January 3, 2019--Weakman Trump

Many on the left, even before he took office, concerned about his authoritarian inclinations, were fearful that Trump would intentionally morph into a Mussolini-style strongman. That he would become an American fascist.

That can still happen as panic sets in, as various investigations press in on him, as it becomes more and more apparent that he is totally corrupt, having committed serious felonies in both his personal and presidential life, a fully authoritarian Trump may emerge. 

But with impeachment and possible criminal indictments looming, instead of Trump the strongman we may see Weakman Trump. 

His signature initiatives, one domestic and two international are collapsing and to preserve them and himself he will be required to do more than compromise--he will need to capitulate.

As I write this he is in the early stages in the process of caving in to the new Democratic leaders of Congress. In the White House Situation Room of all places, they are witnessing Trump in the throughs of trying to wiggle out of the political responsibility for the unpopular government shutdown. 

The real reason for the shutdown has to do with Trump's highest-priority domestic campaign promise--not that the government needs to be slimmed down, but that he will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it. He is the one who linked the two with the shutdown as a bargaining chip that he gambled the Dems would trade away to fund their supposed favorite thing--more big government.

Two-thirds of Americans are unhappy with the shutdown and blame it on Trump while the same two thirds oppose Trump's "nonnegotiable" line drawn in the Rio Grande--his most conspicuous, base-pandering campaign promise--that he will build a "beautiful" wall and Mexico will pay for it.

If nothing else, Trump knows how to read polls and he sees that both the shutdown and the wall are losing political gambits. With the shellacking he took during the recent midterm elections and the current unpopularity of him and his policies, with 2020 looming, not to say a possible Mueller report, he is seeking a way to back down and save a little face. Usually it is the Democrats who cave. This time (thus far) they are hanging tough and enjoying the spectacle of Trump twisting in the proverbial wind.

Then there are the international messes Weakman Trump is desperate to get behind him. In at least two cases, both leading campaign promises--to withdraw from the Middle East, especially Syria, and to get North Korea to denuclearize--his impulsive decision to bring home all American troops from Syria is not working out. Some key Republicans have taken the lead in criticizing him and he has already agreed to allow the withdrawal timetable to swell from 30 days to four months. In fact expect those four months to stretch out further. 

And it is clear that the only deal Trump's real strongman friend, North Korea's Kim Jong-un, will agree to is not to destroy any of their nuclear weapons or delivery systems until the U.S. withdraws American soldiers from South Korea, ends joint military operations with our longtime allies, eliminates sanctions, and removes our nuclear weapons from the region.

A weakened Trump, if he wants to continue to take credit for making a deal with North Korea (and, politically, to feed his base he has to) he will need to do some fancy tap-dancing to cover up the caving that will be required to get out of this dilemma. 

My concern--often weak men are more dangerous than strong ones.

May 29, 2018--Kim & Trump Together At Last

Don't be taken in by all the on-again off-again business about whether Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un will or won't meet on or about June 12th.

They'll meet. 

About that you can bet the house. And they will make a deal. Or a version of a deal, including possibly a faux deal. They'll be OK with that since anything resembling one will work. Will work for each of their purposes.

Never before have there been two political adversaries who so desperately need a deal. And so we will have one.

Kim's country is falling apart. Not that for decades, since his grandfather's rule, has there been much remaining to fall apart. Pretty much everything has been collapsing since the Second World War. Though one would not even be able to notice how fallen apart things are, especially after dark, since with the exception of the capital, Pyongyang, there is no power and thus there are no electric lights.

That should be the worst of the situation. Even more dire, most North Koreans are grossly undernourished if not out and out starving with parasitical worms common in most North Koreans' digestive systems.

But there is a small North Korean elite who are loyal to Kim as long as they keep getting their goodies (electricity, TVs, things to buy, and overseas trips and bank accounts). If they sense that Kim is imperiled by unhappy elements within the country and thus might be in danger of being overthrown, the military might rise up and preemptively do the overthrowing. 

Kim has had dozens from the elite killed, including, especially brutally, family members. As a signal that he can play rough. But he could be more precariously in office than he appears to be from our vantage point halfway around the world.

So any deal would prop him up, particularly if some of our sanctions were lifted and things for ordinary North Koreans improved. After Kim and Trump meet, if we see lights burning at night across the country, we'll know things are getting better.

Evidence that Trump will be satisfied by any version of a deal is his more than usual refusal to do any prep work prior to the summit. Briefing papers have been prepared but he has refused to be briefed. He plans to wing it, guided by his "instincts," which he has previously proclaimed are the best in all of history.

He knows making a deal, even one in which he makes more concessions than Kim, will boost his approval ratings by at least 10 points and this could help Republicans in November maintain control of the House. And if that were to happen, there will be no impeachment. 

So the stakes for Trump are very high.

A deal would also allow Trump yet more leverage when it comes time to savage the Mueller report and the inevitable additional indictments that will be forthcoming this fall or winter.

Then there is the Nobel Peace Prize. If they make a deal it would be difficult for the Swedish Academy not to award one to Trump (and Kim) and this would allow him to further obliterate all traces of Barak Obama and his presidency. More than anything else, perversely, Trump's controlling obsession.

Why, one might wonder, would Kim trade away his nuclear weapons based on promises from the world's most dishonest and untrustworthy leader?

Again, things for him are desperate and it's the only card he has to play.

That reminds me a joke. One of my father's. He had only two or three jokes in his repertoire, so pay attention.

It's about sardines.

Louie gets a call from his friend Dave. "Louie," Dave says, "Do I have deal for you. A warehouse full of canned sardines. And they're yours for a special price. Only $5,000." So Louie buys the sardines.

A week later, Louie calls his cousin Murray and says, "Murray do I have a deal for you. A warehouse full of canned sardines. Priced especially for your only $7,500." 

Sight unseen Murray buys the sardines and after a few days calls his friend, Steve, "Steve," he says, "Do I have a deal for you. A warehouse full of sardines. They're for sale at a special price just for you--$10,000."

This sounds like a good deal to Steve and after sending Murray a check he goes to the warehouse to check out his sardines. They are in huge shipping crates. He opens a crate and then one of the cans of sardines.

They smell awful. "I'll try another one," he thinks. "This one must be a defective tin." But the next one and the one after that are also spoiled. 

So, angry, he calls Murray to complain that all the sardines are rancid. 

Murray is not surprised and tries to calm Steve down.

"You don't understand," Murray says. "These are not eating sardines. They're buying and selling sardines."

So Kim will tell Trump that he has a deal for him. He's willing to denuclearize because his atomic weapons are not for bombing purposes but for trading purposes.

At least let's hope so.

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