Trump’s behaviour invites the question of whether he sees himself as a king who seeks an eternal dynasty, or even an irascible god-king who will not countenance opposition.
Trump gave this thought some substance, and showed his conceit and contempt for the rest of the world immediately after his impeachment acquittal by tweeting a video of himself behind a lectern that says: “TRUMP 4EVA”. You might regard it as a joke, but Trump generally does not do humour, not against himself.
Never mind that the US constitution rules out the election of any person as president more than twice, or that Trump is already 73. In case Trump fails to sweep the constitution aside or gain the secret of eternal life, his son Donald Jnr and daughter
Ivanka are reportedly vying to succeed him in 2024.
At the Davos meeting of the world’s self-styled elite, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg thundered against politicians’ inaction, yelling again that the global house is on fire from
climate change.
Trump, the first plenary speaker, pointedly ignored climate change and the world to deliver a chest-thumping election rally, claiming to have single-handedly saved the American economy from disaster.
Without uttering the words “climate change” or “global warming”, he damned the “
perennial prophets of doom”, and urged other countries to deregulate energy to provide cheaper fuel and electricity for consumers.
Trump’s
state-of-the-union address was another campaign rally claiming to have made the US economy the greatest in the history of the country and the world. His chokehold over the Republican Party was revealed by legislators baying for “four more years” like yobs at a football match.
Trump shows that he understands the power of power. He has reduced the once-proud Republican Party into a personal army, threatening dissidents in Congress with losing their seats in a primary challenge from a Trumper.
Abroad, Trump has cowed other leaders. His purported peace plan for the Middle East
excluded the Palestinians from the discussions and was Benjamin Netanyahu’s dream. Yet among European leaders only Germany has stood up for the importance of a
two-state solution while Britain cravenly called the plan “a serious proposal”.
Britain’s support for the Middle East peace plan only encouraged Trump to lambast Prime Minister Boris Johnson for allowing
Huawei a supporting role in developing Britain’s
5G phone networks.
Trump’s brute disruptive force is threatening America and the world. Domestically, record highs for the stock market and lows for unemployment mask the growing gulf between the ultra rich and the middle and lower classes. Growth is
perilously built on debt: consumer debt and government deficits are growing alarmingly in spite of Trump’s promises to balance the books.
Alarmingly, there is no rhyme or reason behind most of his actions, other than to vent iconoclastically or boast of his deal-making skills. His low attention span exacerbates the damage, as witnessed in his ‘
love fest’ with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
Most damagingly, the world requires global solutions to pressing problems such as
climate change, outbreaks of diseases such as the
novel coronavirus, war and famine, poverty, income inequality, and migration and refugees. Yet Trump thumps a triumphantly nationalist drum, emboldening other nationalist leaders with dictatorial tendencies.
Globalisation has lifted billions out of extreme poverty, but it has also created a minority of powerful mega-rich individuals and predator transglobal supercompanies with no allegiance except to their own laws.
It has squeezed billions of other people into the gig economy and
zero-hours contracts, and forced millions more in so-called advanced countries into juggling two and three jobs just to survive, while hundreds of millions in still-poor countries cannot get a toehold on the globalisation bus.
It has created what Pope Francis called “the globalisation of indifference”, with hundreds of millions left in extreme poverty, without food, housing, health care, schooling, drinkable water or electricity, where five million children will die this year because of poverty.
The Pope noted that the 50 richest people on the planet could pay for medical care and education for every poor child in the world: “Those fifty people could save millions of lives every year.”
But who is listening? Some eminent commentators claim Trump’s isolationism offers opportunities for other leaders in
China and the EU to get together to save the world. But this is a pipe dream: there are no leaders with the guts to stand up to Trump or the imagination and skills to stitch together a global coalition.
Kevin Rafferty has reported on the US and the world under eight American presidents
