September 16, 2019--Trump's Four-Step Program

Take the tariffs as an example of a political strategy Trump employs with great aplomb and consequence.

During the 2016 campaign he stressed two things more than anything else--the Wall, how he would build it and Mexico would pay for it--and trade with China--how they were taking advantage of American naiveté and as a result surpassing us in economic growth. They were stealing our intellectual property and the Chinese government was unfairly subsidizing the cost of the expansion of their manufacturing sector. We, on the other hand, were experiencing a chronically stalled economy and ballooning trade deficits.

He said that unlike his predecessors he would confront the Chinese directly and fight back by using every trick and tool at his disposal. Among them, first and foremost, tariffs.

As the initial step he talked tough, boasting how he would take on the Chinese and force them to amend their ways or face crippling tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of manufactured goods and agricultural products.

The Chinese did not knuckle under. Instead, they announced retaliatory tariffs of their own. In response Trump, as the next step, ramped up the rhetoric, including personal attacks on Xi Jinping, China's president for life.

Still the Chinese did not back down. As a consequence the American stock market plunged, attracting Trump's attention. He had represented the previously soaring market as evidence that his economic policies were working. If the market tanked, not far behind would be Trump's reelection chances.

As a result, as the third step, he began to soften his position. To back off. He ratcheted back his criticism of Xi and began to hint that he would hold off on imposing tariffs until the end of the holiday shopping season. And just last week he announced that perhaps tariffs aren't necessary after all since both the Chinese and he are interested in making a deal. Not so between the lines was the implication that that deal might not require tariffs.

In this final move of the Trumpian four-step, he will soon take credit for getting the Chinese to retreat in the face of a crisis that he himself created and from which he, not they, is doing the backing down. 

The Chinese government's recent announcement that they will resume importing soybeans will be cited as evidence by Trump that they are capitulating, while in truth he is.

So, he begins by initiating a crisis which, when it starts to spin out of control, he "solves" by abandoning his own positions while at the same time taking credit for doing so as if that was the plan all along. 

If I have this right, those who want to depose Trump need to understand how this strategy works and figure out how best in real time to counter it. It's his most powerful tool and we have to expose and resist it, jiu jitsu-style, by turning his own strength against him.

August 30, 2019--Trump's Second Thoughts

If I believed he had first thoughts I might feel a bit optimistic that Trump is having second thoughts about his ill-begotten China tariff policy which, if implemented, would drag the global economy down to the same level England will shortly experience after they Brexit.

For weeks Trump has been in full Twitter as he excoriated China and its leaders and how they dishonestly manage their economy. All to our disadvantage, Trump has been fulminating.

But then last Friday when the Dow Jones Average shed 700 points Trump hit the panic button. He has been using the Dow as his personal barometer of how well the economy has been doing on his watch. 

Not so good the bears were now saying. Talk of inflation was also in the air. Not the kind of economic news any president wants to run on when seeking reelection.

And so he had second thoughts. 

When asked about the tariffs during the G-7 meeting in France he said that sure he is having second thoughts. He has them all the time about everything. And "that's a good thing." 

It is easier, of course, to have multiple thoughts about everything if you don't believe in anything other than your own wellbeing. 

But as with so much, it depends on the second thoughts. To rethink engaging in a ruinous trade war, having real second thoughts is a good thing. With emphasis on "real." 

What is in fact underway with China is not anything resembling normal negotiations or diplomacy but rather a play on Trump's part to enhance his domestic political standing. Period.

Here's how it is working with the tariffs but it equally applies to how he approaches background checks or immigration. Actually, with Trump how it applies to everything.

He's a master of having it both ways, or even more than both ways. In his case, this is easy to get away with since his supporters (a shrinking pool polls are now showing) are low-information voters (I'm trying to be kind) and as such are not as concerned as evidence-based voters when it comes to flip-flops and contradictions and facts.

For Trump's people he is incapable of flip-flopping or acting inconsistently. Wherever he says, whatever he does is by definition true and consistent. If it comes from him, truth is not the issue. Though in a perverse way it is because, ex cathedra, whatever he says or does is or becomes the truth.

Then there are direct political advantages for him to having multiple thoughts about the same thing--it gives his believers (and  I consider them believers) more to embrace, more to accept, more rituals and incantations by which to be guided.

So, when it comes to tariffs some of his supporters can be for them while others can oppose them, all the while both being for HIM. Which after all is the point.