On the eve of one hundred days, since President Barack H. Obama handed the country over to Donald J. Trump; and I am amazed at two things.
The first thing that amazes me is the hatred that Trump antagonists have for him. This president is the classic, either you love him or you hate him. A case in point, a recent poll of voters who voted Trump into office say they do not regret their vote. In fact 96 percent of them continue to support him in spite of Trump’s bumbling start. These Trump supporters argue that he should be given time to learn on the job.
While on the other hand, the vast majority of Americans who made a negative value judgment of Candidate Trump, and did not vote for him, still thinks he is a despicable facsimile of a human being. You can not talk presidential politics with this group without a thorough bashing of Trump’s mental acumen, or stability, or both simultaneously.
Why am I amazed at these vicious attacks on Trump’s personhood nearly 100 days into his presidency?
My amazement has nothing to do with whether his persona in the White House is accurately depicted. I am amazed because Trump’s opponents are blinded by their personal hatred for him and are vicariously blinded to measures that could defeat his presidency. A goal which they profess to seek, only if it would not leave Mike Pence waiting in the wings.
Secondly, I am amazed that Trump antagonists do not realize that Trump knows his antagonists are as blinded by their hatred for him as the loyalists are blinded by their support of him. And he uses them both just the same to obtain his goals and objectives.
While Trump’s opponents dismiss him as a nut case, an ignoramus and completely devoid of any social skills to make it in the world, he marches headlong into his agenda.
Our media outlets have missed the boat as well as those who are consumed by media reports. The media points out Trump’s unorthodox approach to governance, but fail to see in his sleight of hand he is pulling the same ruse as some of his predecessors.
For instance, Bush 2 sent his military and intelligence officers to congress to make the “fake case” for weapons of mass destruction. The media played into Bush’s hands by constantly broadcasting footage of Saddam Hussein waving a World War I style rifle in the air from a balcony to whip up public hysteria to invade Iraq.
Sixteen years later, the unorthodox Trump does not dispatch his generals to congress, he summons congress to the White House for “fake sensitive briefings” on North Korea’s alleged nuclear arsenal. The effects are the same as the media dangles footage of an equally unorthodox leader parading his military might in North Korea.
I for one, do not want my congressional delegation to buy into the Trump narrative, that the situation in North Korea is so dire as to demand a military response from the USA. To paraphrase an old adage, “fool me once and you will never do it again.”
Since Douglas MacArthur, the generals have wanted to bring the entire Korean peninsula under American domination, so I am not surprised that the generals did not stop advancing this idea until they found an American president – unlike Harry Truman and the 11 presidents from Truman to Obama – who is willing to give them the authority to take the island.
On the eve of the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, oh, what a messy start to war if the public does not come to the realization, that Trump is no bumbling ignoramus, that he won the presidency, perhaps with a little help from his friends abroad, but mostly because he outsmarted his opponents like he has done to keep his presidency alive for nearly 100 days more than anyone with his lack of experience should have been capable of doing.
Trump has survived precisely because his adversaries do not believe Trump can think himself out of a wet paper bag. He will continue to survive in direct proportion to the denigration heaped upon his mental dexterity by his enemies. He or she who would defeat Trump, must start with the realization that Trump is as sagacious as any of the men who have held the office of the presidency. Otherwise, the name calling is empty rhetoric signifying absolutely nothing.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round, the editor of Easier to obtain Than to Maintain: The Globalization of Civil Rights by Charles Steele, Jr.; and the host of Beyond the Law with Harold Michael Harvey. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.
Well stated, as usual, Michael. What also amazes me at Trump haters is their unwillingness to take a good hard look at the lack of political will and/or political impotence of the politicians they actually voted for. Democrats and moderate Republicans have been good at “saber rattling” and spewing out 30 second sound bites to sound like they actually know what they are doing, but they have yet to produce any tangible legislation that would stop or slow much of Trump’s most potentially dangerous policies. I also agree that Trump is not quite as ignorant or inept as his adversaries think he is. All he really has done is said publically what many men say and believe behind closed doors.
Joy, your comment as usual is well balanced and add an extra punch to the conversation.