King Trump: Unravelled.

 If Donald Trump had to choose a character from history he would probably love to be King Henry VIII, a demagogue with absolute power who expected nothing less that totally fealty from his advisors and subordinates. His demand for total submission extended to his personal life and was not averse to executing those of his wives he felt had been disloyal to him. While Trump has not gone that far he does have an uncanny similarity to the way King Henry banished his closest advisors when they disagreed with him.

Trumps transition from business life, where he was, by and large, the sole decision maker, to public office, where consensus and cooperation are essential, was never really complete. For those who wished him to succeed in the role of the President of the United States and had secretly hoped that he would internally acknowledge his lack of experience in public office and embrace counsel and advice there has been nothing but disappointment. His first assertion that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s inauguration crowd, while a total fabrication, was seen as Trump being Trump. Few could imagine that this compulsive propensity to lie would become a hallmark of his presidency. 

Unlike King Henry VIII, President Trump had to contend with a free press and media which would, like it has done with all in office, question his decisions and actions. While the route to execute those in the press who he saw as critics was not available to Trump, (which King Henry would have done), the best course for Trump was to continually label the press as fake media. The more he called the main steam media as fake the less was the possibility that his base would believe the media even when the media was right. Rather than send the likes of CNN to the gallows, which King Henry would have ordered, Trump executed their credibility, at least within his own base. 

This relentless assault on the media was never aimed to win them over but to discredit them in the eyes of his base of largely non college educated White people to the point that he and his core supporters could then plant any conspiracy in their minds and it would be believed even when facts indicated otherwise. Today after an election loss Trump can claim the election is rigged even though his own government’s various offices have confirmed it was the most secure election in US history. In classical terms this is brainwashing the audience to the point of blindness and has been the signature of autocratic regimes. In the wash of this brainwashing, whether coincidental or not, quite a few well placed Republicans have taken the mantle of the Trump dogma with a fervour of being more loyal than the King. 

Character always shows it complete spectrum when we are faced with the adversity of a loss. Today, after a loss in the election, President Trump is less presidential and more of King Trump battling to not surrender the throne he sees as only his and only to be passed to his kith and kin, (his reference to his daughter or son being deserving to contest the election one day). King Trump feels besieged within the White House as he broods his last gasp moves to survive, much like King Henry was beleaguered after being excommunicated by Pope Clement VII. King Henry broke with the papal church and declared himself the head of the Church of England and converting the money paid to Rome into Royal Revenue for his personal gain. Gratefully for the United States there is a Constitution, Congress and a Supreme Court alongside the media and close to 80 million people who voted against him.

Trump still has 73 million Americans who voted for him and about 15 million of them are his die hard MAGA supporters. King Trump knows that losing the throne in the Oval Office may be a disaster in many respects yet he does leave with some leverage over the Republican Party. Secretly he must also wish that should he be prosecuted for illegalities the radical white supremacists could well come out to defend his name and honour. While within the core of the Republican Party there will be an effort to rid their ranks of Trumpism it is more likely that this election defeat will effect Trump in a way that he will shun ever contesting public office. In the end he never likes losing and the label of a loser is something he threw on many who got his disfavour.

As the days of the Trump presidency draw to a close one must be sure that Trump will follow a scorched earth policy. He aim will be to leave the  Biden administration with as many bushfires as possible, both domestic and foreign. The lack of cooperation on a transition effects policy, the pandemic, the economy and national security.  In foreign relations one would not be surprised some military action is ordered by Trump leaving Biden with war flames to extinguish. This is how King Trump thinks; if  I cannot live in the house I will burn it down. 

There is a less painful way out of this and that would be to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump on the basis he is incapacitated. It has been almost twelve days since he has done any presidential work, instead brooding, watching TV, playing golf or tweeting. Those who saw through the facade know that Trump started his tenure with a lie about the crowd at his inauguration and ends it with a lie that he won the election. This, sadly, may well be the only thing we eventually remember about King Trump, while to his MAGA crowd he will remain a cult hero who gave a voice to the Proud Boys and the white suprematists.

A distant view: Trump Impeachment.

Being outside the fray of the daily US political scene has its advantages, the main one being having a distant view without the emotional drama that dictates whether you are pro or anti Trump. It allows one to see the issues without the political parties bias that has become the hallmark of a divided US political diaspora. The Trump impeachment issue is headline news, and the obvious question is whether he will be impeached and removed from office.

There is no denying that the process of impeachment itself has totally unhinged a President who was not entirely stable to begin with. It is often touted that it is his style and straight forwardness that in the hallmark of his behavior. His supporters often say 'he says it like it is', a trait they say that is removed from the political figures in Washington and it endears him to his political base. being straight forward and being vindictive are not the same, being politically savvy and telling lies are the not the same, expecting loyalty and dumping the people who went on a limb for him are opposites. But in the Trump world it does not matter. Its the world according to Trump and no one else.

However, the impeachment process makes it all different because it more than just washing the dirty laundry in public and on television. It could have the consequences of being removed from office. Herein lies the problem as given the US system his impeachment by the House of Representatives will mean then the Senate, which is controlled by the Republicans, will then hold a trial to determine if indeed he should be removed from office. Currently there is a slim chance of that even though it would mean seven Republicans in the Senate voting for impeachment.

There is a possibility that Trump quite relishes the idea of the impeachment as he knows he can hold the Republicans in the Senate to use their majority to not remove him from office, while the impeachment battle allows him to rally his base and remain the focus as the only national issue in the 2020 elections. However, a great deal of the impeachment process and its success will depend upon the validity of the arguments. Some Republican Senators are also mindful of the changing mood within their constituencies where in recent elections the Democrats have made inroads. Also the Democratic voters who were swayed to the Trump camp in 2016 are the ones suffering most from Trumps trade wars and GOP Senators are going to need something persuasive enough to voter against Trump in the Senate.

There is ample evidence emerging through the impeachment process that President Trump did indeed commit impeachable offenses. It must be remembered that since President Reagan almost every US President has had some impeachment resolution table against him in the House of Representatives, and most of them have faltered or fallen by the wayside. This impeachment resolution certainly has the legs to make it to the Senate. While one may argue that the Democrats may be rushing things, which is a cause for concern, eventually it is in the Senate that the trial will reveal the depth of the allegations.

It is unlikely that once the impeachment trial is in the Senate that the GOP will be able to pressure Trump into either stepping down or at least stepping down from a re-election bid in 2020. The outcome in the Senate will mostly likely be a win for Trump, given the slim majority the GOP has, but the extent of the damage it will do to him in the 2020 election will depend on the weight of the evidence that will come out at the trial stage. One can argue that there were other more stronger arguments for impeachment, but this one has the more credible witnesses and based on the testimony thus far on judicial principles Trumps goose is cooked. However, in the Senate no matter who strong the legal arguments to remove him from office the matter will most likely be decided on political considerations; i.e party lines.

For the Democrats the aim might well be expose Trump and his wrong doing in the eyes of the public to such an extent that even if they don't succeed in the Senate they may well have damaged him in the 2020 elections.  This is only a partially viable strategy as his political base does not care what Trumps personal character or conduct is, and the swing voters may well be influenced by the economy more than by Trump asking political favors from foreign leaders. While the economy in some sectors has worked to Trumps advantage, i.e job numbers, the trade war has begun to take its toll in the largely rural vote bank which was Trumps election backbone.

On a more theoretical level one has to ask to what extent will Trumps supporters go to excuse him his shortcomings or wrong doing? Was he right in saying that he could shoot someone on Times Square and his supporters would still vote for him? He has politically shot many of his former supporters and his political base did not seem to balk. He has demeaned the stature of the Oval Office and all it stands for to petting tirades on Twitter and instead of putting people off, his supporters have cheered him on. Perhaps the political psyche of US politics was always divisive and politicians were mean little souls pretending to be nice and all that Trump has done is bring that reality to the forefront.

The impeachment process in this respect will only give up the substance to what we all knew that the man was not fit of the office he holds. Whether that opinion is not substantiated by impeachable acts will resonate in the minds of people according to where people stand on the scale of USA's divide political platform. His supporters could not care less, the vast middle class swing voters may well have got fed up with the politics anyways to care. In the end it is unlikely that the impeachment process will succeed in the Senate and in the end the trial of Donald J Trump will be at the elections of 2020.

Can Trump be impeached?

The past week clearly was pivotal in showing the extent to which Mr Donald J Trump can lie and mislead people. His former attorney, Micheal Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for his client, realized the bullet headed his way was really a cannon ball and ducked to become a snitch that could spell trouble for President Trump. To say he was the quarter back directing the play for the Trump empire across not only business deals but hush money and campaign funding would be an understand. While Trump will dismiss him as unimportant person in the Trump organization, the fact remains Cohen may well have spewed out more than what Robert Mueller was looking for.

While Democrats and the anti Trump camp may be rejoicing that they might just have enough to impeach the President, there is a clear matter of legal issues to consider. If President Trump lied under oath to the FBI or the Mueller investigation, then indeed impeachment is a possibility. However, it would then be important to consider what did he lie about? Knowing of the hush money payments and saying he did not while a lie, would not constitute enough of a crime to be impeached upon. However, if it is proved that he knew that some of the money that funded his campaign was illegal and undisclosed then the matter might take a more serious tone.


In a broader sense, the distinctions of lying as an impeachable offense and lying in general, raise more disturbing traits to the persona of  Mr Trump. Yes politicians lie and bend the truth all the time, every one has done it, but Trump has taken lying to not only an art form but has blatantly bended the truth to the point that perhaps he and some of his supporters, have a totally different vision of reality. Coupled with the art of deflection Trumpians tend to still not accept the man is a pathological liar of the highest order. Kelly Anne Conway, his most ardent supporter, on the Chris Cuomo interview kept on repeating that 'Trump did not direct Cohen to break the law." Fair enough he perhaps did not, but that is not the question, the question is was he present in one of the meetings where payments as hush money were discussed?

Presidents cannot be impeached for lying to the public, perhaps because politicians are expected to lie to the electorate! This is ironic in the sense that he lied his whole way through the primaries and into the White House and continues to invent facts as he sees them, and the only retribution he can face is at the ballot box. There is no mechanism to hold him accountable other than the election or within the media. What all this means is that unless the Mueller probe comes up with a smoking gun that is directly linked to President Trump himself most likely President Trump will run out his term.


However, if Mueller does not get the link directly to Trump, and this is not the focus of his investigation, but indicts Trump Jr, or others close to him then the tightly spun web of deceit into the Trump camp will begin to unravel. It is also possible Trump may be infuriated by any indictment of a family member and will simply start a serious of questionable executive orders, pardons and firings which will perhaps save his family but leave the Trump Presidency open to impeachment. An unhinged Trump is not going to be a pleasant sight for anyone. The core of the Republican party is perhaps also fed up with the way things have turned out and might not have the will to continue to support a President who has become an embarrassment to many of them.

The base of Trumps support amongst the public, however, will not have any of this. To them Trump is making America great again and that slogan itself evokes a sense of patriotism, as false as it may be, that Trump relies on the most. His survival instincts are honed into playing to mainly that segment of the American public, a segment that has become his die hard base, to whom the man's lying, questionable ethics of business and his total lack of respect for others is seen as a man who is doing the right thing in their eyes. This is the division that Trump has brought to American politics, a division that he flaunts with gusto because it is where he feels he is right and everything he and his cohorts spin off feed into the mainstream of this base.

In the real political world if Trump is faced with impeachment his base may rally with protests and noise, but in the legal sense none of it can be consequential to a possible impeachment. The merits of whether he can be impeached all go back to the Mueller probe and this is why he and his base continue to call for its shut down. The Mueller probe is not about Trump, its about simply one fact whether the Russians interfered with the US election and how? It so happens that in investigating that many aspects of the conduct of people close to Trump, (Manafort, Flynn, Cohen et al) have come up which have created different smaller, but more significant, investigations into Trump Jr meeting the Russians, campaign finances, election rule violations, and even money laundering. These are the things which could lead to a more focused finger pointing to Mr Trump himself. While in fairness nothing has been revealed thus far other than his lying about certain matters related to hush money payments, the fat lady, or the tall man in this case, (Mueller) still has not sung.

Trump and Twitter: The role of social media in US Politics.

President Trump, as candidate for the Presidential election, whether by design or through the sheer twist of his personality used social media, and especially Twitter, to create a phenomenon that actually won him the election. I do not believe this was a thought out strategy but it fell into a space where his personality benefited from the use of this 160 words messaging blitz per message and as it snowballed into a massive following of over 55 million followers, it became his chosen platform of communication. While admittedly not all 55 million are his ardent admirers it did draw into his base of followers. Without disrespect to his base, most of them did not prefer to delve into the 3000 word articles analyzing the position of different candidates on national and even international issues. Like Trump their attention span fitted into the Twitter format perfectly.

But this was only the backdrop in which then candidate Trump and now President, tweeted over 35,000 tweets in the past year alone. Spending months analyzing Trumps Twitter behavior reveals something interesting. Not prone to a serious debate or deep intellectual discourses on the state of the world or the US, Trump realized that he could say anything on Twitter and in a nano second it would not only be read but believed by his followers. If it was a lie, and many of his tweets were fabrications, then people would, much like the world of Twitter just simply move on.

His biggest coup was apparent when Hilary Clinton was speaking at the Democratic Convention and while she was speaking, Donald Trump was tweeting, in real time, his rebuttals, some of which were not accurate, to a much larger audience. Having sent his tirade of tweets out while Hilary was speaking he forced the hand of the press corp to then not only report on what Hilary had said but in real time also refer to what Trump had said on those issues. This was unprecedented as in the past such a speech would have been reported as it happened only the next day or hours later the rebuttals from opposing candidates would be reported. In a sense Trump was diluting Hilary's message.

Because no one in political circles had seen this sort of use of social media the political pundits considered Trump inexperienced, immature politically to have a serious view point. But these intellectual stalwarts forgot one important thing, Trump was outflanking them and appealing to the very people who did not read or want to read the lengthy articles in the main media. Like Trump they liked in the world of the nano second, and it did not matter to them what anyone else said but like it or not Trump had not only the first move advantage on Twitter, he relentlessly hogged that space.

Fact checking Trumps tweets does reveal in general he was lying, bending facts, or simply attacking people. But this did not matter because much like Twitters architecture a message has a limited life out there and yes people can comment and correct the tweet, but still the original message has found its mark. Importantly Trump followed one cardinal rule, he ignored all replies to his tweets, even those that praised him, the few that they were, because to him these views that did not agree with him did not matter, they were just noise. The media outlets that liked his message believed his tweets with messianic fervor, his detractors laughed at him, but beneath the surface he managed to communicate with his base in a simple language they liked, truth or not.

As President, Trump has not given up Twitter and even used it to go after North Korea, China, Nato, Mexico, Canada, you name it and he has done it. Many purists believe, and rightly so, that Twitter during a campaign and Twitter as President are two different roles and it is not becoming of the President of the United States to use Twitter to demean and attack people. However, perhaps its a habit with Donald Trump that he cannot quit Twitter, or that he simply believes the electioneering must continue and twitter is the weapon of choice to him. Even as President the spread of lies through Twitter does not bother him because unlike other President these mid term elections are really a battle for his survival. He knows if his predicted red wave falters, then even his supporters in Congress will jump ship, all the more reason many of them have followed him for the fear that his base may turn against them. However, in time the US public will realize that his core base cannot be larger than the electorate and the test of that is around the corner.

For the moment Trump has only two weapons in his hands; his public rallies and his Twitter account. He has spent less time working as President than he has on the campaign trail trying to get his loyal candidates elected, sometimes sounding as if it was he fighting the election and not them. It seems its a matter of time when, like Kanye West, others realize that Donald Trump has used and abused their support. For the moment one has to give him his due credit for knowing the power of Twitter was powerful enough to tell lies and still be elected.

Trump 'Truths'. A short history.

My mother always said do not lie because you need a phenomenal memory to remember what you lied about. The truth is never forgotten, but lies, by some quirk of mental process, fade out. Of course there is another twist; if you want to remember a lie then keep repeating it till your audience believes its the truth. Donald J Trump has entered a new realm of human psychology with not only forgetting his lies but spinning new ones. Sadly were it not real it would be an amazing reality TV show called the The Lying Apprentice President.

Well, lets go into this make believe world of Mr Trump and postulate his truths.

There is the allegation that he used the N word. The truth is that he does not know the N word because he cannot spell it, and what he cannot spell he does not speak out and explains why his total vocabulary is perhaps 500 to 700 words. He has never called a black man a 'nigger' but he has called the land of their ancestors 'shit hole' countries. Somehow in his amazing brain 'shit hole' sounds more palatable than the N word.

Then there is the truth behind these payments to two women with whom Mr Trump had a romp in bed and one even spanked him with the Forbes magazine; with Trump on the cover of course. After all if you have to be sleazy lets do it with class. But look at this matter a little differently rather than attacking his payments to these women. It should make you proud that the President of the United States of America i.e. Mr Trump, would never have sex with a woman and not pay her for it. His only mistake was that he did not pay them immediately after the sexual sojourn; perhaps he got a call from his wife to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home.

If you cannot applaud Mr Trump for his absolute propriety in paying those two women (and who knows many many more- in his words), there is this noise about the way the payment was made and its violation of election rules. Since he has never read any document or report which is more than one page typed out in quadruple line spacing, it is unlikely that the King of Tweet would have read the election code for people who seek public office in the US. The truth is that in Trumps eyes the judge who interpreted the law in the Cohen case has not read the code because if he has then it would Clinton and Obama in the court not his trusted lawyer.

The truth is that Trump should be believed about is there was no collusion with the Russians, after all he has said that for over 400 times by now, why cannot this stupid media read his lips, "NO COLLUSION".  The meetings between his campaign staff, including his own relatives, and Russian operatives first never happened, but then they did happen but no one told him. When it seemed that he may have known the truth was bent yet again to mention it was about adopting children, like adoption was some code word to cover any sinister purpose of the meeting. The final straw was when Trump said the truth is those meetings were useless as they had no dirt on Clinton; this suggests the meetings would have been productive if they had dirt, thus the intent was indeed collusion. But why should we believe collusion happened? After all my Facebook friends friend tells me that this is all a 'witch hunt' and for him if his President says it never happened that settles the matter.

No there is this slight problem of Michael Cohen, who Trump now says the truth is that he was one of 'many many' lawyers he had hired and 'to be frank he was not a very good lawyer'. Well the truth is that Mr Trump took pity on this 'not very good lawyer' and kept him on for ten years. After all what good lawyer would knowingly break the law, as he admitted to the judge, and knowing he is breakign the law hand over not a thousand dollars but thousands and thousands of dollars to women a couple of weeks before the election? Well the truth is these women out witted the best negotiator in the world, The Donald, by timing their reminder for the unpaid payment for the sex they offered Mr Trump at a moment he just could not refuse.

I can see how easy it is to dwell in the world of the Trump Truths because they come at you sometimes at the rate of 47 tweets a day. However there is one Trump Truth I disagree with. He claims he won the US election. Wrong, the election was won by President Putin of Russia, period no discussion on this. Proof, a winning President is above reprimand, above question and above criticism, and Donald J Trump has not once reprimanded, questioned or criticized Mr Putin, the true winner of the US election.

Trump and Trash Talk.

There is always a sense of curiosity within us for the extreme in human behavior. Its like watching the bizarre behavior of people on the Jerry Springer show, or staring at images of the war dead in photos, or simply wondering how far can trash talk go. In the schematic patterns of expectations when it comes to trash talk, rightly or wrongly, there is a mental image of the trash talker. It may sound like verbal (or racial) profiling but one does not expect some personalities to trash talk.

Imagine the Pope, or Nelson Mandela, or the Queen of England trash talking! It is so out of field that our mind would simply reject the possibility. In the same profile we would assume the President of the United States would simply not trash talk; it cannot be comprehended by the brain. But then Donald Trump has radically changed that. When he used the words 'son of a bitch' in talking about NFL players he did two important things; One, he brought trash talk into the Oval office, not like Lyndon Johnson who used explicative words in meetings, but Trump did it through the power of mass media. Secondly, President Trump killed the dignity and decorum that comes with the office of the President of the United States.

Look more deeply into the words of this man, not what he claims the 'fake media' say, and in his own words you get an unadulterated insight into a man who truly believes that if he shot someone in Times Square his diehard supporters would not waver from him. When speaking to many of his supporters I am struck by the vehement idolatry they hold for him, his abuse is brushed aside as 'a man who speaks his mind', his racial innuendoes are ignored (some from his base admire him for that), his now legendary ridiculing of people who he once praised in the most flowery prose is seen as draining the swamp, even though he selected these people.

Donald Trump has not bent the rules of decorum and decency he has simply raped them. And those who ignore his misogyny and disrespect for people are equal participants in the rape of what values we expect from the White House. He has called people to have 'low IQ', 'shameful', a 'flunky' and best of all said Steve Bannon, his one time strategist and a man he praised was 'sloppy Steve' and a 'leaker'. I doubt there is anyone who has left the Trump camp and been treated with dignity after leaving office.

Trumps trash talk is not entirely domestic. He has called the Prime Minister of Canada 'very dishonest and weak', picked a twitter spate with the Mayor of London, ridiculed the entire leadership of the countries of the European Union and then very strangely after calling the dictator of North Korea a 'rocket man' praised him as being very honest and trustworthy?  In all these tirades and temper tantrums Trump has never once said a word against the person of President Putin of Russia.

His supporters love this 'style' of the man who will 'Make America Great Again'. This is not style my Trumpettes this is a mental illness to not know what the highest office in the US demands of a person in terms of manners, decorum and behavior. Whether he will make America great again is still open to question but he surely has taken the office of the President of United States of America and tarnished with the sort of trash talk that makes one cringe.  He has taken his critics to be disloyal to the country, a trait dictators show, and proved Hilary Clinton right that he has a 'thin skin' and a 'twitter temper' could lead him to launch a nuclear strike. Okay the nuclear strike part may be an exaggeration but there is no denying that he conducts his domestic and foreign policy through the mirror of what he personally feels aggrieved by. In his world, and that of this supporters, you dislike Trump then you must be a traitor to the US!

What is alarming is that while we can grin at this trash talk and simply say 'Oh well that is Trump', we have to deep down admit that with each slur, each personal attack by this President he is tearing down one brick of the institutions that make democracies great. As of this writing he has tweeted 38,500 times; that is 38,500 bricks of democracy have been torn out of the edifice of a free press, an independent judiciary, and the over sight of Congress on the Executive branch of government. Not long ago in history there was a dictator in Europe who was also tearing down the walls of the institutions of his country and a whole nation watched in silence as his supporters cheered the man who was going to make Germany great again. A World War and the path of horror later it took 6 million people of that country to die for the misplaced ideals of that man to wake up from a drunken stupor and bear the collective responsibility of one man's madness.

While I am not suggesting that Trump is going to be a Hitler, but I have no doubt in my mind there are some things he wants which are disturbing. Trump wants a muzzled press, a subservient Congress and a compliant Judiciary; a world where he can decide who to 'lock up', who to expel, and which journalist to get air time. So my friends this is not trash talk, this is symptomatic of something much more disturbing and you have the choice; sit back eat your popcorn and enjoy the show, or stand up and start putting those 38,500 bricks back again where they belong.

The World According to Trump.

For a rating obsessed person it is not surprising that Donald J Trump spends more time on Twitter than he does in the Oval office. Between Twitter and his rally speeches there is a world that has been sliced out of the world of reality that is the world that our dear President of the United States lives in. It is a world in which, in the words of former President Bush; 'you are either with us or against us'. However, POTUS 45 has added another dimension to it; 'you may be with us but when I decide you are not with us then everything associated between us is erased from my memory.' Remember Paul Manafort, he was only a small runabout in his campaign, and Michael Flynn, he only knew he was a general and they spoke perhaps twice, once about the great election success and the second time about a good golf swing!

One of the important things in Trump's world to possess is 'selective amnesia'. People think he lies, no he does not lie, he just switches on the selective amnesia function in his brain and that allows him to spin out whatever tale he wants to on any particular day. This tale, in his world, is not connected to anything he may has said earlier and that is his final word. This ensures there is no cross reference to what he may have said a few hours, days, weeks, months or even years earlier. Like months back he said there were no contacts between his campaign and the Russians. Then Paul Manafort got entangled in the Russian web, and it was revealed that Donald Jr met with Russians in the Trump Tower. Mr Trump then said it was a meeting about adoptions. Now, using his selective amnesia function he says sure they met with the Russians but whats wrong with collecting dirt on your political opponent?

Liars usually lie in the spoken word only, because unless its recorded, its your word against theirs. Now either Mr Trump thinks that somehow Tweets just erase themselves or he truly believes if he tweets 100 times a day people will never find the tweets they want to check, one will never know. But Mr Trump lies through tweets and leaves a gigantic record of his lies for people to pick on and then calls them fake news.

In a collective fit of mass hypnosis his base of supporters buy into this selective amnesia story and perhaps I have just give them a justification to say 'no Trump does not lie, he just has selective amnesia'. Its like some new mental condition that is a perfect alibi for a person who lies. The avalanche of lies that this President has espoused since taking office is embarrassing for the purists who see the occupant of the Oval office as someone who may bend the truth once in a while, even stack up facts in a convenient ruse to justify a policy, but to outright lie, even with TV cameras recording the events is a shock to say the least.

According to President Trump when he visited the UK he did not keeping the Queen waiting rather he was there 15 minutes early and waiting for her. Amazing that he did not see the video of Her Majesty standing alone even glancing at her watch as the Donald lumbered up 12 minutes late. What is amazing that when President Trump said this lie (or moment of selective amnesia) he was at a political rally and once could see the faces of the people behind him nodding in hypnotic agreement with this amnesia ridden man.

Things have not been going well for Mr Trump, the Russian probe is getting too close for comfort and if reports are to be believed Donald Jr may get incriminated into a nasty situation where he may have to speak out about the private number he dialed and who he spoke to. If indeed it was his father than the consequences of this will be like a wrecking ball hitting the Trump Tower.

In the world according to Trump there are some interesting options for him to respond to that situation. He could simply deny it and say his son was lying; after all like father like son. A second course of action could be he could invoke selective amnesia and say he never remembers the call from his son, or even more drastic, though not improbable, he could say 'which son? Do I have a son name Donald Jr? Why would I have son and give him my name because there can be only one Donald and that is me!'

One interesting thing to note is when Trump appoints someone for a position around him the superlatives of praise are mind boggling. The person is 'a very fine person', or 'one cannot find anyone better' etc etc. As the person departs the ever caring Potus does not even acknowledge the persons departure, and often the person learns through Twitter he gone; Tillerson was a case in point. Is this was it just being ungrateful or another bout of amnesia; 'Tillerson, who Tillerson, don't know the man!'

Historians will one day struggle to understand the mind of this President. He has amnesia about who his allies are, a delusion that he is the best negotiator in the world forgetting that negotiating what bathroom fitting go into the Trump Tower is galaxies removed from negotiating with Putin or the European leaders. His negotiating skills are about the same level as a teenager trying to get into a night club on a busy night. But seriously historians will wonder why would he pay money to a porn star to keep shut and then have amnesia ala Bill Clinton style, and say he did not have anything to do with Stormy Daniels. Writers will struggle to understand why this man started a trade war where his own base, the farmers and workers who voted for him, will lose jobs and be driven to poverty? They will be lost for words as to why he would believe Putin and his cohorts more than his own intelligence agencies? This is a list so long that historians and political watchers will not have amnesia over, but sadly the man in the White House does have amnesia about it. Should we just drop this amnesia crap and simply call it what it is; plain simple lying!

Trump: Good news on the Wall and other promises.

President Trump you cannot imagine how happy my nephew is when he told me today that he heard the Mexicans sent the check for YOUR WALL. He is elated now that his taxes will not be spent on the wall you promised. I understand there is a small technicality that the check is in pesos and conditional on your uniting the families separated at the border. This is fabulous news.

My friends in the ship building industry are also very happy that you have promised a 350 ship navy during your first term. I know there is not much time but I heard that since work stopped on some of your real estate you have ordered the workers from there to go to the shipyards. Yes we know the trade war means that the price will go up as cheap steel my not be available. My advice you should have first bought all the steel before slapping the tariffs. But then you are the Great Negotiator and I am sure will get this small matter sorted out in no time.

I am also so pleased that you have appointed a special prosecutor  to investigate Hilary Clinton and her links with the Russians to deliberately lose the election for her Party. Yes she should not have wasted the money of the donors and the tax payers if she did not want to win the election. The person you appoint must especially look into the rumors that she and her supporters disguised themselves as Donald Jr and Jared Kushner and met with Russian agents in your offices in Trump Tower. How low can the opposition get to lose an election. Very deplorable.

While you admitted after taking Oath of Office that Barack Obama was indeed born in Hawaii and thus closed the matter we know that it was really because you were carried away by the moment and wanted to be kind to the out going President. However you know since Mr Obama has made subtle remarks that could be targeted at you, I suggest Mr. President you have this matter investigated by DHS, ICE, FBI, CIA, and Supreme Court, (avoid the Congress they are flakey lot as we all know) and give them 30 days to put the proof before the people. After all if he was not born in USA then any law or executive order that Kenyan wannabe US President signed is invalid and hence Obama Care will be gone. Presto such a simple solution and please do not be so kind and soft spoken towards people.

I know you promised to drain the swamp and it was going to be one of the toughest tasks as President. I know you have had to drain your cabinet and your office of some of the dirt that somehow got in from the swamp. My humble advice is that you should award a $100 billion contract to one of your companies to drain the swamp, after all they have been dealing with dirtbags all their life. Once they have cleared the swamp you can then appoint the cabinet and the team you need. Till then I would suggest just run the government on your own with Twitter and Phone. Perhaps just keep Pence and Sarah Sanders, the rest can go back to the swamp.


Most of all Mr President I admire your sense of duty and really believe you are making massive personal sacrifices while in office. I have heard that so far you have played golf on ONLY 134 days out of the 500 odd days you have been President. I know how much you love golf and it breaks my heart to think that you are not getting to play golf at least 4 times a week. I am sure this is taking a toll on your health and this lack of exercise might be affecting your 'twitter' thumb.

On a final note, President after President have been concerned about the leadership role that our beloved United States has on world affairs. This has meant to be in a race with Russia (earlier Soviet Union) and allowed 'shit hole' countries to play one against the other. Your brilliant understanding of foreign relations and your art of negotiation has resulted in agreeing with Russia to jointly lead the world and this is beyond brilliant. Yes China will continue to pose a risk but your economic and political genius of starting a trade war with China will ensure they will have to accept Russia and US leadership; better to state facts, Putin-Trump leadership.

I hope you do not mind this sycophantic ass licking but one cannot ignore your brilliance and while you dislike people praising you I hope you will not mind it. Just to prove that you did not mind it you can send me a US passport and also appoint me to a cabinet position.

Trump's Trade War.

President Trump, as candidate Trump, touted the unfairness of US trade relations with the rest of world. His attacks, principally on China and later on NAFTA, were then seen as media ploy to make the US disfranchised voter to feel they had an ally heading for the White House. Trump the businessman was seen by his largely myopic US centric base as the apostle of business acumen and if he said that China was 'raping America' then he must know what he is talking about. For those who live and breathe international trade his rants were seen as something that will mellow when he sees the facts.

However, as we have learned the facts for Donald J Trump as simply as he wants to see them. With a panache for off the cuff policy making, usually encompassed in the 140 word limitation of Twitter, President Trump has launched a trade war the consequences of which, while damaging to the demons as he sees them, will also severely impact the very base who believed that Trump the businessman knows what he is doing. Raising tariffs, even in the absence of any retaliation fromUS trading partners, will raise the cost of goods for the end user within the US. The aluminum and steel tariff alone would raise the price of finished products and considering a large percentage of the aluminum imported by the US is the high grade aluminum which they do not produce themselves, the protection the tariff seeks is just not there.

Now to expect that levying tariffs on foreign goods will have no repercussions is naive. China, the European Union and others will impose their own set of tariffs on US goods. China,Mexico, Canada and the EU together import about $140 billion of US agricultural products, all of which will be hit by the trade war. While in the scheme of a trillion dollar business this may seem a drop in the ocean, but importantly it affects the rural base of the US economy and a farming crisis, however small with a large economy, cannot look good for the politics. Yes it is true the effects of a trade war are never immediate but more like a slow motion melt down, it is also correct that once a trade war begins to take root into the economic cycle it takes that much longer to stop the trade war and then to reverse its impact.

On broader note, the trade imbalance is a misnomer to be seen in isolation to the over all cash surplus or deficit (as the case may be) when considering that nations not only trade in goods but also provide services and more importantly have their companies in each others economies operating as 'domestic' companies. Take a US cereal manufacturer with operations in Europe; it has production and marketing facilities in Europe which may not be important grains from the US but their profits end up going back to the US economy. In addition there is a plethora of service industry activity overseas, from banking to engineering and consulting which all provide revenue that goes into the US economy. When we account for these we notice that the US does not run a deficit with many of the countries that President Trump alleges there is a 'trade imbalance'. Yes in terms of goods alone he would be correct, in terms of the over all economic activity between the nations he is wrong.

In very simplistic sense the average American wants to walk into Wallmart and get the best deal on say the training shoes. Now telling him you have raised the tariffs to 'make America great again' will not explain why those shoes are 25% more expensive. Telling him that you have reduced the trade deficit is fine but its not money that has gone into his pocket, and in the case of the soy bean farmer or the bourbon whiskey producer your trade battle has cost him his job so the idea of even buying a training show is now out of the question.

It is likely that a large measure of the trade imbalances were unfair to the US, and in isolation to the overall economic balance between nations you may well want to negotiate and fine tune the agreements. Launching nuclear trade war with the idea to get a better deal is really akin to lighting up the forest and then using a hose pipe to drench the fire out. Trade wars never work and unless Trump feels he can rewrite history and somehow his business acumen far exceeds the logic of years of economic theory, we should be bracing ourselves for a recession the like of which has not been seen.

Trumpism: The Message

Donald J Trump promised he was going to be a 'different' President, none of us quite imagined 'how different?' Born into privilege, and not having held public office and his lack of finesse were givens that were known and not a revelation. Trump is not an avid student of constitutional law, like Obama, or holds a legacy of political inheritance, like Bush, or carries the charisma of a Kennedy, or the vision of Regan, but we all hope, somewhere within him is a philosophy of governance waiting to express itself. Thirty days into the Presidency the Trump administration has just not kicked out of campaign mode, and in more ways than one has shown weaknesses in its administration that wrestle logic.

Yes there is no denying that Trump spoke for the disfranchised workers, mostly white working class, and he spoke to them, during the election, with a political incorrectness that they liked and identified with. To them the ills of their economic and social plight lay with the Chinese and the Mexicans, and their insecurities came from the threat of Islamic terrorism. Trump, a candidate for the highest office, was speaking things they spoke in bars, he was not the smooth talking intellectual who has spoken to them for decades before. The fact his message was rhetoric, lacking in substance and policy, did not matter, the man was going to clean the 'swamp' in Washington and in some miraculous way change their destiny in their little hometown was all that mattered.

I am reminded of a very brilliant politician from my home country, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who in 1970's stepped up and promised everyone, yes everyone, in Pakistan 'roti, capra and makkan, i.e. 'bread, clothes and a house'. He swept to power in the first general election after years of military dictatorship, even though he did not command the majority in then East Pakistan, he worked to ensure he was in power and not the majority party from the East. Bhutto was a brilliant man, but a man who knew that his promise of bread, clothes and a house were false but it did not matter, he was in power. In sense Trump reminds me of that election promise, minus the intellectual power of a Bhutto.

Sadly the message that Trumpism is bringing to the forefront is that wrestling with the values of the constitution, dismantling the edifice of the separation of powers, judging the judiciary are all fine. Yes Presidents have lied before, yes Presidents have not delivered all their promises but never have they attacked the values of what we, from the outside, see as one of America's greatest virtues, the ability to hold people in public office fully accountable. It was these institutional values that brought Nixon and Bill Clinton to face their failures, not only as Presidents but as people in office expected to hold high standards of personal and moral conduct. While it would be unfair to characterize Donald Trump as a dictator in the making, most certainly there are deeply troubling signs of his definition of his own power, without recognizing its limits, that ought to bother the saner voices amongst us.

Having spent hours listening to his election speeches and those since he took office, one cannot see even an iota of an effort for the man to become Presidential! One can excuse his style of oratory, one can excuse his hyperbolic gestures, one can even find some of his utterances, (ala Sweden's terror attack last week, which never happened) as amusing, but then Mr. Trump where are the words that carry not a nation only but the world with you. Everything is not a 'deal' and even when you talk of a new deal between the Israeli's and Palestinians, you tell us what two decades ago was proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the Arab League.

This is where the message from President Trump gets all muddled up. Clearly he has no sense of history and certainly not a man who has read much of history or anything at all. His intake of intellectual stimulus supposedly comes from watching cable TV, and his prowess over words is limited to the 140 character or so that Twitter allows! I do not expect President Trump to be an authority on Plato and Socrates, or even America's own political history, but somewhere in those disjointed words I would expect some words of encouragement that we have a President leading the free world with some vision, some political insight that is more than on offer in a run down bar in the middle of nowhere in America.

If the first 30 days have not seen the man change, we can forgive him that, but then four years is a long time to endure this sort of political leadership. His confrontational style has called the press the 'enemy' the judges 'incompetent' and ensured that America's neighbors do not feel they want to be on the same continent. It is only a matter of time, and not too far down this rocky road, when he will clash with the Republican party itself, it is almost as predictable as the sun rising tomorrow. President Trump only you can change the course of this plane, only you can give it stability and direction that instills confidence and to do that you have to take three days off, sit alone and ponder on the simple question of how do you want to lead the nation and the world, and while doing that shut down your Twitter account.

President Trump: The First 10 days.

A recurring question, during the elections, was whether Donald J Trump was competent to be the President and most argued that being a successful business, so they say, he certainly could do the job at the White House. In his first ten days in the Oval Office, President Trump and his cronies has not ceased to amaze one of their lack of expertise and their stubborn will to run the highest office in the US in a style that has even some Republicans wondering what the next three years and 355 days are expected to be like.  Clearly this will go down in history as 'The Twitter Presidency" given the propensity of Mr. Trump to use the social media as the means to announce policy, vent his anger and react to the criticisms.

If there were any hopes of a more mature and sober President to emerge from the skin of Donald J Trump these were quickly dashed when Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, appeared before the press and basically told them they were wrong in the way they reported the inauguration of the 45th President and then presented 'alternative facts' to support his, and his masters, view that the crowds were indeed the largest ever in history. About the same time President Trump was at the CIA headquarters informing his audience that the Media are horrible people and in effect he will be at war with them, presumably as he sees them as the 'enemy'.

President Trump also then signed an executive order withdrawing USA from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade bloc of the Pacific Rim countries including Canada. While the agreement would only take effect in Feb 2018, subject to 86% of the countries ratifying the agreement, Mr, Trump really killed the agreement before it even reached the stage of being blessed. While major modifications to the agreement were warranted scraping the agreement only plays into China's trading strategy given that the Chinese have, in the last 2 years, made commitments of investing $368 billion into the Latin American countries. While some may argue that bilateral agreements could recover the lost ground without giving the concessions that the TPP gave, the fact remains bilateral agreements will take years to put into place.

Next in line was approving the Keystone Xl pipeline which is to run 1900 KM from Alberta Canada southwards to connect to other pipelines to take Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast. Other than to upset the environmental lobby the pipelines will not necessarily benefit the US economy directly and explains why the Canadian Prime Minister was quick to welcome the decision. However the executive order by President Trump ignores the years of work done in various government agencies to ensure the pipeline does not damage a fragile ecosystem in the areas it is supposed to go through. It was interesting that about the time the order was being signed a 'gag order' was issued to the US EPA disallowing anyone from making any public statements or press releases.

The following day the big election promise of building the wall on the border with Mexico was turned into an executive order, with the small print that initially the US will pay for the wall and then later Mexico will reimburse the US. Mexico was quick to respond that there was no such agreement and the forthcoming visit of the Mexican President was cancelled by the Mexicans, (even though the Trump camp tried to make out the cancellation was a mutual decision). Clearly the backlash of American taxpayers having to pay for the wall was not going down too well with his supporters and before any noise could be heard the Sean Spicer suggested that the White House was considering a 20% tax of Mexican imports which would be more than enough to pay for the wall. Indeed, Mr Spicer clearly is not a student of economics because such a tax is always paid by the importer of record, which in this case is the US company importing the goods, so in the end the consumer would pay for the wall, not the Mexicans.

It would seem that things were getting a bit too stuck for the new team in the White House so the final coup de grace was then administered when President Trump signed the order banning people from seven countries (all Muslim) from entering the United States. While this was not 'a total and complete ban on all Muslims,' it certainly was the most ill conceived of his decisions. Yes the President has the right to make the borders secure, and yes he can pass such an order, provided it does not violate the constitution but here is the chilly aspect of it all; he never consulted the Justice Department, or the Homeland Security or the State Department on this order and certainly none of them were taken into confidence to be prepared for the effects of it.

Insofar as these are the decisions he made we must step back from them an look at some of the issues of style and substance in putting these executive orders out. Also by seeing what has happened since then we have to certainly wonder what lies ahead. When senior State Department officials, who are career diplomats, voiced their concern and dissent over the last order, through an age old tradition used by career diplomats, the quick response was to hint to these career technocrats that they are free to leave office. Unlike other government agencies generally the career diplomats in the State department are retained by every new president and only some ambassadorial positions are allocated to the incumbent President to allocate.

While the acting Attorney General may well have been in the right about questioning the legality of the immigration executive order, she may well have been wrong to question the policy, the whole affair was badly handled. Yes she should have sought to meet with the White House and express her reservations before going public, but irrespective it would seem that without a prior consultation on the new executive order the acting Attorney General may well have felt like someone being ordered to do whatever the White House wants.

The troubling aspect of this new President is that he has shown a clear inability to trust anyone and certainly not to lean on them for advice. Its almost an arrogant self belief in himself and while this may work within the executive branch of the government it is going to be a different matter when dealing with Congress in this style and manner. On a lighter note one can only be amazed at how President Trump can embellish facts to suit his own motives to the verge of lying. A case in point is when asked about the chaos his travel ban imposed he 'tweeted' that it was really the Delta airlines computer glitch that caused the chaos and his order was working 'very very nicely'. Well President Trump the Delta airlines computer glitch was 24 hours after your order went into effect.

The essential question we have to ask is whether this man is competent to understand that while he is the most powerful man on earth there are checks and balances to his power and these come from Media, the Judges and the Congress. Yes Judges can strike down his executive orders if they violate the existing laws, and yes the Media can question his decisions. This is something that we will need some getting used to.

For the record I did not support Hilary Clinton but rather felt Bernie Sanders would have been the best choice for the US. Alas we now have to stop following the media, even though I doubt he can muzzle it, and follow something called Twitter. Welcome to the Twitter Presidency.

The Orlando Tragedy and American Politics.

At the outset let me state emphatically that I am against ALL forms of violence and any loss of life under any circumstances is a deplorable act. The tragic events in Orlando where 49 people senselessly lost their lives to a deranged man who attacked a night club armed with guns and the intent to take lives. The tragedy speaks for itself in overtones of grief that cannot be cured by words alone. In the same breath the shooting has been become a political tool for both Republicans and Democrats camps and centres around two crucial issues; the role of radical Muslim militants in this shooting and the issue of gun control.

In essence there is no difference between this attack, in its intent and ferocity, from other attacks in schools and public places all over the United States. What makes this a political issue is that the attacker was a Muslim and purported to call 911 during the attack and pledge his support for ISIS. In sincerity the attacker does not fit the profile of a Muslim radical; yes at times he attended prayers at the local mosque and claimed he had friends in ISIS and in Hezbollah, (which is very unlikely as both those organisations are sworn enemies). What is more likely is that this deranged man had an issue with gay people and exacted his anger by killing people. He was not someone fired up with ISIS ideology looking to carry out their promised attacks on America. In essence his actions in acquiring guns and entering a public place and randomly shot people no different from the actions of the shooters in the cases of Sandy Hook Elementary School and Columbine High school.

Since Jan 1, 2015 there have been 27 school shooting, (SCHOOL not public shooting) in the US, in which 23 people were killed and 52 people were seriously wounded. It may be pointed out that not one of these 27 shootings was carried out by a Muslim attacker or by a recent immigrant. In most of the cases the shooters had either easy access to guns or had no problems in acquiring the guns, and one can say that none of the shootings were politically motivated. No one has come and claimed that there is some form of Christian radical movement behind the killings only because the attackers in each case was a Christian. The fact that Omar Mateen who was the killer in Orlando was a Muslim does not make the act more radical other than giving ammunition to people to play the Muslim terrorism card. There is just as much a chance of a fundamentalist Christian angry about gay rights to carry out such an attack as it was for Omar Mateen to carry out this attack.

Using a paint brush to call all Muslims radical and to assume every immigrant to the US comes with the intent to carry out attack is ludicrous. From an international perspective lets get something very clear, that radical Muslims are attacking more Muslims around the world than targeting Americans. Yes there have been some attacks by them in Europe and the West, but these are minuscule attacks compared to what is happening in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Pakistan just to name a few countries.

Now onto the issue of gun control; why would a man want to buy an semi automatic high powered rifle to shoot rabbits? Why are these guns so freely available to the average man in America? Can we assume a proper sense of responsibility about using guns on the part of each owner? If this was the case then how come we have thousands of gun deaths in the US each year. Simply put the guns need to be controlled and ideally should only be in the hands of the law enforcement people and hunting guns should be better defined and better controlled. Yes a radical or deranged man will still try and get illegal guns but then the access will be more difficult.

I live in the UAE, we do not have guns in the hands of people. We have Muslims, Christians, Hindus and people of other beliefs living here, to the extent that one can argue the non Muslims are over 50% of the population. We have not had one public shooting, not one school shooting, not one attack based on religious hate and to the extent that any religious or ethnic hate talk is immediately dealt with by the law.

The Rise of Trump: An international perspective.

Donald Trumps rise in the domestic political platform of US politics carries its own malaise of the lack of serious intellect within the Republican Party allowing a conceited ego maniac to hijack the party. While his presence on the political scene started as a form of abstract entertainment he moulded himself, backed by his panache to be racist, sexist and conceit, to appeal to a debased anger that underlies many Americans personal thinking, he catapulted himself to be a front runner by projecting the unthinkable and the unsaid. Domestic politics aside, Donald Trump is perhaps the scariest of the candidates when it comes to visualising his potential role and impact on international politics.

Should be be taken seriously enough to ever become the President of the United States his current menu of recipes for approaching the international political scene is not only fraught with a demagogue's ideological frame of mind but more alarmingly a lack of intellect and finesse. His flippant remarks about Mexicans being rapists, Muslims being barred from entering the United States and the not so welcoming attitude towards all and sundry suggests Trump is way out of his league in understanding how world politics works. One cannot help but imagine a world with Trump as the leader of the most powerful country being a more unsafe place than ever before.

If his appeal to the average American is that he represents their anger at the loss of jobs to China and invasion of low paid foreign immigrants, he is also out of the touch with the anger that a large body of people around the world have towards America's lack of empathy for the political and social needs of the people they have tried to shape into their own mould of foreign policy. While Trump as the leader of the free world may still have some affinity to the likes of Putin's leadership of Russia (he did admire Putin's hatred for the press), Trump will certainly be out of his depth in dealing with the Chinese, Japanese and the large assembly of Muslim leaders whose people he has sought to paint in one sweeping stroke with his demagogic brush.

On a more deeper note Trump has thrived off harping on what is wrong with the world, including the American domestic scene, but has not offered any solutions on how to fix things. Whenever the debate has turned to a serious note Trump has had the nerve to bring the discussion down to raw emotion even centring on the vulgar. However, Trump's antics are not just some school boy tantrums but a carefully designed charade to keep the debate at an emotional pitch, a almost vulgar disdain for the serious question, the serious answer or indeed an agenda that begs anything more than a rhetorical profanity for what this man can end up projecting.

If ever elected as the President, Trump will have the power to take military action, and given his bullying style could well even pressure Congress into creating a world order where the search of peace will be replaced by a search to get even. Sadly as much of his anger on the domestic front is misplaced, the same might well be true of his vision of world politics, leading us to foresee a World According to Trump where the dictum of 'shoot first question later' might well be the order of political action.

Trump die hard supporters will argue that he will mature and mould himself into being a leader of the world and while projecting a strong America will also forge a more effective leadership on the world map. This might well happen, especially if he leaves world politics to a competent Secretary of State, however given his ego this is highly unlikely. One can only wonder in fear of how he will approach the thorny issues of Middle East politics, or acceptance of China as an equal partner on the world scene or engage in a serious dialogue with Europeans or the Mexican and Canadian neighbours (both of whom he has not been kind to).

Political watchers can only hope that even if he wins the Republican ticket  Donald Trump may fail to raise the ante when it comes to the final stretch of the Presidential race. Indeed from an international perspective we know too well that US Presidents are not elected for their acumen of international politics but more on the basis of their domestic agenda. Let us hope people within America realise that Trump may appeal to the unsaid within American society there are still a vast silent majority who balk at his egotistical style which offers only platitudes of hate and no substance on solutions.