I remember the day after Trump’s election, wandering the rainy streets of Manhattan in a daze. I went to a Broadway matinée, and it seemed the entire audience was numb like me. It was a dark day, and four years seemed an awful long time to endure.
Well, we are now at three and a half years, and somehow it hasn’t been as bad as I feared. There is not about to be a world war. The EU is still together, apart from recalcitrant Britain, and is somewhat more united. The Paris agreement has held, most of the world’s citizenry want to go further, and even US cities are busy undermining the federal government on climate. The Washington Post and the New York Times are stronger than ever. The Supreme Court has wobbled but is still credible. Congress is as dysfunctional as ever, but the number of Trump style semi-fascist thugs in positions of power is rather small. There is popular anger between ethnicities, but it has remained largely peaceful and even informed. I can still write my blog without much fear of deportation.
Perhaps I am setting the bar too low, but on the dark day in November 2016 I truly wondered what might occur in these four long years. What we must accept is that they have been years of regression and lost opportunities. An enlightened administration might have led a decisive global climate movement, or started to reverse the lurch towards inequality that underpins public distrust. I believe China would have been open to a fair deal with an honest broker, ceding some domestic liberalisation and respect for human rights and fair business practices in return for more of a seat at the table in global affairs. In 2016, despite the stalemate in congress, there was gentle momentum towards a fairer world, but that vanished overnight.
I expected a neutralisation of Trump after the midterms. I thought there would be a grand deal in quiet corridors that would restore some competence to government while allowing Trump his ego and some harmless playing fields. That is what would have happened in the UK, led by the civil service and supported by other institutions like the military and colleges and judges and CEO’s and Bushes and Romneys. Key to that would have been senior Republicans in congress, fed up with holding their nose, aware that the eventual backlash might sweep them away and with the national interest at heart. But the silent establishment coup did not happen.
In the absence of any backbone among Republicans, our saviour has been sheer incompetence. This lot could not organise a piss up in a brewery. There is no inner circle with a strategy, only a rotating cast of lackeys fighting fires and watching their backs, achieving little of import. Most of their attempts to implement madness have been screwed up or abandoned before securing any traction.
Now we reach the last few months of Trump’s first term and perhaps the most dangerous phase of all. Re-election matters to every politician, but to Trump it is everything, for two basic reasons. Firstly, he clearly has no agenda nor aspiration for the country, only for himself, and power is the only antidote for such an ego. Secondly, as soon as he loses power he becomes vulnerable legally across many fronts, and he knows it. His support is wafer thin and entirely dependent on power, so those silent Republicans will join everybody else in seeking vengeance once his power has gone. Unless there is some grand bargain involving a pardon, he will spend most of the rest of his days in jail if he loses. That is one large motivation to win at all costs.
So we have a leader whose ego needs him to win and whose personal security needs him to win, and one whose absence of probity will stop at nothing in the quest to win. Worse, any semblance of checks on his behaviour has long since disappeared: there will be no more impeachment, his base support is immune to any slur, and the remaining lackeys are locked in as well.
So, anything goes, and the more he looks like losing the more extreme will be the response. Watch out immigrants, and journalists, and Chinese, and health experts, and anybody else that might become fodder for the base. It will be open season between now and November. Watch out also technology companies, and election supervisors, and anyone else with responsibility for election fairness. Finally watch out for a disputed result and the civil unrest that might unleash. There is no such thing as a gracious loser when the stakes are this high and the morals this absent.
But there is a second reason to fear the coming months. US adversaries know of Trump’s position too, and will exploit it ruthlessly.
It is a well-observed part of the Putin playbook to create facts on the ground when the enemy cannot respond and before any negotiated settlement. We see this time and again in conflicts around the globe, from Syria to Ukraine to Libya. Wait until the other side needs a deal for political purposes, then attack to the limit and negotiate from the newly established position.
We are seeing this already around the world. It is no coincidence that North Korea is being belligerent again. Trump cannot condemn him without undermining his claims, so now is the time to take a risk. Expect Russia to be aggressive in the next few months, also because of domestic weakness. Modi will do the same in India, and Israel will probably choose these months to annex more of the West Bank. In each case, Trump’s hands are tied.
But nowadays the most important adversary is China, and the Chinese are master strategists who will have planned for this moment since Trump’s election. Chaguan has become one of the most interesting pages in The Economist lately, and an article last week posed the question as to whether the Chinese would like Trump or Biden to win in November. They can play Trump like a fiddle, but they also crave recognition and peaceful global development, which can only happen under Biden.
The Chinese will use the next months to be prepared whoever wins. Trump must claim that his bluster has led to success in controlling China, so they can push the limits now without fear of any backlash. We see this already in the South China Sea and Hong Kong, and pessimists might wonder if this could be a decisive moment regarding Taiwan. They are also ready to decouple from the US in technology, though they would rather not have to.
If Trump wins in November, China will bank the gains and prepare for four more adversarial years, with a key goal of separating the US from its allies and creating parallel institutions to those the US currently dominates, such as SWIFT. If Biden wins they will be ready for a sweeping global deal with many dimensions, but will have the best possible starting point for negotiations.
There is not much that most of us can do except watch this play out of the coming months, and pray that the damage continues to be limited. The last three and a half years have been scary enough, but the next six months are likely to make them seem rather mild. Buckle up.
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