Will US contain unpredictable Donald Trump?

President Donald Trump. He has been attacking the media since he was elected. PHOTO | DON EMMERT | AFP

What you need to know:

  • The question is whether the Trump presidency will ever settle into normality.
  • There are too many controversies tied to this man, too many issues, too much baggage.
  • So far, the Republican Party establishment has shown remarkable restraint with Trump even as it clearly disagrees with his positions, especially his belittling of the intelligence services.
  • It is difficult to envision this restraint lasting, certainly not if he does not resort to behaving more normally.

I think it is fair to say the US has not experienced a more strange President-elect than Donald Trump. He vents his views on everything including policy through twitter and in such a carefree manner that Americans might as well start contemplating getting governed through social media. I can imagine the surprise from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was the first foreign leader to call on Trump at his residence after he got elected, when Trump’s daughter sat in on the semi-official meeting. Or the utter shock of the State Department and the Chinese government when Trump fielded a freelance phone call from the Taiwan leader and later intimated he might officially recognise the Taiwanese government, something totally anathema to Beijing.

And that was just the beginning. Trump is the first American leader who is coming into office badly at odds with his own government’s intelligence services, including the CIA. That is something unprecedented. He has been rubbishing intelligence reports that Russia hacked emails between the Democratic Party’s national committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, ostensibly meant to undermine her campaign and assist Trump. WikiLeaks, who released the hacked emails ahead of the November election, have denied the Russians availed them.

Up to a point, it is understandable why Trump would be furious with the intelligence services. In his mind, the link with the Russians casts doubt on his electoral win, though it is far from certain the email leaks contributed decisively to Clinton’s loss. Yet matters have been getting worse lately. The same intelligence services have since released a classified dossier, which they have shared with Trump and President Barack Obama, suggesting the Russians have in their possession highly compromising personal and financial information on Trump.

CALL GIRLS

There have been rumours that the dossier includes footage of romps with call girls during a Trump visit to Moscow in 2013. Oh my, even ardent admirers of Trump got shaken by that. An enraged Trump has dismissed the dossier as “fake news”. However, the dossier and the allegations it contains have been circulating in political and media circles in Washington DC since last year. The mainstream US media have refrained from publishing the dossier in full. But a website called Buzzfeed went ahead to do so last week.

Trump’s pronounced eccentricities are such that a growing cadre of analysts are beginning to wonder if he will last a full term as president. It is a measure of the endless controversy he is stoking so early even before he is inaugurated that it is no longer outlandish to think of impeachment in due course. Several of his high-profile cabinet nominees are already in the cross-hairs of various interest groups. His pick for Attorney- General, Senator Jeff Sessions, has been cited by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People for certain unacceptable civil rights transgressions in the past.

Then there is the Secretary of State-designate, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who has raised hackles for his perceived closeness with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s Defence Secretary nominee, General John Mattis, has been widely praised by senators conducting his vetting. But others who know his background think there is a case to be made for war crimes during his active duty in Iraq, and particularly in the razing of the city of Fallujah during the American occupation.

WILL SETTLE

All told, the question is whether the Trump presidency will ever settle into normality. There are too many controversies tied to this man, too many issues, too much baggage. There are issues about conflict of interest between his personal business and the office he will occupy. He is resisting putting his business interests under a blind trust. Against the advice of ethics officials, he has designated his sons to run his businesses, which might be okay if it wasn’t for the very real likelihood that Trump will feel the urge to keep getting his hand into the companies.

So far the Republican Party establishment has shown remarkable restraint with Trump even as it clearly disagrees with his positions, especially his belittling of the intelligence services. It is difficult to envision this restraint lasting, certainly not if the president-elect does not resort to behaving more normally. At the vetting stage, his cabinet nominees have all been careful to avoid repeating Trump’s more bizarre stances, raising hope that once in office they will pull their unpredictable boss in line.