Mine fields were everywhere and alliances shifty.  In these circumstances, the prince had to be adroit, watchful, aware, decisive, informed, and very aware of political realities that could lead to invasions by mercenary troops paid for by the German emperor or the pope. I'm sorry, but I just don't see those adjectives applying to President Trump.