The Korean Missile Crisis.

In October 1962 a young President J K Kennedy faced the Cuban Missile Crisis which, in the words of some, put the world a blink away from a nuclear war. The 13 day crisis was defused finally but not after a level of brinkmanship which has remained a text book case study of crisis management. Today North Korea's King Jong Un and President Donald Trump are enacting a dance of brinkmanship that, without a doubt, is possibly going to dwarf the Cuban Missile Crisis. There are stark differences between the two conflicts, and yet the similarities are to the extent that a possible nuclear confrontation could get out of hand.

Without discussing the 1962 crisis in too much detail, one thing was clearly obvious in that crisis was that the Russian movement of missiles to Cuba in a sense posturing by Moscow to get the US to roll back its Jupiter missile deployment in Turkey. Indeed, as the crisis rolled out the posturing could have resulted in outbreak of hostilities but one can argue that given the Russian motives there was a line they did not want to cross.

In contrast the current crisis is not something that has suddenly surprised the world. North Korea for some time now has not been secretive about its desire to have both a nuclear weapons capability and to have a credible delivery system. A study of nuclear proliferation shows that once an aspiring nuclear country crosses a certain point in its development system the roll back of the system through pressure and threats begins to fail. We saw this in the case of Israel, India and Pakistan, and North Korea is no exception to that process. Theoretically a nuclear capability is easier to achieve that back during the 1940's Manhattan Project, the two big challenges are to develop a delivery system and to then be able to reduce the size of the nuclear weapon to then be carried as a warhead.

While there is no conclusive evidence that this warhead capability has been developed by North Korea, there is a capability with them to drop a dirty nuclear bomb from conventional means, i.e aircraft or a crude warhead. Irrespective of the effectiveness of such a capability there is no doubt that a dirty bomb or a sophisticated warhead the threat to the world is present and dangerous. So let us assume that North Korea does have the capability to cause considerable trouble.

On the current crisis it is evident that the crisis and the outcomes will be influenced by the personality of the two principal players in the sordid drama; Kim Jong Un and Donald J Trump. Let is first see the Korean leaders stance, personality and posture.

Kim Jung Un is clearly an autocrat who has absolutely no restraint on his actions from within his government or its functioning system. He has demonstrated clearly that he does not tolerate dissent and more often than not will eliminate opposition even on the basis of a hint of discontent towards him. He seems to have a stubborn streak and tends have a tit for tat mentality without regard for the stakes involved in his actions. he is on record to have said recently that he has no issue to attack American military capabilities in the region and even said he soon expects to have an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting mainland United States of America.

To Kim Jung Un the goals seems to be to continue his missile testing without restraint and to continue play a game of brinkmanship with President Trump. The Korean leader is posturing as if in a game of chess and relishing the standoff perhaps believing that without the support of Congress it would seem unlikely that Trump would up the ante to a first strike on North Korea. Kim Jung Un could be making a fatal mistake as it is obvious that President Trump might be impulsive enough to order a first strike without warning. All one could then hope for is that his military brass are correct in assuming a first strike could disable North Korea's entire missile system.

Should such a first strike take place it will have to assume that China, who seems to have agreed to work with Washington to defuse the situation, may step back from being neo-neutral and change its posture. Secondly, one cannot assume that Russia would stand back in the event of a US first strike against North Korea; for them there would be distinction between a missile strike in Syria by the US with an all out first strike against North Korea.

Donald Trump has approached this crisis with a degree of aggression and bravado that is atypical of the Presidents office. The fact that Trump has said he does not rule out hostilities with North Korea is a chilling statement and while it may well be designed to give a strong message to Kim Jung Un, it was greeted with a missile launch by North Korea the very next day. Diplomacy is not one of Trumps strong points and one would imagine sane voices in his Administration would have suggested that China be asked to deliver the message of US resolve.

The danger remains that the two leaders could get embroiled in a ego war the cost of which will be borne in the loss of human life beyond our imagination. The solutions have to be offered for a quick deescalation of crisis and it would seem China's role in this is paramount. Already there is a mixed message out there with Trump saying there is a major risk of war and Secretary Tillerson not ruling out the possibility to sit and talk with the North Koreans. Indeed giving an escape route to the North Koreans to come to their senses is a plausible policy, but then one is not dealing with a rational human being. One additional problem is the maverick personality of President Trump which can only create uncertainty in the current climate.

On a closing note I wonder if Trump is reading up on the 1962 Missile Crisis and if Kim Jung Un is attending his anger management classes. Sad we are close to a stage where in one afternoon we can destroy all what God created on earth.

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.

Letter to President Trump: Some Common Sense advice.

Dear Mr. President,

First of all congratulations for making it to the Oval office, a year ago it seemed as remote as Donald Duck making it there, but you out foxed the GOP candidates and then contrary to what was expected worked on the fears of the people to get where you have. Well done. I doubt you read my blog, and if you do you may think I support the other camp! Well on the contrary I support humanism and empathy and care for the people, not rhetorical words, but actions, and in all earnest some of what you have uttered has been against the grain of my values. So yes in that sense I do not support you, but it does not mean I am a Hillary supporter. (its not a zero sum game, look it up).

Given the reality you are the most important man on the planet it might not be my place to give you advice, but then who knows in the sandpile of wisdom, or the lack of it, one never knows where the surfing of the net might lead the President of the United States.

So here is some honest advice, not because I admire you, but because I am scared you will mess up and cause some catastrophe from which human kind may not recover too easily. (Study history, read up Donald there were a few men in history who single handedly caused more damage than 100 divisions of crack troops could not.)

So this list might be something you want to put on your mirror and glance it each morning as you put that clump of strange colored hair into place.

1. Stop Tweeting: President's tweet once in a while, to inform and encourage, not to denigrate and ridicule.
2. The White House is not designed to promote business interests; let Ivanka's fashion line problems stay outside the Oval office, they are not your concern especially to stop during an intelligence briefing to tweet your anger at Nordstrum.
3. Stop Feeding the American population doses of fear. Terrorists kill more people in one week in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere then the entire number of people killed by them in the US.
4. Putin is NOT your friend, have the courage to condemn what he is doing in Ukraine before you launch an attack on other countries. He loves you because you are making America weak on the international stage. Here is what Putin thinks "Donald make American great again, and leave the rest of the world to me."
5. Mexico and Canada are your neighbors and for most of modern times have been good friends, dumping crap on them will not serve your cause, and a country with weak neighbors eventually becomes weak itself.
6. Take a language course, in English. There are more expressions in the english language than 'very very' 'bigly' etc etc.
7. Read the Constitution very carefully, your attack on the judges and your attacks on the press forget that there is a thing called the separation of powers.
8. Bring some empathy into your heart, this is not like some reality show and the country is not your personal company where you can do what you like, say what you like. Humility might help.
9. The elections are over so making false statements again and again don't make them true.
10. Most important learn to lead, not just have people sitting around agreeing to you, listen to the other view, there is merit in that, especially as the majority did not vote for you and you are now their President too.

Mr President, we look to you for leadership, not for entertainment, we want you to be a statesman not a character the comedy shows will lampoon week after week. This is a serious job, all the most because next to you is a suitcase with some nuclear codes and you can destroy in one afternoon all that God has created on Earth. So be careful with this power, you owe that to the next generation.


God Bless Humanity.

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.

Obama Farewell, Meryl Streep and Trump: A Thought.

US Presidents have, over the many decades, had varying degrees of send offs; some inglorious and shameful, some quiet and unnoticed, and then there is President Obama’s farewell, which stands out as emotional and moving. I listened to his farewell speech in Chicago three times, not because I wanted to record some facts, but simply because tenor, depth and resonance of those words needed to heard again and again. There are many too who would criticize the man for being good on words and short on deeds, and as he put it, this is the hallmark of a democracy; the right to disagree. In equal measure those who accuse him of being decisive would find it hard to find fault in his message of unity and togetherness.

Leaders are not expected to be perfect and all that is asked of them is to be genuine and true. Obama has had his faults and short comings too; an economic expansion that ignored some segments, the inability to condemn the 65 civilians killed in drone strikes, the silence as Israel slaughtered 2000 Palestinians in 50 days (of those killed 550 were children), and the list can perhaps go on, but we cannot fault him for not trying to make a difference. Obama is often accused of sheltering the Muslims at the expense of the nation, a claim that needs to be examined at length; suffice to mention here there is nothing wrong when he says, “Do not blame Islam for the actions of a minority of so called Muslims.”

 Obama, it would seem, came to office with more expectations of him than any other president before him. I guess this comes with the burden of being ‘the first’ in any field. In a sense this may explain his constant effort to appease all sections of society and, in the eyes of some, falling short with each section. Yet when we look at legacies we need to stop counting trees and see the forest as a whole. We need to see not only what our part of the agenda was fulfilled but what the essence of the persons legacy means to us.

President Obama, along with his charming wife, Michelle, brought wholesomeness to the White House that it seriously lacked. The reaching out and the genuineness that flowed from the portals of that esteemed residence were not just photo opportunities but one could feel the warmth, concern and care for people was deep rooted. There was intellect in the Oval Office, there was humor, there empathy, perhaps the most important ingredient in a man’s arsenal of what we call Character.

Yes amongst us there will be some who will say Obama handed Trump the election victory by not delivering on his promises. First all as measures go he delivered on most of his promises in substantial strides of success. Secondly, the people elected Trump, go blame yourself for what you have put in the White House, no one put a gun to your head and said vote Trump. In so far as contrasts go for me the biggest thing I will miss is the eloquent speeches of President Obama, which will soon be replaced by the vocabulary lacking, wobbling utterances from a new President whose command of the English language is just about enough to get a Twitter message out.

On to Meryl Streep, an actress who oozes talent, and steeped as she may be in liberal politics, her remarks about a man of power mocking a disabled reporter had nothing to do with liberal politics; it was about decency, compassion and empathy. The fact that Mr. Trump’s only reaction was to call her an ‘over rated actress’ shows either man is living on Mars or is a total buffoon. You do not get over 127 acting awards and nominations in your career and remain ‘over rated’. Yes celebrities should speak of issues of social consciousness, they are icons of the young generation and if they do not have empathy for society then who will?

Sadly we must adjust to the new times where the new President will be twitting at all times of the night his outrage at reporters, world leaders and celebrities when they ‘dare’ to criticize him. What is bloodcurdling is that in a democracy to wear a skin that thin and then to sit in the White House as the most powerful man and tweet your temper out portends a mindset of immaturity or intolerance, or perhaps both. We must this week take time and listen to President Obama’s speech and Meryl Streep’s speech a few times and absorb the message of each word, each sentence a little more deeply. Sadly we know that such oratory will not will coming from the White House after January 20^th, so Meryl its all up to you.

A Trump Presidency: a possible perspective.

In but a few days Donald J Trump will put his hand on the Bible and take the oath to the highest office in the United States and become, undoubtedly, the most powerful man on the Earth. It would do no good to wonder how this all happened, and no it is not a dream you are in, this is reality. In time the election itself will be dissected and analysed in a million ways, and that is fine, but for the moment as history will etch the new Presidents name it will beg the question of what sort of Presidency should we expect from a man who evoked only two emotions; of die hard loyalty or pure hate. Indeed, you either loved the man and forgave him his sins with bucketfuls of sanitising votes or you loath the man and wonder how a man so low in character can occupy an office so high in expectations?

On the domestic side, and I am not expert on the pulse of the American people, not that many are these days, he will roll back on some of his earlier election promises. Here is the reason why? When he decided to run for office he had no choice but to make the most bizarre statements, (ala Mexicans, Muslims, China, whatever), as this gave him free air time. The media love a nasty story and he was out to make those nasty stories. With time as he emerged as the GOP candidate he did take a few mellowing steps to his earlier statements, but by no means humbling ones. So I believe while the tax cuts and perhaps suspending Obama care or modifying it will happen rather rapidly, the Mexican wall might be a subject which will be bounced about a lot but building the wall may not happen as easily not because of funding issues only, but become of the many government departments that have to get involved in the process. The promised trade wars may not break out immediately, but I do expect skirmishes as a trigger happy President may be itching for a fight far more than his advisors.

On the economic side as much as lower taxes are promised to expand the economy, its effects will come in slowly, prompting the government to go out and borrow more to fund not only the current expenditure but also the promised spending by Mr Trump. Will the trade off between lower taxes and higher growth happen within a reasonable time table? My honest opinion is that the lag time to get the tax benefit to work its way into the economy could take 3 odd years and that too if everything goes to plan. The joker in the pack will be the position on international trade only because in a codependent economic world slapping on import tariffs will mean higher consumer prices till domestic production of those goods catches up, and we assume the domestic production will be at the same price as in say China.

On the international front, politically speaking, the going is going to be tough. First of all Trumps position of NATO will need to be spelled out more clearly, and a failure to carry NATO partners with him might well mean the whole web of US security arrangements around the world will get untangled at worse or frayed at the edges at best. The power gap this will leave in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and perhaps the Far East will be filled by both Russia and China. The Middle East will be the region most effected given the current conflicts going on there and the need to keep the allies together to deal with the threat of ISIS and others. Yes Russia can deal with those threats too, but it will be at the expense of further destabilising the region and the not necessary in a manner that will help the cause of the US. The more delicate issue for Mr Trump will be how he handles Eastern Europe and specifically the Crimea situation. Given he has not made any substantive remarks on this during the election or since winning the election, I would assume the Crimea's annexation by the Russians will be sadly put aside and Putin and Trump try and work out a new working relationship.

From a more holistic perspective the Trump Presidency will have enough drama to keep us occupied and at times amused, yet it is clear the man does not have the class, the manners or the depth of intellect to catch out attention when he speaks. We may or may not agree with President Obama but we have to agree what a fine orator he is and when he spoke it was almost mesmerising to hear him hold the floor. This is a trait Mr Trump cannot buy, borrow and steal and we may have to be 'bigly' disappointed in this respect. The test for many of us will be to see if the man who ridiculed a disabled reporter can have the humility to change and more importantly to hear him apologise with sincerity within the first few days in office? Personally I doubt he can become humble, that bone just was not put in by the factory.

For America's sake, and perhaps for the sake of the world at large, I do pray Mr Trump will reach deep down within himself and see that he has to rise to the occasion and this position cannot be moulded to suit him, he has to fit the position. Cleaning swamps, building walls, dismantling alliances which are decades old, and redefining the world trade map are all fine and illustrious goals to some, but Presidencies are made by the legacy of values they create, the mantle of empathy and patience and maturity that come out of that office. This is the litmus test to which Mr Trump has to be measured as much as he is to be measured by the successes of jobs, GDP growth and America's standing in the world.

President D J Trump: what next?

Martin Luther King once said that the riot was the language of the unheard; on November 8th in the US Presidential elections it was the vote which became the language of the unheard. From the Clinton perspective not enough of their unheard (the Latin Americans and the African Americans) spoke up in the key battlegrounds states. From the Trump perspective enough of the disfranchised unheard white working class vote spoke up in states like Michigan, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio came to be heard. To some extent this was largely an emotional vote for Trump with the emotions of the unemployed who bought into the hyperbole that Trump threw out enough to drown the concerns about his temperament, character and indeed the lack of policy.

Irrespective of the opinion of what went wrong from the Clinton camp, this is now the moment where the impossible has become the possible. So what next.

The saner view will be that both Democrats and Republicans have to go with the honeymoon of the Trump Presidency; long enough for everyone to feel he is being given a chance. Putting aside his asinine views on immigration, the wall, Muslims and Nato, the bottomline is that his main promise was to restore jobs to Americans and that is the promise he will be held up to. Someone once said that if your promise too much then you have to deliver to the expectation more earnestly than even the expectation. it will be interesting to see if the Trump economic agenda will be able to achieve this because in itself it has dichotomies that pose not challenges but obstacles. While the higher tax bracket people will have the immediate benefit the question remains open how soon will that trickle down to more business investment and more jobs.

Lacking previous experience in public office the main challenge will be to give up a maverick style of  administration and try and build a good team will be one of the most telling challenges for Trump. His personality suggests that the maverick style, which brings to mind questions about his temperament, may well be on exhibition than anything else. On a broader platform his acceptance speech talked of healing, but now he has to convince people that he will not only speak for the white working class but will truly speak to all of America. This may mean a roll back of the rhetoric Trump espoused during the campaign and may well be the most pressing change in the man.

  The hope for many of his supporters who would have grudgingly supported him will be that his domestic agenda will not only be tempered to fit the mood of healing but also have the tools to deliver on it. On the international front is where the biggest concern will emerge. If sense prevails he may well choose a worthy secretary of state and meddle less with foreign policy than he has so far commented upon.

For the cynics, of which I may well be one, the biggest concern will be his character. Does a man who has been sexist and racist suddenly change on becoming the President? As President Obama said the office itself brings out the man you truly are; its not a reality show role, this is the real stuff and what troubles me most is that not once, even in passing reference, has Mr Trump apologised for his comments about Muslims. His apology about his Access Hollywood remarks about women was only an apology that he regretted it he said those words but then washed it off as locker room talk thereby skirting away from categorically apologising to women. For me the big test will be with the man will mature from the locker room to the White House. This is the litmus test of the man, does he truly respect another human being.