Trump: The Inscrutable, Promotional President

With rare exceptions most people have public and private faces, revealing the latter only to their closest confidants or under extreme duress. Countries and political movements operate similarly.

Saudi Arabia, for example, professes to oppose radical Islam but through its funding of madrasas throughout the world it is the number one propagator of extreme Wahhabi Islam that is anti-Semitic, dismissive of any infidels and behind much of the carnage by radical Islamic terrorists.

It is useful and instructive to assess a politician’s, a government’s, a movement’s true intentions by monitoring their words and deeds expressed to and understood by their primary audiences. Take the PLO, for example. Even as some of its leaders say they accept Israel’s existence, it continues to teach children hatred of Jews while lauding terrorists who kill Israelis, even rewarding their families with payments if they die in their efforts. 

It’s a two-sided street. Over the years Bibi Netanyahu has expressed support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but almost everything his government has done in the West Bank territories has undermined the prospect of that ideal becoming a reality.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. Casting himself as the great dealmaker Trump envisions being a peace broker between the Palestinians and Israel as well as a coalition builder of “moderate” Arab states to defeat ISIS.

With an oversized Santa Claus bag of military goodies, Trump curried favor with the Saudi royal family and the dictators of other Sunni lands, but how credible is he in their eyes? Did the rhetoric their ears heard in Riyadh erase what they witnessed and heard for nearly two years, months upon months of attacks on Islam, including in March 2016, “I think Islam hates us”?

Which are his baseline beliefs—his diplomatic use in Riyadh of the phrase “the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires,” or the catchphrase “radical Islamic terrorism” featured in all his rallies and in his attacks on President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for their failure to similarly identify Muslim attackers?

One wonders if the Arab Sunni world will be as discriminating as U.S. courts have been concerning Trump’s candor on the campaign trail. In restraining implementation of Trump’s travel ban from seven predominantly Muslim countries, courts have determined candidate Trump’s words are a more realistic reflection of his inner beliefs than his post-election public posturing.

Trump shows his true, unfiltered face when he tweets or departs from prepared remarks. 

Apparently under duress from the probe of alleged Russian influence on his campaign during the election, Trump seemingly revealed his lack of understanding of constitutional restrictions on the powers of the presidency. If James Comey is telling the truth, Trump asked the then-FBI director to stop investigating former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia. It has also been reported that Trump asked the director of national intelligence and the director of the National Security Agency to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion with Russia during the 2016 election. 

Under duress to score political wins, Trump has turned his back on campaign promises never to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid funding. His proposed fiscal 2018 federal budget might not get passed as is, but it is instructive as to Trump’s true feelings. 

His budget calls for an $880 billion cut in Medicaid, a $191 billion cut in food stamps, a $72.5 billion cut in aid to the disabled, and a $21.6 billion cut in welfare over the next 10 years. Many of those reductions would impact the very voters who propelled Trump into the White House. 

Trump also promised to repeal and replace Obamacare with a better, less expensive health care program that would cover more people. But the bill he supported that passed in the House of Representatives would reduce coverage by 23 million over a decade, be more costly and provide less coverage, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (https://nyti.ms/2qXzbSq).

Again, Trump’s core voters would be deeply affected by Trumpcare, if passed as is. 

So how to gauge the true Trump? Might I suggest this measuring stick—consider him the “promotional president” not bound to any rigid doctrine or philosophy. He cares only about the optics of winning, of promoting himself, without regard to those who may be adversely affected by his waffling positions and advocacy for legislation or executive orders that are detrimental to millions of Americans, many of whom voted for him in the expectation he would improve their lives.

We have always had wheeling and dealing presidents, perhaps none better at closing the deal than Lyndon Baines Johnson. Trump, however, does not seem to be rooted in any political principle other than his personal aggrandizement. Perhaps that’s why he reacts so quickly and violently to any slight, real or perceived. Perhaps that’s why he is eager to share the perqs of his office with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, why he is willing to bow down, even curtsy, before the Saudi king, why he could not help himself but risk a constitutional crisis by firing Comey, the man responsible for leading the investigation of his administration. 

Trump is a man of limited vocabulary, limited attention span, limited fealty to the truth, limited appreciation of historical context, limited loyalty to principle. It is not a compliment to say he is inscrutable. One would hope a president of the United States stands for values long forged in the American experience, not someone who favorably compares our values with those of Saudi Arabia where, among many repressive actions, public dissent is illegal, women are considered chattel with few rights, slavery still exists, religions other than Sunni Islam are not tolerated and where the press is restricted. 

Saudi Arabia practices Sharia Law. But that’s okay with Donald Trump. After all, they extended to him a welcome fit for a king, complete with a gold medal, showering him with praise. To get a $110 billion package of military hardware, the Saudis knew just how to appeal to his ego. 

   

Holy Wars: Why Evangelicals Like Trump; Which Is Supreme—God's Words vs. Man's

I think I figured out why evangelicals can support a candidate who is twice divorced, three times married, cheated on two of his wives, uses obscene language in public and rarely goes to church: Evangelicals see Donald Trump as the quickest road to Armageddon and the Second Coming.

Trump, and for that matter carpet-bomber Ted Cruz and bombs-away Marco Rubio, may be the surest vessel to ignite a war that would hasten the evangelical vision of an end to the world as we know it. 

Sure, I might be looney to think this a plausible explanation, but is it any more outrageous than the dribble pundits are giving as to why Mr. Bombast has been able to win two of the first three Republican Party presidential contests, including South Carolina’s primary Saturday where more Bible huggers embraced The Donald and not Cruz or Rubio without first requiring him to repent and be born again?  

“It’s also becoming clearer why people are voting for Trump,” the Associated Press reported. “Nearly half of Republican voters in South Carolina said Trump is the candidate they trust most to handle the economy, more than double the proportion who said so of any other candidate, according to exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and television networks by Edison Research.”

That explanation also falls under the banner of an “article of faith” as the truth behind Trump’s golden touch shows it to be rather tarnished. Admittedly, he is a fabulous brand marketer, the brand being himself. But article after article has uncovered a less than strong bottom line performance by companies he has led or been associated with. 

Puncturing his aura of business respectability will be the main challenge his Republican foes face if they have any hope of derailing his candidacy. The challenge would fall to the Democratic standard bearer should Trump secure the GOP nomination. 

Paradoxically, maybe evangelicals are hedging their bets by supporting Trump. If they truly believe he is best for the economy, maybe they really think they’ll be around for a long time and need to worry about their personal finances.  

Whose Words Should Be More Lasting? When did man’s words become more important than God’s (assuming, of course, you believe in a God, as all the candidates for president profess to do)? When did it become illegitimate to interpret man’s words but not God’s? 

“The Constitution is not a living and breathing document. It is to be interpreted as originally meant,” asserted Marco Rubio last week, one of many who pounced on the still warm body of the newly deceased Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia to expound a philosophy that would bind our nation to many of the the mores and values of the late 18th century. 

Scalia was the chief protagonist of “originalism,” a belief that all truths could be found in the words of The Framers of the Constitution and any amendments subsequently passed. He was a deeply religious Catholic, but apparently he did not find anything wrong with deviations from the Good Book, the Bible, interpretations that have transformed religions for more than 2,000 years. 

Christians and Jews, after all, don’t adhere to all the dictates God commanded. We don’t exact an eye for an eye, anymore. Nor do we stone people who violate the Sabbath. God seemed okay with polygyny. Some Mormons still do, but they are the exception to the rule in most Western cultures. 

According to Scalia, “The only good Constitution is a dead Constitution. The problem with a living Constitution, in a word, is that somebody has to decide how it grows and when it is that new rights are, you know, come forth. And that’s an enormous responsibility in a democracy to place upon nine lawyers, or even 30 lawyers.”

Yet, the history of religion is that sages have always interpreted God’s meaning and intent. Western societies are apoplectic about Sharia Law as practiced in religiously orthodox Islamic countries because devout Moslems do not accommodate their civil practices to modern times. If you’re into stoning adulterers, or perhaps you prefer cutting off the hand of a thief, catch a plane to Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan.

But here in the United States, we don’t administer Sharia Law-like punishments. We’ve evolved. Apparently with God’s blessings or at least understanding, as thunderbolts from above have not wiped out huge swaths of our population (let’s not consider, for the moment, why natural disasters—tornadoes, floods, hurricanes—seem to be more frequently visited upon regions with more evangelicals than other areas). 

Keeping our laws attuned with current values is recognition that times change (hopefully for the better). If religious leaders (not all, but many) can adapt some of God’s prohibitions, if they can refine their approach to homosexuality, for example, thus affirming that the Bible is a living document, then why should we not be able to interpret the Constitution for modern times. The right to privacy, for example, had a narrower scope back in the 1780s. 

Architects have found that flexible structures withstand earthquakes better than rigidly constructed buildings. So, too, our nation if we measure our laws against the science, technology and mores of the time we live in.  

In the U.S., Man's Law Outweighs God's Law

Are we free to choose which man-made laws we will or will not follow?

Yes, as long as we accept the consequences of non compliance (the same may be said for God-given laws, assuming one believes in an Almighty).

As all of you probably do, I have been known to drive faster than the posted speed limit. I do so with the hope I won’t be caught by a policeman; if I am, I further hope he would be kind and lenient and not ticket me. But if he does, I must be prepared to pay a fine even if a judge reduces the violation to a charge less than speeding.

Few people like paying income taxes. But most pay what the government says they owe. Those who choose not to pay do so at the risk of prosecution even if their inaction is based on a conscientious dissent. Quakers, for example, cannot withhold taxes based on their objection to war and the government’s funding of armed conflict around the world, be it a just war or not.

Public servants like Kim Davis, the county clerk of Rowan County, KY, who has chosen jail over issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, are in unique positions. They may have to act in opposition to their personal beliefs. Policemen, for example, must honor the civil rights of protesters even if their first instinct is to bash some heads with a billie club. If they succumb to instinct they run the risk of prosecution and loss of their job.

Federal Judge David Bunning had to subsume personal beliefs on gay marriage to uphold the law as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court.

No one is permitted to inject their beliefs in deciding which laws may be followed without accepting the consequences of their refusal to accept laws duly upheld by the courts.

It has been argued that Kim Davis was adhering to an authority higher than the Supreme Court. She was following God’s laws. I would, at this juncture, usually cite the relevant biblical text. The Bible lists many prohibited unions in Leviticus, such as a man marrying his sister, but is silent on same-sex marriage other than to say it is an abomination for men to lie together as a man would with a woman. 

But what about a platonic relationship? If we accept that a man and woman could join in marriage without sex being a part of it, as would happen if one were paralyzed or impotent because of age or other medical condition, why could we not accept that two men or two women want to live together in a legal union without the necessity of intercourse. 

Marriage does not require a sexual act. It is a human construct that marriage must be consummated by intercourse. First night blood-on-the-marriage-bed was not decreed by God. 

Marriage, according to Isaac Klein in A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, also is “a contract between two parties of equal legal capacity, creating mutual rights and duties that terminate either with the death of one of the parties, by mutual consent, or at the insistence of one of the parties following the breach by the other of one of the warranties or fundamental conditions of the contract.” 

Gays just want the same rights accorded to straight people.

Elsewhere in Leviticus, God commanded his adherents not to eat pork. Pagans could, but not God’s followers. As a practicing Jew, Jesus would not have eaten pork. 

Seems to me lots of pork is eaten in this country. How is that? Why don’t Christians follow these words of God and other commandments, such as tithing, or leaving fields fallow every seven years, or returning property to its original owner every jubilee year, the original income redistribution plan sanctioned by God? Because men, in their infinite wisdom, chose to amend them. Or ignore them. Or reasoned they no longer applied. Or needed more modern interpretations in keeping with the values and mores of the times.

The West decries fundamentalist Islam and its Sharia law as outdated. Cut off a man’s hand for stealing? How repulsive! Stone an adulterer? How barbaric! Blow up a pagan antiquity because it blasphemes one’s idea of religion? God forbid the intolerance!!!

Which brings us to the Founding Fathers and the brilliance of their work. They devised a system wherein freedom of religion was paramount to an individual’s rights but the practice of one’s religion was never intended to infringe on the rights of others. There would be no state-sanctioned religion, no bias for or against one’s beliefs. 

Elected officials swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. They aren’t given the choice of which laws they may enforce or circumvent. They aren’t given the choice of selective adherence to the decisions of the Supreme Court. 

They can disagree. They can dissent. But they cannot reject by their actions the consequences of those decisions. So Kim Davis and all who agree with her can only bite their lips and follow the law, unless they can mount a successful constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. 

Trump Turns US into Chumps; Not a Principled Stance in KY

Let’s be honest about Donald Trump’s appeal to too many Americans—Republicans, Independents and even some Democrats.

Some of it may be attributed to his anti-politician stance. Some to racism. or nativism.

But the bottom line to me is that too many Americans are just flat out dumb. Stupid. Too ignorant to realize they often vote against their best interests. Why else would they choose to elect candidates from a party dedicated to keeping the rich rich and making them richer at the expense of the majority, those mired in the working and middle classes?

Trump makes outrageous statements. Who among us doesn’t? But the consequences of private comments pale in comparison to the polarizing, often inaccurate and bombastic views expressed by a candidate who hopes to lead not just our country but the civilized world. 

The Donald speaks his mind, no doubt about it. His fans, I believe, care not that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. After all, they too probably couldn’t differentiate between Shia and Sunni Muslims, or know the names of leaders of different terrorist factions, as Trump failed to do on a Thursday radio show with conservative host Hugh Hewitt (http://nyti.ms/1UvMtJR). His fans just want someone to voice their frustrations with a system that does not seem to be working for them.

That alone doesn’t make them dumb or stupid or ignorant. What crosses the line for me is that they don’t see beyond the façade. His vision of leadership is that he would be able to do it all himself. As he told Hewitt at the end of their interview, “I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.”

My head is spinning in disbelief not just at Trump but at the chumps he has made of so many of our fellow citizens.

Principled Stance? I Don’t think so: Our country was founded on several principles—that no one was above the law; that religion would not supersede government; that opportunity would be available equally to all.

What we have witnessed in Rowan County, KY, has been an elected official who tried to impose her religious beliefs on others in direct conflict with the adjudicated, constitutional law of the land. 

One may disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the legality of same-sex marriages, but failure to adhere to its determination is a usurpation of someone else’s rights.

Kim Davis’ denial of a marriage license to gay couples because it violated her religious beliefs was not a principled defiance of an unjust law. She was not practicing freedom of religion. She was the incarnation of religious extremism no less severe than that practiced by ISIS and other Muslim reactionaries who choose to exercise religious intolerance rather than inclusion. 

Taken to the next level, Davis or some other fanatic could come up with religious beliefs that would deny rights to any class they disapproved of, such as Hispanics, Jews, Afro-Americans or Jehovah Witnesses. Her resistance to changing times and mores is personal, not to be countenanced in an elected official. 

Or by an elected official. Which leads to the more troubling reaction of some Republican presidential candidates who profess allegiance to the Constitution but apparently not if it conflicts with their views. Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and others want a government defined by Christian values as contained in the Bible. 

So tell me, if you substitute the Koran and Sharia law for the Old and New Testaments, how is that different from what ISIS wants in its mostly Muslim sphere?