Trump's end game? A dead end.

According to the White House's press secretary, Sean Spicer, America has already begun its slip into the abysmal slope of a yawning dictatorship.

Roughly two months ago, Spicer mused that full media access to the office of the U.S. presidency is "what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship." Spicer defended the Trump campaign's barring of certain media outlets from access, while pointedly noting: "Look, there’s a big difference between a campaign where it is a private venue using private funds and a government entity. I think we have a respect for the press when it comes to the government. That is something you can’t ban an entity from."

But, of course, "you can." And Spicer has.

His boss, meanwhile, at CPAC, lectured the nation that the press "shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name." Observes the NY Times, one of Spicer's banned media outlets: Trump's "comments came shortly after his own aides had held a briefing for the White House press pool on the condition of anonymity." Such is the sick, twisted, ad hoc logic of a dictatorial regime.  

Added Trump in somewhat martial language, the press is "the enemy of the people." He went on. "We’re going to do something about it." They did — and with more to come, no doubt.

In his artificially constructed war against the press, Trump's end game is both vastly perplexing and stupendously obvious. He's a minority-elected president with a base destined to dwindle, as his administration's incompetence becomes apparent to the minority's periphery (all, that is, but Trump's hardcore base). Some observers have speculated that Trump's incompetence will in fact never become apparent to the fringe's fringe, because of the right's infamous bubble, "epistemic closure" and echo chambers. It should be noted with indefatigable persistence, however, that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh et al — the echo chamber's usual suspects — do not possess 63 million (Trump's 2016 tally) viewers and listeners. Thus in time — six months, 12 or 18 — Trump's electoral base will narrow to its more natural order: perhaps the high 30-percent range, approximately 10 points lower than the 46 with which he was elected.

Hence the stupendously obvious. Having rejected moderation (and anything close to a national consensus) as a governing principle, Trump must maintain flamboyant levels of hysteria among his minority base. The press is the enemy, as are — and this is the more critical point — all those who credit the press with credibility. The president will rule as a besieged dictator would — a ruler necessarily antagonistic to the majority. From a democratic perspective, a philosophical and profoundly anti-democratic perversity is well on its way to defining the Trump administration.

And yet therein lies the vast perplexity of his end game. Trump's heated intensification of a minority power base is doomed as both a governing principle and reelection proposition. It will, as well, alienate his tentative congressional allies. Trump is deliberately closing off all supportive avenues, except that of the 30-some-odd percent. One suspects that Trump's pathological narcissism has him convinced that the nation will come around to his dictatorial approach to governance — but that, as any conscientious survey of the American political tradition would suggest, is, indisputably, an absolute dead end.

Our perplexity is resolved, then, only by this singular proposition: Donald Trump is barking mad — utterly, even psychotically out of touch with political reality.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

You might be exaggerating the size of his natural base. At least once it has been Trumped. These are, after all, the same type of suckers who attended Trump University. Or watched his television show and imagined that was how a business is run. To be honest I doubt Trump expected to win. If he didn't know before that he could not deliver on any of his campaign promises it is certainly being explained to him now. His war on the media looks anticipatory to me. He is trying to shoot the messengers before the bad news has even occurred.

[Anne J]

Trump's end game always has been and always will be the personal enrichment of Trump. He's biting the very generous hand of the media that gave him billions in free publicity throughout the campaign right at shoulder. And just because many outlets have been uninvited to the daily Trump fluff up parties doesn't mean they won't report on him. They will have to relearn investigative journalism, and they will have to regain their credibility. This is partly their fault. They helped the Bush Cheney gang sell a war that killed thousands of people and became literally unwatchable by airing every Trump hate rally. They spent years trashing his opponent, and made vague speculations about her email server like it was the crime of the century (and then begrudgingly adding at the end that" no wrongdoing was found") while reporting on him bragging about sexual assault like it was just more celebrity gossip. Shutting out the ones that brung him to the dance hurts him more than it hurts them. If he or one of his asshole surrogates claims that 3-5 million people voted illegally for Hillary Clinton, they can not only relentlessly press for proof, but maybe could follow up by asking why the winner of the presidential election is so upset about not winning Miss Congeniality as well. Same with the "paid protesters" line. Dig into them deeper. Who's paying them? How much? Why is somebody all of a sudden paying people to protest? If it's the truth, it can be proven.

Am I the only one who noticed that the guy who gossips like a nosey neighbor by prefacing his lies with "I'm hearing", "People are saying", and "I'm not saying it, but a lot of people are saying", has a problem with anonymous sources? He is so in love with the sound of his own voice that he does himself in with his own words. And the tweets! Don't forget those. He does half of the media's job for them with his words and actions and the words and actions of his sociopathic administration. If the media keeps digging in with hard facts, and people learn to trust their own eyes and ears again, maybe the recording device can still prove mightier than the nuclear arsenal.

[Anne J]

Well he did just announce he won't be going to the White House Correspondents' dinner.

[Tony]

Good observation in that last paragraph. I believe the psychoanalytic term for this behavior is "projection". It is when a person accuses others of the bad behavior that he himself is most guilty of. I once had a relative who was very *good* at this. Trump accuses the press of "fake news" when he himself is most guilty of this. (Sweden just had a terrorist attack??!)

The election of Tom Perez as chairman of the DNC gives me some hope of future Democratic Party competence.

One final item today. I recently bought a book titled "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free". I have started reading it. But I decided to investigate the author Charles P. Pierce. I found out that he currently blogs politically at Esquire magazine. I read a few of his articles, and readers here might find them insightful.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/

[sue 76]

I read Charlie almost every day. He is out there as in attending speeches, etc. and has been for a number of years. I recommend his article of last week, "The President Works for Us."

[Tony]

Yes, the article you recommended is outstanding. As is the article just before it:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a53269/trump-florida-rally-lies/

Titled "Our President* Spent His Saturday Lying To Our Faces", here is the last paragraph:

"It's the other thing—the "fake news" conjuring words—that is really perilous. That is a tactic that breaks down the idea of an educated, informed citizenry that was assumed by the Founders to be the basis of American self-government. Because of that, there are consequences to believing nonsense in this country that are far more serious than they are anywhere else. Couple the delusions in the Heartland with a president* that is more than willing to populate those delusions with monsters from his own id and you no longer have a functioning democratic republic. You have an incompetent, incoherent East Germany, with golden commodes and a $200,000 annual membership fee."

[David & Son of Duff]

I have been 'boring for Britain' on this blog for some considerable time - sorry and all that! - to try and find out, through the non-stop wailing and gnashing of teeth and flailing fury, what will be the future direction of the Democratic party given that you just lost an 'un-losable' election! Answers came there none!

However, today there appears to be a hefty clue in the election of Perez over Ellison as Chairman of the Party. Alas, I have never heard of either of them so I rely on you, the, er, insiders, to wise me up on the significance (if any) of the result. I must just confess to a snigger that some things never change as exampled by Saunders backing the losing candidate!

[The Dark Avenger]

I suggest you wait a few hours, LPOWS, by then Breitbart/Fox/et al will tell you what you think think of them, and then you can dutifully copy it for all of us to ignore, as usual.

Good luck on Bretix:

"The British pound vs. American dollar had been trading above water as the ongoing political uncertainty in the US linked to Trump's Agenda seems to favor risk-on trades. Furthermore, there is evidence to be 'cautiously optimistic' no matter how friendly negotiations between the EU and PM May could develop as different businesses in the UK are facing immediate pressure, for example as Ben Chapman at Independent reported when quoting Ufi Ibrahim, chief executive of the British Hospitality Associations, “People don’t want to pack up their lives and move to the UK if they could end up having to go back again very soon. It’s not only waiters and bartenders who are put off. Even top chefs are turning down jobs in London."

https://www.fxstreet.com/news/gbp-usd-muted-near-12560-targeting-critical-support-near-100-dma-201702241442

Is the last quote the kind of fake news that Trump is targeting over here? Is Mr. Ibrahim secretly a Labor operative?

[David & Son of Duff]

So, DA, nothing useful to say about the future development of the Dem party - why am I not surprised?

By the way, I was slightly surprised to read the other day that we have a handsome trade surplus with the USA, as opposed to the trade deficit with the EU. So what's not to like about Brexit?!

[The Dark Avenger]

You wouldn't listen if I did, WLPOS.

As for the trade surplus, saving you, this is what you face:

This means that British consumers and producers will have to bear the entire brunt of devaluation: their import consumption will be rationed through a sharp rise in price inflation, with no offsetting gain for exports. This is by no means merely a theoretical proposition. In 2008-09, when the rest of the world was on the verge of deflation, the UK was enduring an inflationary recession, with GDP contracting at a top rate of 6.1% annually, while inflation reached some 5.1%. This occurred because sterling fell more than 21%, peak to trough, from 2007 to 2008.

Moreover, although the current-account deficit narrowed to around 1.7% of GDP in 2011, the improvement was only temporary. After 2011, it started to widen once more, even though the pound never clawed back its losses. In economics jargon, the UK seems to be suffering from an extreme variant of the Houthakker-Magee effect – named after two economists who discovered in 1969 that price elasticities for imports and exports could diverge substantially, giving rise to a permanent tendency towards current-account imbalance.

The reason appears to be the massive contraction of the UK manufacturing sector – from about 28% of gross value added in 1978 to less than 10% today. As the economist Nicholas Kaldor pointed out long ago, because manufacturing has higher returns to scale than services, manufacturing exporters tend to beat service exporters.
In addition, structural reforms since the mid-1990s have ensured that British exporters are deeply integrated within global supply chains. As a result, many of Britain’s exports require imported inputs; so when sterling depreciates and import prices rise, the knock-on effect on export prices renders them less competitive. The most recent OECD data show that the import content of UK exports is around 23%, compared with around 15% for US and Japanese exports.

For now, the UK is relying on capital inflows into the City of London to limit sterling’s fall. But, as the exchange rate collapse of 2008 showed, this source of foreign demand for sterling is highly unstable. When the worm inevitably turns and these flows reverse, both sterling and exports will take another hit.

The worst-case scenario would involve a sharp fall in the value of sterling, followed by sticky inflation that reinforced the rise in British export prices, fueling further currency depreciation. This doom loop would stop only when British consumers suffered a fall in real income of a magnitude not typically seen outside developing countries.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/21/why-pound-sterling-collapse-not-good-uk-economy-robert-skidelsky

[David & Son of Duff]

Yes I would listen if, and it seems to be a big 'IF' you had anything to say on the subject which apparently you do not.

Instead you bang on about the the fall in the value of the pound against the dollar which, of course, makes British exports to America even cheaper and will help our already large trade surplus grow even larger! I ask again, what's not to like about Brexit?

Not, I hasten to add, that Brexit was about trade, it was a tad more fundamental than that!

[The Dark Avenger]

The problem with your theory about exports, WLPOS, is that many of your exports require imports, which become more expensive as the pound goes down. If you expect to export your way out of the hole you've dug for yourselves' with Bretix, then I'm afraid you're in for a rather rude shock down the road.

[Anne J]

I enjoy watching him on "All in With Chris Hayes" Chris and Joy Reid are about all the MSNBC fare I can watch anymore.

[David & Son of Duff]

Some Economics 101 for you, DA, or perhaps just some 'Billy basic' business info.

If, because of a currency fluctuation, the imported components of a machine which, let us say, amount to a third of the manufacturing cost, goes up by 5%, but the price achieved for your completed machine also goes up 5%, then 5% of the total exceeds the 5% on imported parts.

Why do I suspect, DA, that you have never run so much as a whelk stall?

[The Dark Avenger]

Actually, David, I was selling magazine subscriptions to raise money for a school trip when at the same age you probably could barely define the terms and loss. Before that, I set up a mistletoe stand around the Christmas holiday to sell at a local market, and made money because my only cost was the plastics bags I sold them in, the product being rather abundant around here.

As for your Eco 101, keep dreaming on:

The reason appears to be the massive contraction of the UK manufacturing sector – from about 28% of gross value added in 1978 to less than 10% today.

..............

When sterling depreciates and import prices rise, the knock-on effect on import prices renders them less competitive.

But, of course, you know better than someone who has studied the subject for decades.

Your continued innumeracy is enlightening, WLPOS.

[David & Son of Duff]

Selling magazine subscriptions and mistletoe!

Yeeeeeeeeees, quite!

[The Dark Avenger]

Well, dear boy, a cursory look at St. Maggie of the Shopkeepers in the Wiki reveals that she never even ran a whelk d

[The Dark Avenger]

But keep asserting insult instead of ideas and logic, WPOLS. It makes you look so mature and quite the thinker.

[David & Son of Duff]

Obviously, DA, your reading skills seem to be in decline. From Wiki:

"She spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned two grocery shops. She and her older sister Muriel (1921–2004) were raised in the flat above the larger of the two, on North Parade.[3] In 1938 the Roberts family gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany.[4] Margaret described this in her memoirs as among the significant events of her formative years.[5]"

It is precisely because she well understood the nature of money and trade at the practical, as opposed to theoretical, level that made her such a great Prime Minister. Humble beginnings, bit like the late, great Harry Truman!

[The Dark Av]

She worked in a shop, she never ran/operated anything on her own. I thought that was the point of "running a whelk stand".

As it happens, I helped my father run the concession stand during the local athletic events at the college he taught at, when I was a young lad myself.

So if running a cash register is "running a whelk stall", then I am just as qualified as St. Maggie of the Shopkeepers, it would seem.

Thanks for helping out, WLPOS.

[The Dark Avener]

Funny you should say that, WLPOS, because unlike Maggie, Truman proved to be a horrible businessman, and at least didn't resort to bankruptcy to deal with his creditors when he closed his store.

So you're touting someone who demonstrated an inability to operate a whelk stand.

Good to know.

[David & Son of Duff]

DA, you are becoming even more confusing. If you are suggesting that Maggie's father went bankrupt to avoid his creditors then you need to check your facts, he did not, he sold the shops and retired.

Anyway, what do you think of this fella' Perez who has been appointed to steer the good ship 'Democrat' into harbour, er, unlike the last prat who steered it onto the rocks?

[The Dark Avenger]

Truman had a shop in the 20s that went bust, WLPOS, so by the whelk stall test he failed miserably, unlike Maggie's father.

Perez has a formidable task ahead of him, but the continued incompetence of the current Administrstion will make his official duty of fund-raising much easier than the complacency that plagued the DNC under Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. The fact that we had the numerical majority in the last election helps as well.