In six weeks, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, a reality that Donald Trump himself did not foresee before his election. In reaching that high office, Trump defied all predictions, all polls, even his own campaigners who, despite all the rabble-rousing rhetoric he used, and all cries of Make America Great Again, secretly believed he was not going to make it.
It is believed Trump was so unsure of his success that he did not even prepare a draft of his victory speech that evening. And yet he won. He won big by going way over the required 272 electoral votes (albeit he did not win a majority of popular votes). But now the reality begins.
Many predictions and speculations were made by pundits that Donald Trump will ditch his role as a demagogue, and stop his crowd-pleasing antics once elected as president. But he continues to disappoint them all. Since his election five weeks ago, Trump did not hold a press conference; in fact he has eschewed the press pool that usually follows a president-elect to important meetings by simply refusing it to follow him.
He is now on a victory tour visiting the swing states that voted him to presidency, and addressing rallies of his swooning supporters uttering the same promises and assurances that he made during his presidential campaign.
Hearing him at the rallies, one would think that Donald Trump is still on campaign mode. He is still cheering his followers with the threat of a border wall between US and Mexico, deporting all illegal immigrants, fighting terrorism by wiping out IS, imposing tariffs on Chinese imports -- populist slogans that brought millions to his rallies. He has yet to tell people what concrete steps or policies he has asked his new team to come up with to implement his promises now that he is president.
He has yet to realise that he has now a daunting task to make good on his promises.
There would have been still some room for optimism that candidate Donald Trump would morph into President Donald Trump if his unchanged rhetoric from campaign were the only cause of concern. This is not so.
The more disturbing part of Trump’s personality is his inconsistency and unpredictability. During his campaign in one of the debates, Trump had commented that he would like to be unpredictable. But that was during campaign where one could assume that he did not want to reveal ahead what his campaign strategy would be. No one thought that he would like to flash that side of his personality even after he became president. There are several instances of the dichotomy in his personality.
After his famous first meeting with President Obama after the elections, Trump commented that there are several good parts in Obama’s health care that he would like to retain. But in a victory rally days later, he again lambasted Obamacare repeating his assurance that he would repeal it in Toto.
On his famous wall with Mexico, he stated in a TV interview after elections that the wall need not be one solid structure from end to end of the border with Mexico, a part of it could be a fence (some of which already exists). But later he recanted it in a rally repeating to the crowd’s delight his vow to build that wall.
In his campaign, he delighted his core supporters with his promise to deport all 11 million of illegal immigrants. This he tamped down in his TV interview to deportation of only those convicted felons. But he would go back to his crowd-pleasing slogan of total deportation in his victory rallies.
He had threatened a complete ban on Muslim immigration to the US, and had suggested surveillance of Muslims in mosques in the US. This he changed to ban on entry of Muslims from terror-prone countries. Yet, in a phone call from Pakistani prime minister he termed Pakistan (which is high on terror list of the US) as a wonderful country, its people amazing, and he offered any assistance from US that Pakistan would want.
The most amazing thing about Donald Trump is his ability to survive the flip-flops that in an ordinary world would drown a politician into a political morass. But not Donald Trump. His supporters seem not be bothered by his inconsistencies
Contradicting his own statement is but only one of the concerns that Donald Trump poses. The other most disturbing and potentially risky part of his demeanor is disregard for facts, and reliance on unfiltered information.
On his own election, he commented in a cavalier fashion that he would have won the popular vote had there been no false voters in favour of the Democratic candidate without citing any evidence (fortunately, he did not repeat this assertion for long). He has repeatedly used figures and statistics that are drawn from questionable sources to support his theories of illegal migration, trade policies (NAFTA, TPP), climate change, and Iraq war, and on and on. Yet he is undaunted by criticism and has never gone back to correct his erroneous remarks (or Tweets, as he uses them often).
The irony is that while Donald Trump has shown scarce regard for facts, he has kept on chastising the press and the media for misstatement or in his words, falsehood. This is another act that the candidate Donald Trump loved to do and still likes to do. But his apparent dislike for press did not deter him to meet with the journalists of New York Times, a paper he holds in disdain. He may disparage the press, but he likes the coverage he gets. In maneuvering the press, he may prove to be more skilled than a seasoned politician.
The most amazing thing about Donald Trump, like his election to presidency, is his ability to survive the flip-flops that in an ordinary world would drown a politician into a political morass. But not Donald Trump. His supporters and people who voted him to presidency seem not be bothered by his inconsistencies. They seem to consider these as difference between being figurative and literal, an escape clause that Donald Trump would embrace.
In campaign, Donald Trump was a non-traditional candidate who defied all norms of campaign politics by discarding all political correctness. His utterances shocked people, even his own party establishment. But he stuck to his maverick style, called his adversaries names, and challenged anyone who crossed his path.
Many people expected he would change his style and demeanor after he won the elections. So far, he has not moved from his campaign personality. But there are only six more weeks after which he will occupy the office that even he did not think he would. Will he become presidential after January 20? The world is waiting to see.
Ziauddin Choudhury has worked in the higher civil service of Bangladesh early in his career, and later for the World Bank in the USA.
