TRUMP'S SECOND HUNDRED DAYS
by
DAVID SOLWAY
______________________________
David
Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist (Random Walks)
and author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and
Identity and Hear, O Israel! (Mantua Books). His
editorials appear regularly in PJ
Media. His monograph, Global Warning: The Trials of
an Unsettled Science (Freedom Press Canada) was launched
at the National Archives in Ottawa in September, 2012. His debut
album, Blood
Guitar, is now available, as is his latest
book, Reflections
on Music, Poetry and Politics.
It
has become obvious that Donald Trump’s first hundred days
in office, in which great things were supposed to happen, resemble
a chess game heading by fits and starts toward stalemate. He
has made some successful moves but the king has been checked
too often for comfort. I have never doubted his good intentions
or his negotiating capacities as one of America’s leading
entrepreneurs. But that is not to say I didn’t harbor
any doubts at all.
My
main apprehension had to do with the vast chasm between the
world of business and the world of politics. It was clear that
Trump was adept, indeed triumphant, in the former, and that
he had mastered the art of the deal, to cite the title of one
of his books. However, what he wrote there about Trump Tower
-- “I was proposing to take a ten-story building in a
state of disrepair and build in its place a multi-use sixty-eight
story $200 million tower” -- is, mutatis mutandis,
what he intended to do for America. Unfortunately, the nature
of such a proposal and its ensuing execution does not readily
translate into the insolubly corrupt, intricately Byzantine
domain of political activity. It was precisely this Velikovsky-like
collision between two approaching planets that worried me most.
As
Pamela Geller points out in an insightful article for American
Thinker:
[T]hroughout
his career until now, [Trump] has been negotiating not with
politicians, but with businessmen. We know their motive: profit.
It’s
not the same with politicians. Politics is a twisted world,
in which power and re-election are the currency in which they
trade.
And
therein lies the problem. The dominion of political haggling
and policy dispute with its entrenched interests and electoral
calculations bears precious little similarity to the realm of
entrepreneurial foresight and fiscal practicality in which a
builder and dealmaker like Trump flourished. Politicians are
not businessmen and government administrators are not industrialists.
Entrepreneurs
plan and build; politicians and administrators tend to regulate
and obstruct. Business impresarios are willing to take risks
in furthering their ventures; public officials and bureaucrats
are professionally averse to chance and unpredictability. While
daring in their projects, entrepreneurs need to be prudent and
efficient; so-called public servants are generally inefficient
and unproductive, except insofar as they are expert in preserving
their privileges and “building” their sinecures.
In effect, the two worlds could not be more different. This
is Trump’s dilemma.
I suspect
that Trump was confident he could transfer his business model
and negotiating skills from the world of commerce and industry
into the political quagmire -- to “drain the swamp”
-- and now finds himself largely baffled by the self-interested
gridlock, cunningly engineered booby traps, media blitzkrieg,
Congressional blockage and furtive guerrilla tactics of the
opposition. He has entered a space, unlike the one he is familiar
with, where things don’t get done, where ideology takes
precedence over results and obstructionism eclipses performance.
Has
Trump, then, met his match in an adversary so massive, imbricated
and insidious that he is helpless before its machinations? The
question is moot. Why, Geller asks, is the ineffective Paul
Ryan still there, after failing miserably to corral the votes
necessary to undo the Obamacare travesty? Why is the untrustworthy
James Comey sill holding down his post as director of the FBI?
Why is the pro-Muslim lackey Eric Treene, special counsel for
the DOJ Civil Rights Division, still buying coffee for Muslim
Brotherhood operatives?
No
need to stop there. Why is George Soros still allowed to foment
violent mischief in the public forum against the peace and order
of the republic? Why are the Obama-appointed judges of the Ninth
Circuit permitted to overrule executive orders issued in the
national interest when they should be stripped of their gowns?
Why is Hillary’s campaign chair John Podesta’s financial
connection to Russia left to simmer unattended on the backburner?
Why has the Clinton Foundation, awash with dirty money, escaped
a formal inquiry? Why are the Obama moles indefatigably subverting
Trump’s administration not swiftly and ruthlessly cleaned
out dripping root by clinging branch? For that matter, why has
Trump not issued an executive order unsealing Obama’s
sequestered records, including the former president’s
original birth certificate, which has never been made public?
These issues relating to Obama have never been satisfactorily
resolved and remain a festering wound on the body politic.
Whatever
may be going on behind the scenes or on the proscenium, Trump
is still president of the United States. He must use the full
power of his office to deal summarily with the slanders, fake
news, covert impediments and overt barriers against his declared
agenda to ensure the nation’s benefit, just as Obama used
his presidential authority to the disadvantage of the country.
Of course, should Trump proceed to act with dispatch and clear
the board, there would arise a clamorous outcry from the partisan
press, the morally compromised academy, left-liberal myrmidons,
Democrats and RINOs.
But
if it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t, then
you might as well do.
For
better or worse, the second hundred days will be a game-changer.
A reputation for success precedes Trump; a reputation for failure
should not succeed him.
