The Emperor's New Suit of Clothes

 

Readers of this blog may have got the impression that I am not totally sold on the Trump Presidency. Well, I have to put my hand up and acknowledge this is right, or, to be more accurate, I cannot stand the politics and politicking of this Reality TV obsessed, boastful, megalomaniac, inarticulate philanderer. “Come on, John,” I hear you say, “tell us what you really think.”

Well, I have to say that a few days ago, I thought the President had gone through an epiphany. It seems to have occurred sometime between Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Trump looked at the former as a photo opportunity as he plodded through Corpus Christi, making Harvey his own personal storm. By the time Irma hit Florida, the presidential tone had very much changed as he focused on the people in that state and the emergency services. Why should we applaud the Donald for finally saying and doing what any other President would have said and done? I guess because it was so out of character. He showed caring for all Floridians, not merely those who fawn at Mar-al-Largo.

What also caught my attention was the way Mr T took a leaf from the Clinton playbook, Bill, that is, not Hillary. When Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, he faced feral Republicans in Congress posing an extreme right wing stance, while the Congressional Democrats were seeking a far left agenda. Clinton chose a policy which he termed Triangulation, positioning himself in the middle as the sole voice of political reason. He ran against a moderate Republican, Bob Dole, and trounced him.

Of late, Trump has been following a similar policy. Realising that the GOP in Congress was not going to deliver on all manner of issues, he cozied up to Congressional Democrats. Trump adopted a Democrat approach and signed an Executive Order extending the US Debt ceiling, which has to receive Congressional approval by December 8^th this year. The GOP wanted the date extended to December 2018 so it will not be an issue in next year’s mid-terms. However, Senate Democrats would filibuster any attempt at such a lengthy extension. It remains to be seen whether Congress will pass the Bill.

Additionally, Trump is looking to the Democrats to pass a budget. Trump wants tax reform to stimulate growth, especially using a deep corporate tax cut. He has indicated that to get a deal, he will raise taxes on “the rich.” There are other issues to resolve. For example, Trump wants to repeal inheritance tax; the Democrats want it retained. It seems that a deal to legalise the status of “Dreamers”, young people brought illegally to the US, is on the cards, so long as there is no interference by Congressional Democrats on the funding of the Mexican wall. I doubt Trump will get his way on both these issues.

But the real point is that the President realised that bipartisanship can equate to governing. While the members of his party in the Senate remain intransigent towards the President’s policies, he’ll try to get his way elsewhere: he would not need many Republican votes in the Senate and just a few more in the House. However, the playing field may change quickly as the hastily assembled Cassidy/Graham Bill to abolish Obamacare hits Congress. Trump has expressed approval to the Bill in his zeal to kill the current healthcare laws. He may be forced to change his mind if he wants a budget.

Then, on Tuesday, Trump went to the United Nations and saw red mist. References to “Rocket Man” and destroying North Korea may be Trumplomacy but how unhelpful do you need to be? He forgot his predecessor’s, Teddy Roosevelt’s, advice: “walk softly and carry a big stick.” Everyone in the United Nations, let alone the world, knows America has a nuclear arsenal that could blow up the planet twenty times over. Does Trump believe that smart nuclear bombs can remove 28 million North Koreans from the face of the earth without harming one South Korean? Does he believe that Russia, China and other less friendly nuclear nations will not retaliate? Someone needs to tell this President and quickly that he has a nuclear deterrent whose power is lost once it is used. We need LBJ back. He often exclaimed during the Vietnam conflict, “the only fucking real power I have is nuclear and I can’t use that.” Trump needs to hear this.

Sometimes, politics is about timing. Behind closed doors, the Mueller investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 Presidential election is taking shape and moving closer and closer to the White House. I expect Trump’s rhetoric to escalate in October as his Presidency and feet are put to the fire. Will he survive? I’d tell you but I’ve mislaid my crystal ball.

Ken Burns - The Modern American Historian

This week, hundreds of Washington insiders gathered in the Kennedy Center Opera House for an advance screening of Ken Burns’ new documentary on Vietnam. Before Burns showed half a dozen choice clips from his 10-part, 18-hour film, he asked everyone who served in the military during the war to stand so they could be recognized. John McCain and John Kerry were among those who rose. Burns then asked anyone who protested Vietnam to also stand. Dozens did. “I couldn’t tell the difference,” Burns remarked, referring to both groups. The veterans, including McCain, joined the audience in applauding the anti-war demonstrators. So, has Vietnam ceased to be a running sore like the failed Bay of Pigs invasion?

I first heard of Ken Burns some twenty years ago when I watched his opus, the documentary series on the American Civil War. He wrote the script, he sewed together the history with the use of maps, biographies, newspapers, paintings and especially original photographs and letters from combatants and non-combatants read by professional actors. He produced a masterpiece. Having read the three volume Civil War history by Shelby Foote, I found Burns’ approach so much more digestible.

Burns followed the treatment of the Civil War by television histories of, amongst others, The Dust Bowl, Baseball, Prohibition, The Roosevelts and now Vietnam. He is painstaking in the way he clarifies and knits history together. Sure there are dates, places and events but the analysis he brings shines a torch on his topics. I look forward to watching the latest epic whose story will, I’m sure, cover not only the history and events in south-east Asia but also the turmoil and politics at home. It is undoubtedly one of the darkest and most divisive chapters in American history.

From 1954, when the French were humiliated by North Vietnamese guerrillas at Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam was the Achilles heel of American foreign policy. I cannot prove that Vietnam ruined the Eisenhower presidency but it was a major element of a failed Cold War policy, the domino theory: if one nation falls to communism others will follow. Likewise, I cannot be certain that Vietnam, rather than Cuba, was the underlying reason for Kennedy’s assassination but three weeks before his death he announced a potential removal from Vietnam, to the shock of the Joint Chiefs and others.

What cannot be denied is that two giant Presidents, Johnson and Nixon, were defeated by their Vietnam policies. Johnson decided to escalate the conflict, aided by his mastery of a weak Congress who, by passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, gave LBJ carte blanche for the escalation. Two points: first, there was an alleged attack on American warships in the Gulf of Tonkin which fired up the executive and legislative branches of the US government and the nation alike. The trouble is the attack did not happen. Second, the conflict was an undeclared war, the longest in American history. Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to declare war but it never did. The War Powers Act of 1973 sought to control the executive in this regard.

Despite some 200,000 American soldiers fighting for the South at any one time and more than three million overall, the war never looked like being won. Huge demonstrations against the war in DC, New York and other big cities divided the country. In truth, Johnson never had control of the war either in Vietnam or at home.

Nixon never expected to win the war. In 1968, the eminent television journalist, Walter Cronkite, declared the Tet offensive a loss when, in military terms, it was a win. Cronkite forecast a stalemate in Vietnam. That year Nixon sought election on a Vietnamese peace with honour platform. He accepted Cronkite’s assessment.  By 1972, Nixon’s re-election year, peace was still far away. Too many government leaks, as well as the publication of The Pentagon Papers, caused Nixon to introduce an anti-leak policy, operated from the White House by The Plumbers. There is a direct line to the June, 1972, Watergate break-in and impeachment.

The American withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1974 was soon followed by the hasty departure and emergency evacuation of the American Embassy in Saigon. President Gerald Ford was no challenge for Jimmy Carter that year.

I am certain that Ken Burns will cover all these events in far greater detail and, perhaps with an analysis different from mine. If so, I will not object. He is a zealous researcher without an axe to grind. I commend you all to his histories.