Michael Walsh
From its start, the Trump
administration has been plagued by charges of “chaos.” From the revolving door
of senior staffers — including two secretaries of state, three national
security advisers and two chiefs of staff — to the president’s brash and sometimes
boorish personal style, to his politically incorrect taunt-tweeting, Donald
Trump has refused to conform to his political opponents’ conventional notions
of what constitutes an effective White House operation.
And yet, the economy is
humming, hosts of regulations have been rolled back, the unemployment rate is
down, job openings are soaring, taxes have been cut and black joblessness is at
an all-time low. Prototypes for the wall along the Mexican border are being
tested, raids by ICE are rounding up dangerous illegal aliens and the “travel
ban” against several Muslim nations was argued last month before the Supreme
Court, where the president’s authority over immigration will be upheld.
In foreign affairs, the two
Koreas are talking to each other, with a summit between Trump and North Korean
dictator Kim Jong-un slated for June in Singapore, the ISIS “caliphate” has
been effectively destroyed and just last week Trump yanked the carpets out from
under the Iranian mullahs and canceled the nuclear deal negotiated — but never
submitted to the Senate for ratification — by the Obama administration.
In short, this has been the
most effective administration since FDR’s first term. And it’s being
accomplished in the teeth of the so-called “resistance,” which includes the
overt hostility of nearly all the mainstream media, the embedded civil service,
the Democrats, the never-Trump Republicans, rogue elements of the intelligence
and investigative agencies and Robert Mueller’s investigation into charges of
“collusion” with the Russians.
Some “chaos.”
The truth is, as much as they
hate Trump’s policies, the president’s enemies hate the man even more. Donald
Trump offends the establishment on a personal, visceral level. His opponents
are the same folks who idolized Adlai Stevenson and thought Ike was just a dolt
who somehow won World War II. Who worshipped John F. Kennedy (but were repelled
by LBJ), hated Nixon, thought Reagan was an amiable dunce and erected shrines
to Obama. They are the Ivy Leaguers, the credentialists, the Georgetown
establishment for whom there is only one right way to conduct a presidency, and
that is the Harvard-Democratic-groupthink way.
What Trump understands,
however, is what many great leaders have understood: that “chaos,” not
consensus, is the way ideas are tried and tested. That if someone or something
isn’t working, scrap it and try something else. Results are what count, not
consistency: Trump’s ability to morph from saber-rattling lunatic to charming
glad-hander infuriates them because they see it as phony.
Trump’s
very
unpredictability
doesn’t
just frighten
the
Beltway bonzes
and
chin-pullers,
it
also terrifies his
opponents
So what? That doesn’t mean it
isn’t also effective. Just ask Emmanuel Macron of France, who couldn’t be less
like Trump and yet has developed a curious personal rapport with the brash
American boss, akin to that of a puppy around its master. Watch for France to
start edging away from the Iran deal as well.
Further, a fleet of yes-men
and sycophants isolates and insulates a chief executive from unforeseen
consequences. JFK’s best and brightest drove the nation into the sloughs of
Vietnam. Nixon’s henchmen concealed from him the political gravity of Watergate
until it was too late. Obama was so cocksure of his own moral rectitude, he
hardly bothered with constitutional niceties.
Finally, Trump’s very
unpredictability doesn’t just frighten the Beltway bonzes and chin-pullers, it
also terrifies his opponents. While North Korea’s Kim remains hard to read,
he’s also no longer firing missiles over Japan. The Saudis, following the
strong American horse, have made their antipathy for the Iranian regime clear
and are threatening to acquire their own nukes should Tehran overtly resume its
nuke development. Having survived domestic uprisings in 2009 and 2017 by the
restive Iranian young people, the graybeard mullahs won’t be so lucky a third
time.
True, the fall elections are
shaping up as a big test, but Trump has already eliminated some of the thorns
in his side, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate gadflies Bob Corker
and Jeff Flake, who have announced their retirements. Should the GOP hang on to
the House, a Trump-friendly speaker will move the legislative agenda forward.
The big geopolitical test will
be a resurgent China, whose new strongman-for-life Xi Jinping will prove a far
more formidable adversary than a fading Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Look for Trump
to resume his carrot-and-stick handling of Xi: flowers and chocolates one
minute, gunboats in the South China Sea the next. The trick is to keep the
Chinese guessing and thus proceeding with caution in order to keep the peace.
If that’s chaos, then let us
have more if it.
Michael Walsh is
an author and contributor to PJ Media and American Greatness. His latest book,“The Fiery Angel,” will be published on May 29. New York Post, May 12, 2018
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