For the next couple of months, there’s going to be a lot of writing about what Trump is going to do. Most of it will be based on extrapolation from various outrageous things he said during the campaign, and will be either gloomy or horrifying or both.
But I think that Trump’s past actions are a much better indicator than his words of what he may do as president. Why would I say that? Because, as was established very clearly both during the campaign and before it, Trump is a bare-faced liar.
What was his modus operandi as a development tycoon? He was famously willing to say anything, promise anything, to close the deals that he wanted. He would put his signature on the line promising things that later he would renege on, in favor of some alternative that better suited his purpose or his whim. He was criticized for this during the campaign, but shrugged it off. “That’s doing business.” “That’s called being smart.” He made similar comments shamelessly and not infrequently.
My take on this is that we know almost nothing about what Trump will try to do as president.
Now, I’m personally burdened with the weight of optimism. I’m an optimist. Therefore, I see Trump’s track record as a “promise ‘em anything to close the deal, then decide what you wanna do” businessman as a reason for a kind of relative optimism.
My relative optimism is not based on any belief that Trump will do anything good as president; it’s because I don’t know what he will do as president. I call it relative optimism because it is optimistic relative to the gloomy pessimism that so many people are experiencing based on Trump’s words. Since I don’t take him at his word—at all—I can’t buy into that pessimism. Therefore, I find myself in a relatively optimistic position.
His victory speech surprised many by its emphasis on infrastructure improvements and lack of mention of the Wall. A number of Democratic members of Congress have already responded positively to it (in part because they know that it is the opposite of what most congressional Republican leaders want to do, including Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell). Many people are confused by this apparent change of direction, and of course we can only go so far in relying on it (because after all, it’s just more words from a barefaced liar). It may be that the contents of that speech, along with the conciliatory and positive meeting he had with President Obama, as possible examples of his famous post-hoc rewriting of the deal.
The bottom line is that I believe it is premature to despair based on Trump’s words. The time to worry will be once he is in office and has actually done bad things, and the degree that those deeds are actually harmful should determine how worrisome they are. And even with Democrats in the minority, there are at least some ways that they, and the public at large, can influence what is actually done.
Most importantly, it is not clear that the Republicans will jettison the filibuster (or that they even can jettison it—it would take 51 votes to actually do it, and a number Republican senators will probably not vote to abandon it). And if the filibuster remains intact, and if Democrats remain unified against letting truly bad legislation come to a vote, it can be used to reduce the amount of damage enormously.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court will mitigate unconstitutional excesses. Yes, it is virtually certain that another Scalia will be on the court. But that doesn’t make things worse, it just puts them back more or less where they were before Scalia died. That’s galling, but it’s not a disaster. If no one else on the Court dies or resigns, I don’t see it becoming a rubber stamp for the Republicans.
And of course we, the public, can and must make our voices heard. Don’t let them quell you. Trump, the man who flips out over tweets, cares obsessively about his public image and can be influenced by what people are saying about him. We should never forget that.
Just my 2¢ worth.
Greg Shenaut