Trumpism: Why it won't go gentle into that good night

 @wwaycorrigan

[Listen to an audio version of this blog entry here.]
Much of the world appeared to breathe a collective sigh of relief when Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States of America.

Swamp men? Barack Obama & Joe Biden. (Photo from Facebook.)

After four crazy years of Donald J. Trump, calm has been restored. A comforting normality has returned to the self-proclaimed greatest democracy on the planet. Certainly, Biden will conform to many people's view of what it means to be "presidential".

Long live Trump

However, while Trump's presidency may be dead, Trumpism lives on. To ignore it, to hope it will just peter out as a force would be foolish in the extreme.

To this end, President Biden has talked the language of reconciliation, of unity. Therefore, we must assume that his administration isn't about to completely discard the almost 75 million US citizens who voted for Trump.

Biden only needs to look at his own inauguration day to be reminded of why Trump won the 2016 election. While the outgoing commander-in-chief decided, as has been his wont, to go against 150 years of tradition and not attend the peaceful handover of power, three former establishment presidents were present: namely Clinton, Bush and Obama.

"Untruths can be forgiven as long as one is acting in good faith, saying what one thinks. 'Trump may be a liar, but he's an honest liar.'"

The bonhomie on display, especially the banter between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Michelle Obama, will lead some to believe that common ground between two deeply divided factions can be found in the years to come. There is room for bipartisanship.

However, another way to look at it is as the personification of what Trump referred to as the 'swamp', a swamp he promised to drain which, depending on who you ask, he either made a decent fist of doing so or failed miserably.

Where lies truth?

This Washington swamp is a political elite out of touch with the needs and wants of America. It's an enemy that needs to be dismantled for those who espouse Trumpism.

Then there's language, what's said and what isn't said. The BBC's Washington correspondent, Jon Sopel, when asked of Trump's positives, referred to his transparency.

Now, while we all know of the many untruths Trump spouted and tweeted during his term in office, what Sopel refers to is the idea that you knew how he was feeling at any given time. To use the old expression, Trump wears his heart on his sleeve — or at least he constantly posted it on Twitter when he had access to that medium.

This is another important element of Trumpism. Untruths can be forgiven as long as one is acting in good faith, saying what one thinks. 'Trump may be a liar, but he's an honest liar.'

Contrast this with the politically correct language of Biden and his ilk. Experience leads Trumpists to view with great suspicion all these carefully worded speeches. They've heard it all before.

What's more, in such language they tend to hear not the equality of opportunity they associate with their USA but rather an equality of outcome. What they believe made the US great — the individualism, the freedom, a "non-interfering" government — is being eroded before their very eyes under the guise of progressive politics.

President Biden is only settling in at the White House. He may indeed turn out to be a president who can build bridges rather than walls. Convincing some in his own ranks to rein in their more ambitious ideas will surely prove key to that.
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Playing the 'yes man'

We can be accused of many things here – and have been – but being ‘yes men’ is not one of them. If we feel something isn’t right, we normally don’t hesitate to let our feelings be known about it. This is especially (but not exclusively) so if it’s something that directly affects us.

Mr Burns - fooled by 'yes men'.

Indeed, we’ve always seen it as a positive thing that we can openly express our feelings without fear of obvious open retribution. Many people throughout history have fought, and died, often in vain, to gain such privileges.

However, after spending much of our adult life thus far crying foul where we’ve seen fit, at times we now wonder if things would have been much easier, in many aspects, if we’d held our fire on some of those occasions. That is, not to ‘rock the boat’ you might say.

It’s certainly mentally taxing fighting ongoing written and verbal battles; and that’s when you feel like you’re winning or at least getting somewhere. If you’re in retreat, things can be pretty demoralising, making you wonder why you bothered with your course of action in the first place.

Of course, everybody gets annoyed about things at some stage, but not all of us will go on the attack at the first sign of a slight or an alleged wrongdoing. Best practice in most cases is to, at least initially, hold fire.

Some, however, can bite their lip indefinitely. This is especially so when it comes to work related incidents, where you might be dealing with a ‘higher power’ or those in control of the purse strings. 

You could call it a tactical, smart move in a way. Stay onside with the ‘important’ ones in your work life, particularly those in the hiring and firing end of things.

We’ve seen such a strategy work for many friends and colleagues – privately they might be seething over a certain issue but publicly they put on a smiley face and get on with things. This, though, is something we often struggle to do. If something bugs us, we tend to let our feelings be known.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with such, what you might term frankness. In fact, it can be healthy in many aspects. How you go about it, though, can be the difference between alienating yourself and gaining respect.

Best practice is to think before a hit.

In general, immediately tackling an issue in an aggressive manner – in a verbal and/or written context we’re referring to here – might not win you much favour, be that in the short, mid or long term. 

Letting things play out a little before you respond could be seen as a good rule of thumb. In a way it’s trial and error. On some occasions ‘striking’ first is the better option – although, experience says initially playing it cool tends to be the smarter choice for the majority of situations.

Outside of knee-jerk, emotional reactions usually not being the most effective, you also might need to take some time to make sure your ire is aimed – if it needs to be at all – at the right person. Even a nation state equipped with one of the best intelligence services in the world can get this wrong – Iraq is not Afghanistan, you know.

For we all have the ability to strike a blow; the key is in knowing when and where to hit, or not as the case may be, to get the result you want. 

Holding steady and playing the ‘yes man’ can at times be the smarter move.

Time for change

These are heady times in international politics. Top billing is, of course, the race for the White House, where it’s difficult even for those with a limited interest in it not to get caught up in the whole fanfare. Pretty much all media outlets across the globe are following the unfolding story. 

Meanwhile, closer to us here in Colombia, there's the Venezuelan presidential election – perhaps as equally important, if not more so, for this region than the USA one.

Will Venezuelans go left again or take a slight move to the right?

The fact that both countries are having leadership contests within a few weeks of each other is about as far as you can go with the comparisons between them. 

For one, Venezuela’s incumbent, Hugo Chávez appears to be in a more comfortable position as regards his re-election compared to Barack Obama – although the challenger, Henrique Capriles, is putting up a pretty impressive fight against the 14-year-long rule of the current administration. 

 

Part of Chávez’s appeal is that rather than just talk about it and despite his many detractors and questionable methods, he has arguably done more for the poor and vulnerable in his jurisdiction than Obama has in the "land of the free". 

Of course, the Venezuelan leader has had much more time and less interference in implementing his vision – ‘socialism for the 21st century’ – than the under-fire United States chief-of-staff.

The word vision here is key. Barack Obama entered the Oval Office just under four years ago promising much and offering a different path – remember, ‘change we can believe in’. For many US citizens, though, it has been far from the fairytale term they were hoping for. 

 

Once the bounce of having a novel, coloured president that was anything but George W. Bush wore off, things began to get a bit more serious for Obama. As many democratically bound and elected politicians discover, implementing change can be slow, mightily slow. 

Throw in the fact that no sooner is a new government sworn in then it begins thinking of its re-election, usually four to five years down the line. So even if you have a visionary leader or administration, the ‘must not harm my chances of getting back in’ mindset takes hold early on.

This sort of thinking is usually to the detriment of a leader’s or administration’s vision, assuming, that is, one exists. 

Ideally, elected governments should make decisions based on a clear plan that they have for the area they govern – regardless if this means that they might alienate or upset some potential voters. This is what doing things in the national interest or, perhaps of greater consequence is these times, the global interest should be about. 

Alas, what we regularly see nowadays are electorally charged policies and decisions, ones aimed at garnering the most votes. Or worse still, we get no clear policies or decisions at all.

The first debate went to Romney (L). Can he deny Obama four more years?

Take the first of the presidential debates between Obama and the Republican challenger Mitt Romney. 

The Obama strategy – we’ll assume he had one – appeared to be about talking specifics, giving hard facts and figures where he could. Romney on the other hand went down the catchy, well delivered but rehearsed, soundbite route – attacking the President on borrowing billions from China was certainly playing to the gallery. 

The actual amount of real substance and truth there was to all Romney’s utterances is questionable. He stuck to the ‘keep it simple, stupid’ mantra and it worked for him. The masses seemed to love it.

The masses, though, are not always right. As Winston Churchill reputedly once said, 'The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.' 

Collectively, we don’t always make the best decisions on far-reaching issues. On occasions, consensus is a luxury we should avoid. 

Put it this way, a global survey of popular restaurants would put McDonald’s high up on the list, but is it the best food for us to be eating regularly?

Furthermore, when it comes to elections, many democratic nations implore us to vote – ‘it doesn’t matter how you vote, just make sure you do’ is regularly trumpeted. 

So going by that advice, even if you know absolutely nothing about what you’re doing, just go and do it anyway. That’s not a very smart way of going about things, is it? 

If you really don’t have an opinion or an interest or knowledge on the vote at hand then it’s best to stay at home on polling day. Just because you are entitled to have your say doesn’t mean you must.

That aside, time will tell if the undecided US electorate has been swung by Romney’s smooth talking in the first debate. He may have what it takes to be a good president but relinquishing Obama of his duties right now would seem to be a little premature. 

Legally freed of the four-more-years syndrome we might get a better idea of Obama’s vision – he can go gung-ho in implementing policies without the worry of re-election hanging over him. At least that should be the case.

Will it be exit stage left for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez?

So while the current White House administration is looking for more time to implement its changes, in Venezuela, as far as most outside observers are concerned, it appears well and truly time for change. 

Even if you agree with Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution, one man at the top for 14 years is long enough. What he should have done is stepped aside and appointed a mouthpiece successor, Vladimir Putin style. 

That way the revolution could continue and he could still call the shots. It’s obviously hard, though, to walk away from the power drug. And, for better or worse, the Venezuelan electorate look set to continue to feed his habit.

*For an earlier take on our thoughts about Venezuela, see: http://bit.ly/OLR2Ev