Trump tosses daily half baked policy bombs and news media respond as if they were the product of a rational, comprehending mind. They aren’t. Trump has a limited to-do list with which he is obsessed. Last time it was The Wall and NATO. This time it’s mass deportations and tariffs. He is serious about them and will announce bold moves, but he has little interest in how things get done, nor is he cognizant of consequences, intended or not. All of that is left to underlings whose performance is measured by loyalty not competency.
Of course there is a large menu of other policy priorities. Trump’s practice is to let others fly things by him and if any capture his attention they become policy priorities. If any of them involve Trump getting the sort of airtime he craves, something may actually happen. Others will move ahead or be forgotten depending on how backers are able to squirrel away enough resources and political power to get pet projects started without appearing to upstage Trump. In Trump world that means brutal infighting and back stabbing.
Permanent insiders in Trump world will be his two sons. A few others will be temporary insiders trying to make themselves permanent. Chief among them is Musk. It would be an impossible goal for anyone else but he may have a shot. Trump is deep in debt so there is a possibility that Musk holds a lot of paper and, in a sense, owns Trump. On the other hand, now that Trump knows he is immune from prosecution he is in a position to exercise power that even $300 billion can’t buy. We shall see.
What of other high level appointees? Some will be heralded on arrival as the greatest most amazing ever. Their short tenures will end with the condemnation of their low I.Q. incompetency, and the media will not bat an eyelash. The majority will exit with Trump declaring he didn’t know them, never met them, and their presence was somebody else’s fault.
In the meantime, keep an eye on Miller and Bannon. In Trump world, they are the smartest, most calculating and ruthless enemies of liberal democracy and they’ll take care not to be too public about what they are doing. They have had nine years to study Trump’s vanity, ignorance, short attention span, arrogance, and his wily ability to stay out of jail. They also know how easily manipulated he is and it’s possible they could engineer the Hungarian style autocracy they favor.
Will so called guardrails be relocated to Congress? Republican senators say they will not be Trump puppets. They have said that before but quickly surrendered courage and integrity to do obeisance to their political overlord. The House GOP makes no pretense of having political integrity. Whether an opposition loyal to the Constitution can effect protection of the American people remains to be seen.
The wild card is always Trump himself. Any objective observer has seen his cognitive decline paraded before every form of audience. It’s hard to believe his physical health is any better. News media and his supporters pretend that what is plain to see isn’t there. It would be comical if not so tragically dangerous.
What might all this mean for us in the next four years? My not very present guess is four years of political and economic chaos filled with political bombast, little constructive accomplishment, and a smattering of truly destructive moves toppling the U.S.A. as the undisputed world leader. Perhaps we will emerge as a wiser and much chastened nation. We shall see.