Kum Ba Yah? I Think Not

Via social media I was directed to an uncharacteristically serious soliloquy by Stephen Colbert given the evening of (what will forever be known as) The Election. He, of course, was trying to publicly react to this event for which humor had no place.  For him, like many, many people, the election of Donald Trump had been elevated to the level of tragedy.

His presentation was similar to other statements by well know people, including Obama and Hillary herself, but with equal or better eloquence and some attempts at distraction. He chose to accept and look beyond The Election, reflecting with remorse on a divided America and encouraging hugs for your politically erstwhile neighbors. 

They all sounded to me like kum ba yah moments, directed at those who are limping through the various stages of mourning.

These comments are not much different than claims consistently made by politicians through election cycles, albeit with less gut retching incredulity. Even Donald Trump has claimed to be the one guy to pull everyone together. Fortunately for Trump, according to him, he’s loved by everyone, so perhaps his task is less challenging.

I felt the same when John Kerry lost his bid for the Presidency.  With a son in Iraq I was truly devastated when the Nation decided not to change course. Yet I still felt that we could move on without fear to change the future even if it wasn’t going to happen in the following year.

I’m sorry, but this time it’s different.  Kum ba yah won’t cut it.  Buckle your seatbelts for we are in for a rough ride.  We’ve just forced the pilot to parachute out and turned over controls of the plane to the loud mouth guy sitting up in first class, whose most accomplished skill is hitting a flight attendant’s butt with smoked almonds.

Still, it is entirely possible that The Donald may, in fact, bring everyone together for we all sit in the same plane, Conservatives, Liberals and Independents alike.  We may all learn that there is nothing that brings people together like the communal fouling of breeches.

There are two aspects to Donald Trump and, therefore, his Presidency to look for, both of which I have repeatedly brought up in this blog. Each is a dominant characteristic, likely uncorrectable, and capable of profound National disturbances.  Other than duck and cover I don’t know how Americans are to prepare.

One of the few honest and accurate claims Trump has made about himself, maybe the only one, is that he is unpredictable.  He views that as a virtue, and in certain circumstances he has probably used that characteristic to his advantage. However, for the new job he assumes next year that lack of predictability will have far reaching negativity.

If Conservatives think they can predict that he will respond to their issues with vigor I believe they will be more than mildly surprised.  Trump was never a Conservative ideologue.  He is a free floating pragmatist.  The press and the pundits will be spending their time trying to apply meaning to his last action or statement.  He might support the fight against climate change one day and the next advocate a return to coal fired electrical plants. There will be no wall, but immigration…who knows? I wouldn't be the least surprised if his nomination for the Supreme Court was Merrick Garland.

The problem, of course, is that the world, especially finance and business, runs on some semblance of predictability. As time goes by markets will suffer badly and the economy will face puzzling challenges, inflation for one as currency markets are destabilized.

It will be much like a busy intersection where the red, green, and yellow lights change at random times and in random order. There will be accidents.

Internationally that kind of uncertainty creates its own set of problems, even dangers. There will be insurgent aggressiveness on the part of immerging powers such as Russia and China.  Without the stabilizing effect of the US, the European Union could slide back further (post Brexit) into its own nationalistic isolationism causing its dissolution.  NATO and the United Nations will both be made less relevant if not actually neutered.   

There is no way to underemphasize the importance of reasonable predictability in a world of uncertainty. Without it the result is chaos. If Trump actually performs as promised, he will lower the flaps and our plane will take a 45 degree nose dive toward Mother Earth.

The second, equally scary, aspect of President-elect Trump is that he has a clinical narcissistic personality disorder.  I mean that.  He is not like someone with that problem, he has the condition.  That means, among other things, he cannot accept responsibility for his actions which result in something other than (his concept of) personal success, and he must overtly find someone or something else as the cause.

There are numerous characteristics to this disorder, but for a President there is one (not to be puny) that trumps them all: paranoia…spiked with delusion. 

The American Presidency is like a line that connects a bunch of dots, each dot being a crisis. Given that Trump, through no fault of his own, has virtually no experience running a small bureaucracy let alone one as massive as the most powerful nation and biggest economy on the planet. Remember, all his experience was within his own little fiefdoms.  To use a metaphor; he hired and fired at will and whim. Bottom line is he is going to screw up either by his own choice or by choosing the poor advice of the incompetents he may surround himself with.

The buck will not stop with him.

He will begin to blame anyone and everyone around him or take unprecedented actions against institutions like the Press. That will distance him from members of his Administration which will intensify his irrational fears of, for example, conspiracies against him. The only exceptions will probably be his children. It is no accident that this man who claims that everyone loves him has no real friends, as has been published. The dangers of this condition in a President with extraordinary powers are frightening, much of which we may not know until it’s too late.

The opaque nature of his Presidency will make the Nixon Administration look like Saran Wrap.    

I for one am quite glad that he has already announced that his three older children and son-in-law are to join him in managing his Administration. They may be the only bulwark that keeps him from running amuck or doing something cataclysmic due to his own isolation.

Both these interpretations of a Trump Presidency sound horrific…because they are.  The end results could vary widely.  If we’re lucky he’ll decide to be a one term President, which would be consistent with his personality. We would not have to face his being President and running for office simultaneously…just think about that in the context of what we just experienced. Hopefully we can get out of this tunnel without avalanches at either end.

For Stephen Colbert: well with Trump and notables such as Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christy, and Sara Palin as the flight crew, we should have a few chuckles even if the plane never reaches the tarmac. Just don’t let Trump see you laughing.