Trump is no good at that “hard at work” thing

With the House Intelligence committee releasing a 300-page indictment of Donald Trump for various high crimes and misdemeanors, what is a president to do? Why, take the advice of another president who was impeached, Bill Clinton, and look “busy.” So what does Trump do? Engage in one of his “surprise” publicity stunts, like when he took a baby step over the Korean border, and make an unannounced visit to soldiers in Afghanistan over the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m sure the troops appreciated his “concern” for their well-being after he pulled out of talks with the Taliban. 

What else? Remember that “phase one” trade deal with China? What happened to that? No hurries; Trump is now telling us that it can wait until after the 2020 election. North Korea’s “rocket man” dictator meanwhile is threatening Trump with a not-so-nice “Christmas present,” probably more rocket launching, since Kim Jong-un doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry in reducing his nuclear weapons stockpiling. So Trump is headed to Europe for NATO meetings, where he has had tea with the queen of England and Prince Charles (why they would says more about them that it does Trump), and then right away gets off on the wrong foot with his “America First” bullshit by alienating his “friend,” French president Emmanuel Macron and threatening to slap 100 percent tariffs on French cheese, a more symbolic than real gesture which is a diplomatic mistake only a president as dumb as Trump would do.

For once, in a joint press get-together, a world leader did not play nice with Trump by playing down to his illiterate level. Macron had earlier accused NATO leadership of “brain drain,” and it is apparent Trump took that personally given that the U.S. is technically the “head” of the alliance. After whining again about NATO countries not paying their “fair share”—which has nothing to do with the U.S.’ own presence in Europe, which has been dwindling for the past 30 years—Trump accused Macron of being “insulting,” as if Trump doesn’t know anything about that. So when they made their joint appearance, Trump—as usual when faced with a more intelligent challenger—at first balked when prodded to explain himself, obviously in the expectation that Macron wouldn’t try to show him up. 

That didn’t happen. Whenever Macron made a cogent point that Trump was incapable of intelligently responding to, he did what he usually does and made demeaning, juvenile attacks. Macron highlighted Trump’s friendship with dictators like Turkey’s Erdogan, with whom after a “friendly” phone call, Trump decided to abandon the Kurdish fighters allied with the U.S. in fighting ISIS, taking at face value Erdogan’s claim that they were “terrorists.” Macron pointedly denounced the threat of Turkey to veto upgrading the defense posture for NATO members Poland and the Baltic States unless NATO agreed to label Kurds who were fighting for the NATO cause as terrorists. “When I look at Turkey, they are fighting against those who fight with us.” Turkey has already angered NATO members by purchasing Russian-made weapons, and their incursion into Syria—combined the U.S. initial withdrawal—allowed Russian forces to have a greater foothold in the country while effecting the escape of some ISIS prisoners. Trump, of course, could only fall back on his “friendship” with Erdogan, which of course is part of the problem.

Trump rather hypocritically accused France of trying to belittle NATO, but Trump has been doing a fairly good job of that all by himself. From the beginning of his presidency he has suggested that the U.S. doesn’t really need to be involved in NATO, and his demands that other NATO members pitch-in more money on defense, while probably a “fair” thing to demand, was essentially an effort to remove responsibility for providing personal leadership by Trump, which has at least been part of the “rationalization” behind his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, and more stupidly, the Pacific trade agreement which would have given the U.S. more leverage in dealing with China without imposing tariffs that have only hurt U.S. businesses and consumers; all of these agreements, unfortunately, would have forced Trump to use his brain—a not particularly effective instrument at doing things like reasoning. 

World leaders know who Trump is, besides being unstable. He is like the novice chess player who the opponent is under the mistaken notion that he actually knows how to play the game, but in fact has no clue about what he is doing. He makes random moves as the opponent attempts to divine what his tactics and strategy are, before finally coming to the realization that he doesn’t have a clue about what he is doing, and can be easily had. Vladimir Putin figured this out long ago, which is why he can keep lying about Russia’s interference in the U.S. electoral process, and keep a straight face doing it because he knows Trump is going to buy it hook, line and sinker.

Trump, of course, has brought all of his problems upon himself. He clearly has issues with reading comprehension, which explains why he is said never to read intelligence reports drawn-up for his edification. His foreign policy decisions—or for that matter, any policy decision—are almost wholly the product of what he personally likes and dislikes, not by reasoned examination of cause and effect,  action and reaction, or for that matter, factual information. Trump has had three years to figure out how to be a “hardworking” president and he has failed miserably. He is only “hardworking” at watching Fox News, tweeting and trying to sell to the press his alternate fact world. It is too late for him to pretend he is doing anything else.