Trump Walks Away From The Presidency
Okay, this is a pretty speculative prediction. However, it's clear that the Trump Presidency is not like any other. In the post-war period, we had Nixon, who walked away rather than be impeached. But, Nixon was not a moron. He was a skilled political operator reflected in his nickname “Tricky Dicky”. Like Trump, Nixon was a liar, but unlike Trump, Nixon was a clever liar. After Nixon, we had Gerald Ford. Ford was said to be so stupid he could not walk and chew gum at the same time. But, compared to Trump, Ford looks like an intellectual. Reagan, was also a dimwit, influenced by other dimwits such as Art Laffer and Larry Kudlow, not to mention his wife Nancy, who had him not taking any decisions before she had consulted with the astrological charts. But, Reagan was an experienced politician, who despite the influence of people like Laffer, and Kudlow, also had other advisors over a long period, who were the real determinants of policy. By contrast, anyone of substance runs a mile from Trump's White House, and anyone foolish enough to be drawn in has come to realise that their tenure there will be short lived, and that their departure will be accompanied by a flurry of tweeted invective from Trump, demeaning their abilities and characters.
Every stabilising influence around Trump has been systematically removed. He bases his policy on whatever thought comes into his head, after he has watched Fox News, or listened to one of the moronic right-wing radio pundits. Trump has never been able to fully staff his government, and now more and more of his government positions are unfilled, and those that occupy positions are never there long enough to get to grips with their brief. The paranoid Trump, driven on by the idiocies of the right-wing media channels, sees the deep state everywhere, and so is continually drawn, as such Bonapartists are always forced to do, to take more and more power and responsibility into his own tiny hands.
And, of course, Trump is right to be worried about the operation of the deep state, just as Rees-Mogg was right to point out that the British state would try to frustrate Brexit. The Labour MP, Dick Crossman, who was a Minister in Harold Wilson's government, wrote in his Diaries, that the life of a minister could be quite easy. All they needed to do was to take what was in their “In Tray”, and put it in their “Out Tray”, allowing their civil servants to actually deal with the work. If Ministers do not rock the boat they have nothing to fear from the deep state. The problem with Trump is that he does rock the boat, and he does so not in even an ideological way. He rocks the boat simply because he is a moron, who does not have a clue, from one moment to another, what he is doing, and who, when things go wrong, then lashes out at others, introducing increasing levels of instability and chaos at the centre of the US state. But, as with Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, his withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal, his withdrawal of troops from Syria, his threats to withdraw from NATO, the WTO and so on, it's not just in relation to the US state that he spreads increasing disorder, into the world system of states. In fact, if this was a political leader in some smaller state, they would be gone by now, as a result of the action of other states. It's only the size of the US, and its economic and military dominance that has prevented other states, within that global system of states, taking action. But, already, we see the EU responding, by discussing the establishment of an EU Army, which must logically replace NATO, and dependence on the US.
Trump's Trade War is said to have knocked around 0.3% off China's growth last year, and it is likely to have knocked about the same amount off global growth, as Trump imposes his tariffs on the EU etc. But it has hit the US economy too. The tariffs have raised the price of steel and aluminium, not just because imported products have risen in price, but also because US steel and aluminium producers have taken the chance to raise their own prices, shielded by the tariffs. That has caused the prices of all those US products that use steel or aluminium to rise. In November, US exports of Soybeans, to China, dropped to zero, as Beijing swapped to Brazil for its supplies, showing how the trade war will result not in a cessation of trade and growth, but a channelling into different patterns of production and trade. In December, China did buy some Soya Beans from the US, but as CNBC reports this is a drop in the ocean, and shows the extent to which Trump's economic policies are hitting the US economy hard, including many of those in areas that formed his core support.
In order to cover the disaster his economic and trade policy is inflicting on his core voter base, Trump has then had to hand out billions of Dollars in state aid to farmers etc., but that does not compensate for the disappearance of their markets, as other countries retaliate to Trump's maverick behaviour.
The pressure on Trump, is then going to intensify in the coming months, as his government falls apart, and further revelations from White House insiders, ditched by Trump, make their way into the public domain whether in the media, or via the route of further witness testimony in court, or to the Mueller Inquiry, or to Congressional Inquiries that will themselves multiply, with the Democrats now controlling the House. The latest revelations are drawing the Trump family closer and closer into the net, looking not just at the links with Russia, but also into the question of financial corruption.
The problem for the US state is that, if Trump is removed, his Vice President, Pence, takes over, and he is if anything worse. The likelihood is that Trump will come under increasing pressure during the year to walk away. Pence will be corralled, as a lame duck, for the last year of this presidency, with no chance of winning in 2020. The way this happens, I've witnessed in practice. A senior office holder is pulled to one side and told that if they go, they can go with some benefits, the higher up the ladder, the larger the benefits. If they choose not to, they are told they will simply be stitched up, and forced out with potentially serious consequences for them. In the case of Trump, he may also be reminded of what happened to some previous Presidents such as Kennedy, and given his paranoia over the actions of the deep state, even he might understand the relevance of such a reminder.
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