I would like to take Donald Trump to task for every misstep, every lie, every empty boast, every fault of direction, vision, leadership, acumen, or strategy. I just don't have the time or patience. So I will just address the three big ones I mentioned--in personnel management, foreign affairs, and use of the "bully pulpit"--all things that a President can actually control. Then I will mention briefly my assessment of his handling of a couple of those that are less within a President's span of control, but which, too often, are used by the public to measure a President's success: the economy and legislation.
When You Do the Fandango
I don't claim to be an expert on the commedia dell'arte, but I am enough of a fan to appreciate the "Scramouche" story from that centuries-old form of entertainment as it played out recently in real life. Scaramouche (see above for a 200-year old image of the character, and the note below)* is, literally, a clown--the perfect caricature of the caricature which was Anthony Scaramucci's performance as "Communications Director" for the Donald in a mercifully-brief role. I don't want to judge people on their name alone, but somewhere up the line Scaramucci's ancestors must either have been playing or being that guy--it's been named for centuries. Scaramucci played the brash bucko but fell victim to pure bravado, calling Reince "Rancid Priapus" Priebus a paranoid schizophrenic and describing top adviser Steve Bannon as "trying to suck his own cock" in an on-the-record interview. A bit too much communication, maybe; he was sacked by Priebus' successor, John Kelly, who's trying unsuccessfully to bring some decorum to the full-scale ugliness and infighting rampant in Trump's White House.
Another stock character sent packing recently was the personification of evil, Steve Bannon. Bannon was an ideologue insistent on his extreme nationalist agenda. Trump paid his advice plenty of attention during the campaign, but when it came to governing, his lose-lose strategies to isolate the US and suppress trade fell victim to pragmatism and to reality--so he was out. Priebus and Bannon had traded hostility and throwing-under-bus behavior toward each other, as well as most everyone else around; new Chief of Staff John Kelly made sure both were shown the door in the interest of reducing chaos. Compared to those public bloodlettings, the departure of much-ridiculed press secretary Sean Spicer was relatively tame news.
The main source of the White House chaos remains, though, empowered to oust almost anyone in his government but, so far, loth to apply any standard of behavior to himself.
As for "fandango", the other referent from Freddie Mercury's famed, unmistakable line in the classic rock song "Bohemian Rhapsody", a word also featured in the first line of the lyrics from the classic Procol Harum song "Whiter Shade of Pale", as well as a popular website to buy advance movie tickets, it is a word that is bandied about frequently without much knowledge. It is a Spanish foot-stomping dance, performed at triple time, typically with accompaniment from casatanets, the frenzy of which somehow transformed the word's meaning toward clownish behavior. Which brings us back to Scaramucci., and to Trump.
For a person with a long history as head of a major commercial operation, the man has no idea how to be the head of a major operation. He routinely makes public criticism of his subordinates and key allies--people like his Attorney General, chief economic adviser, the majority leader of the Senate--and further reinforces the idea that loyalty to him is a one-way street, one that is unrewarding personally and to one's professional reputation. If he cannot change his ways, even the corrupt power-seekers he has so far been able to attract will realize there is nothing to be gained (if not part of the immediate family) by tying one's name to this sinking ship of state.
*Scaramouche was the name of a 1921 historical novel by Rafael Sabatini set in the run-up to the French Revolution; the character was adopted by the novel's hero, who joined a dramatic troupe while seeking his moment of revenge. Inspired by Hamlet, no doubt, but more an adventure story than a tragedy. The 1953 movie made from it featured Stewart Granger, Mel Ferrer, (pre-shower) Janet Leigh, and the lovely Eleanor Parker. "The Loves and Times of Scaramouche" was a second-rate Italian movie featuring Michael Sarrazin and (see second picture--a Spanish-language poster for it) Ursula Andress.
Empty Bluster
Can heads of state of nations armed with nuclear weapons and threatening to use them be totally ridiculous? We saw in recent days, if those leaders are Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the answer is yes. Kim threatened to nuke Guam, which may have alarmed Guamanians but made him the butt of jokes for mainlanders; Trump then ripostes with vapid promise of "fire and fury, like the world has never seen" if Kim continues to threaten. It's all nonsense: while these turkeys may have the theoretical power to order such a fandango, those who actually have to make such monstrosities happen would not condone or execute it without more justification.
As always with North Korea, the most interesting aspect is neither the North Koreans' lies or empty promises, nor America's impotent militaristic response, but the response of China to these vexatious complications from their neighbor. This time, China advised North Korea they were on their own if it attacked the US (which put an end to that notion), supported UN sanctions against North Koreans for their unlawful missile tests, but drew the line when the Trumpsters added to the dogpile with unilateral sanctions against some favored Chinese entities for their alleged complicity in North Korean weapons development.
Then there was the Trump-eted big announcement with regard to the US' involvement in Afghanistan, basically a big nothingburger. It boils down to continuing the effort to suppress a potential Taliban takeover, trying to eliminate ISIS there, and promising nothing specific. A continuation of the policy he inherited from Obama's administration, but of course it could have been worse. At least his military advisers are consistent and predictable in their behavior.
The Battle of Charlottesville
The subtitle is a bit ironic; the C'ville area was one of the few parts of Virginia that doesn't have a Civil War battlefield. Grant and Lee's armies were headed in that general direction but ended their conflict at Appomattox Courthouse, 60 miles or so to the south, and the running cavalry war in the Shenandoah Valley ended about 30 miles to the west in the Battle of Waynesboro a month before then, when Union General George Custer finally defeated the Confederate forces which had been rampaging up and down the Valley for years. In that way the area was spared the devastation of war, and antebellum mansions like Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and James Monroe's Highland survived unscathed.
I know Charlottesville pretty well; rather, I should say I knew it. That same Waynesboro was my home in the '70's. Coincidentally, I visited Waynesboro, for the first time in decades, the same day as the white supremacist rally. I was at a peaceful gathering, a reunion of '70s era rock bands with a friendly crowd of oldies and families, and we had no notice of the violence occurring a half-hour away.
One thing I want to do is provide some defense for the reputation of Charlottesville, a big college town/small city with an uneven past. The University of Virginia, which Jefferson helped found and architect, has a well-deserved historical reputation for well-heeled and ill-behaved, entitled white boys, one it has not completely shed, and the city and its housing were segregated, formally and then informally, until very late, but now the city tends very strongly in a progressive direction. I won't say it was the big city for us, but it was the place we could go for a bit of culture, either highbrow or popular entertainment. Although one of the top organizers of the white supremacist gathering was from Charlottesville, for the most part it was just the unlucky locale which could not legally keep away those coming for a "peaceful" assembly for vitriolic hate speech.
Of course, it did not turn out that way. The counter-protesters no doubt had mixed motivations: to confront the assembled neo-Nazis, KKK, and fellow travelers, even to try to prevent their marching; also to defend the plan to tear down the Confederate "hero" statues. There had been scattered violence prior to the fatal vehicular assault by some lunatic rightist, and it seems as though the police were not active in keeping the opposing sides apart. They did step in more once the worst had happened.
With regard to statues of historical figures, I refer to Nietzsche's "Use and Abuse of History" which identifies three valid (but not mutually exclusive) uses of history: for purposes monumental, antiquarian, and critical. I'm certainly not opposed to statues being made, even of people who were monstrous, but there should not be monuments to traitors. (That was the problem of the giant statues of Lee and Beauregard in New Orleans which were previous sources of antagonism before being removed: they were so central and monumental, their symbolic purpose was unmistakable.) There may be an antiquarian purpose to memorializing some parts of the past; Europe is full of statues in out-of-the-way locations to people who are no longer widely remembered; most of them provide some information about who and what , and thus are educational. I haven't yet seen a statue erected for the purpose of criticism--Jefferson watching as his slave is lashed, Patton slapping the soldier's face as he accuses him of cowardice--but some historical "National Monuments" like Mt. Vernon and Monticello have started to learn the lesson and present their homage to their national heroes a little less uncritically these days. One thing I was appalled to see recently, when driving to Washington's National Airport ("Reagan" is not part of its name, as far as I'm concerned), is that the Pentagon and some other venues of national military or patriotic significance in Arlington are on Jefferson Davis Highway. I find nothing redeeming in the treason of the Confederacy's President. I would welcome the banishment of his name, by law, from the vicinity of any Federal venue of any kind.
So. Trump's equivocation about the Charlottesville violence is readily understandable to me, as is his recent pardon of the convicted Hispanic profiler, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona. He is always ready to send a signal to his most loyal supporters--the deplorables of the extreme right, yes, including the nativists, bigots and racists--that they will not be abandoned by him to their deserved fate in the dustbin of history. His advisers pleaded with him to do the right thing, to unequivocally denounce them for their militant, anti-American extremism, but he just couldn't leave it at that. You can't blame Trump for being Trump, just as you can't blame a viper for being a cold-blooded, venomous reptile.
I do want to mention the extraordinary coverage of the Charlottesville incident provided by HBO's Vice News. Vice implanted a young, patient reporter (Elle Reeve) among the beasts behind the right-wing rally, where she had some amazing admissions of their malevolent hate-mongering. They even had video of the moments when the car and driver attacked the counter-protesters, then backed away at high speed. Prize-winning stuff.
When Incompetence is the Best Strategy
From the point of view of national popularity, Trumps's moral obtuseness with regard to Charlottesville has been a negative. The widespread condemnation it has taken, especially among some stalwart Republican politicians and his panels of corporate executives, has cost him some support, which shows that there is some growing discernment of the gross error made last November, even among some Trump voters.
I feel that his popularity would have suffered even more in these months had Trump not been totally incompetent in the promotion of his domestic agenda. Nothing that he or the Republican Congressional leaders have promoted--the misbegotten Obamacare replacement efforts, the budget designed to starve innovation and productivity, the stillborn invitation to corruption that was their infrastructure investment program, the repeal of trade agreements, the tax reform giveaways to the wealthy and corporations--would have redounded to the benefit, in the short, middle, or long term, of those beloved "poorly educated", or the disenchanted blue-collar workers who helped Trump achieve his fluke victory last fall. Those people may ignore the chit-chat without result coming from Washington. There may still be a domestic disaster this fall, though, if Trump makes good on his threat to shut down the government if Congress does not authorize funding for his stupid (and unpopular) border wall.
Though I wish earnestly for Trump to fail in every way, I cannot bring myself to support the perverse argument my comments above suggest: I don't want him to fail by succeeding in achieving his policy aims. Instead, I want him to continue to achieve nothing until such time as his reign of terrible ends through his death, resignation, incarceration, or (least favorable, but still acceptable) massive electoral defeat.
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