Think Donald Trump is bad now? He's about to get even worse
As Donald Trump’s popularity continues to fall, concern is growing that US President could try to rig the mid-term elections
After flying over the spectacular and beautiful island of Greenland, then traveling via New York and Chicago to Tulsa, Oklahoma, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding about the future of the United States, a country in crisis that is seeking to take on the world in what should be a year of celebration.
Donald Trump has ended the first year of his second term and should be looking forward to his 80th birthday in June, America’s 250th anniversary in July and the mid-term elections in November.
Instead, he faces a multi-dimensional nightmare of his own creation, featuring tariffs and threats of war with Nato allies, the brutal assaults of ICE officers on the streets of American cities, rising criticism from Republican voters angry about the cost-of-living crisis and unhappy with his foreign policy, immigration and the economy. Trump is experiencing the highest levels of unpopularity of any post-war president at this point in office.
Trump’s sycophantic Cabinet
Of little comfort to his supporters is his growing remoteness, vanity politics and authoritarianism where no opinions or advice are sought as he relies on his own judgment. This self-preoccupation precludes concern about party or people.
The ‘dear leader’ sycophants in his Cabinet are rarely consulted. Trump runs America like a company, not a country, with his interpretation of its balance sheet being the driving force for his commodified approach to politics. The Financial Times has described this as “resource imperialism”.
An unchained president with nothing to lose in three years’ time could literally do anything he wishes as constitutional checks and balances seemingly disappear.
We have seen the President defend the shocking death of Renee Good in Minneapolis at the hands of ICE, this rampaging, mask-wearing, gun-toting force that sweeps people off the streets without any just cause other than to fulfil deportation targets. Joe Rogan, a Trump supporter and the most popular American podcaster, said: “Are we really going to be the Gestapo?”
Americans opposed to annexing Greenland
Trump’s acceptance of Venezuelan politician Maria Coruna Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize medal saw this great global institution humiliated in public. This was followed by the US President telling Norway’s Prime Minister that, as he had not received the prize formally, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace”.
His demands to make Greenland part of the US, his refusal, until his speech in Davos today, to rule out military force, and threats to impose new tariffs on EU countries and the UK who oppose him on this issue are outrageous and unprecedented. They also serve as a reminder that the worst of President Trump may yet be ahead of us.
Some polling in the US suggests that up to 90 per cent of Americans oppose the move on Greenland. It is of profound concern that a world already faced with real challenges is now having to deal with such fantasy politics. America versus the world would be dangerous and divisive.
With the midterm elections now in full view, questions remain over the compliant nature of the Republican party and how long they will remain a wholly owned subsidiary of the president.
No limits on Trump’s power?
Trump is worried about the elections, but only because losing control of the House of Representatives would be a constraint on his more extreme ambitions. In a rambling speech to the Republican Caucus on Capitol Hill, he said: ”I wish you could explain to me what the hell's going on with the mind of the public. Because we have the right policy. They [the Democrats] don't. They have a horrible policy.”
Sadly, once again, the Grand Old Party seems content to remain little more than a useful prop.
Clearly Trump thinks there are few, if any, limits on his power. In an interview with the New York Times, he admitted to just one: “My own morality. My own mind. It is the only thing that can stop me.”
In an attempt to set the record straight on Trump’s power, his influential Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper, said: “You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”
However, one man's vanity must not rule the world and, in the process, wreck Nato and relations between the US, the UK and the European Union.
American democracy at risk
There is, however, arguably an even bigger issue on the horizon. If Trump's approval rating continues to sink further, will the president take steps to abandon the mid-term elections, rig the results or refuse to accept the outcome?
His doubling down on unpopular policies defies logic. Is there any rationale behind recent decisions? There is a sense that the president’s fear of elections could result in some emergency being declared, the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries being intensified or voter suppression being stepped up in Republican-controlled states. He may start by sowing doubts about the legitimacy of the results.
In any normal democracy, all this would be classed as ridiculous speculation, but not in America where the country is accelerating towards authoritarianism. The storming of the US Capitol in January 2021 is not historical fiction, and, in many off-the-cuff remarks, Trump has mused about elections not really being necessary.
Whatever happens in the next few months in the United States, Europe must start to look at its strongest ally in a markedly different light.
Henry McLeish is a former First Minister of Scotland who served as Labour MP and MSP for Central Fife and a visiting professor at the University of South Florida
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