President Trump must like banging his head against a wall because he does it so often. He does, says, or tweets things that involve him in matters that are a waste of his presidential time or counterproductive to him, his agenda, his party, and the country.
We saw this phenomenon at Trump’s press conference last week that was scheduled to concentrate on infrastructure. But Trump dwelt mostly on the role of violent left-wingers in the mayhem in Charlottesville and complained the media had largely ignored them. Indeed, it had.
So his point was fair enough. But he had no chance of persuading the press. And by emphasizing his point, he made it easier for the elite press, strongly anti-Trump as usual, to accuse him of siding with the white nationalists—which included, he said, “some very fine people”—and the Klan and neo-Nazis who joined them in Charlottesville.
There was no need for Trump to intervene. He was bound to create trouble for himself. And did with comments that sounded like he was defending white racists. It cost him politically.
When Trump indulges in such head-banging, it prompts this question: “What was he thinking?” Did he believe the press would respond as if they’d gotten a helpful news tip from him about the alt-left. Surely he knew better. Yet he forged ahead. The episode was counter-productive.
This was also true of Trump’s tart response to the comment by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the president’s “excessive expectations” had caused him to think the Republican health care bill should have passed the Senate. Trump was miffed. He chastised McConnell in tweets and remarks and said Republicans should immediately resume the effort to pass the bill.
If McConnell’s tweak had been gratuitous, Trump’s was serious. Could he have assumed McConnell would follow his orders? No way. More likely, Trump was just voicing frustration. He was head-banging again.
Trump, by the way, hasn’t been a major factor in the struggle to repeal and replace Obamacare. He’s spoken in bold terms. But the lunch at the White House for 49 GOP senators delivered no new votes. If he’d lobbied senators one-on-one in person—as President Reagan occasionally did—and told them what he’d do for them should they flip and back the bill, that might have worked. As far as I know, he didn’t do that.
Head-banging comments aimed at little people—those far below presidential rank—serve no useful purpose. Those zinging Sadiq Kahn and Mika Brzezinski come to mind. His tweet praising Kelli Ward, who’s challenging incumbent Senator Jeff Flake in Arizona, looked vindictive. Flake has criticized Trump, but he voted for the health care bill. This tweet? Just weird.
Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
If chief of staff John Kelly could get Trump to ask himself three questions before tweeting, Republicans would benefit. The questions are: Would the tweet strengthen his presidency? Boost his agenda? Or aid the election of Republicans? With positive answers, Trump could become a hero of Republicans, his head-banging forgotten.
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The press is having a hard time adjusting to the departure of Steve Bannon from the White House. Not that his firing was a surprise. It’s the absence of his influence that the media can’t digest. The New York Times’s lead story was headlined, “Bannon Out, But His Ideas Might Not Be.” The first sentence in the Washington Post’s front page story in the upper right corner said “Bannon may have left but the political turbulence …” It’s as if he left but really hasn’t.
This shows how dependent the media has been for juicy stories about him or from his wing of the Trump presidency. And they won’t get as much that’s newsworthy from the beneficiaries of Bannon’s leaving. I’m referring to Gary Cohn, the chief economic adviser at the White House, and the generals who run foreign and defense policy.
They won, Bannon lost. Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are in charge of getting tax reform passed. They won’t have to deal with Bannon’s ideas, such as raising taxes on the rich. And the generals—Kelly, McMaster, and Mattis—will have President Trump’s ear as they promote a more interventionist policy than Bannon urged.
True, Trump keeps an outer orbit of advisers no longer on his staff. He is said to call them late at night. No doubt Bannon will get calls. But exert pressure on the president? Not so much, if at all. Besides, Trump doesn’t need Bannon’s advice on trade, immigration, or China. Trump’s views on those issues were set well before Bannon joined his campaign.
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“Words have consequences,” David Smick, the economic consultant says. He was recalling Trump’s words in 2015 at a Republican presidential forum in Ames, Iowa. Trump said Senator John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years in a North Vietnamese prison, “is not a war hero. He’s not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Two years later, McCain was the deciding vote on the Republican bill to rid the nation of Obamacare. McCain didn’t like the bill, but his “no” vote was still a surprise. Did Trump’s words come back to haunt him? McCain didn’t mention it. But if it did play a part, consciously or unconsciously, no one could blame him.
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David Herbert Donald, the great Lincoln scholar and historian of the Civil War era, wrote in an essay that Radical Republicans “were only one of the many factions that pulled for control of the Lincoln administrations. Because they were noisy and conspicuous, their historical importance has been overrated.”
Noisy and conspicuous—who does that make you think of? It reminded me of the grass roots “resistance” to Trump and Republicans. The media loves the resisters and is reporting their every twitch and holler.
It used to take thousands or at least hundreds of protesters to get coverage. Now dozens will do. When several dozen of them protested something Maryland’s Republican governor Larry Hogan had or hadn’t done, the Washington Post was there. When two Marylanders you never heard of crossed the Potomac River to Virginia to campaign against Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, the Post covered it. When a Washington area woman moved to Texas to run for Congress, the Post ran a full-blown story with byline. And on and on.
Politico was not to be outdone. “Trump’s Trip to Bedminster Prompts Protesters to Get Creative”—that was the headline. The subhead said: “With sign-bearers relegated to designated ‘free speech zones,’ groups like Indivisible and We the People are considering tactics like balloon releases and bicycle swarms to register their opposition.”
Stories like these may keep the “resistance” noisy and conspicuous. But not from being overrated.
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I live in a city—Alexandria, Virginia—engulfed by a wave of virtue-signaling. That’s when you put a sign on your front lawn or store window that lets everyone know you’re personally virtuous.
“Repeal hate” and “End hate” signs are all over. And I came upon a store the other day with a “Hate Not Welcome Here” on the front door. I went in anyway. A couple blocks from my house there’s a sign that says in three languages, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you are in our neighborhood.” But for months now, the most popular sign is “Kindness.”
I’m not sure what to make of all this. But it’s an awfully easy way to tell everyone about your virtuous self. You don’t have to do anything else. I’ve considered putting a “Let’s Be Fair to Donald Trump” sign in my front yard just to see what would happen. The reaction would be interesting, don’t you think?
