The words “I told you so” are never particularly welcome, nor does it do to be smug when a prediction turns out to be correct. But it would be fair to say that after the last couple of weeks, those who thought the hysteria over a possible President Trump was overdone are feeling somewhat vindicated.
Just over a year ago in these pages I wrote a column titled “Why Donald Trump as president might not be all that bad”. It was greeted with incredulity by some who could not entertain the thought of the real estate mogul being the Republican candidate, let alone sitting in the Oval Office. But several things struck me about Mr Trump that – if one could look beyond the cartoonish antics – pointed to a man whose actions were likely to be far less alarming than feared, should he win the White House.
The populist bluster was not just bluster; Mr Trump was clearly connecting with the disparate fears and resentments of a large section of the American electorate. But that connection was more about emotion than a fully formed policy programme, which meant Mr Trump was never bound to be tied to specific promises in the way that a more conventional candidate would have been.
Moreover, Mr Trump has never been an ideologue. As a transactional, pragmatic dealmaker, even such prejudices that he possessed were likely to be brushed aside if that enabled him to score one of the “wins” he is so fond of talking about. It seemed improbable that any kind of extremism would be his guide if it could not produce results. And lastly, no one who attains the presidency – least of all someone with Mr Trump’s colossal vanity – would want to be seen as a failure. Success for Mr Trump as a president would always be an imperative.
And so we come to recent weeks, when we have seen the sidelining of the fiercely ideological Stephen Bannon, and a pragmatic reversal of all sorts of positions by Mr Trump, which have led to him being congratulated by Sen Lindsey Graham, lauded by the tax hawk Grover Norquist, and his White House described by the former Republican assistant secretary of state Elliot Abrams as “looking more now like a more conventional Republican administration”. Continued Mr Abrams: “To me that’s a very good thing.”
So what exactly has Mr Trump done? He has decided that Nato is no longer “obsolete”; that China is not manipulating its currency any more; that it’s not worth continuing to pick a fight with the Mexicans (in fact “we’re doing very nicely with Mexico”); that Janet Yellen should probably stay on as head of the Federal Reserve; and that the US Export-Import bank might serve a useful purpose after all.
In at least two cases the shift is a case of the reality television star finally joining the reality the rest of us live in. Nato has been trying to press members to pay more for their own defence, and the organisation has been active in counter-terrorism, for years now; these are not moves spurred by campaign criticism by the new president. And contrary to what Mr Trump believes, China has actually recently been trying to prop up its currency, not devalue it.
What is interesting, however, is that Mr Trump changed his position on East Asia security and China’s role as a participant in good faith after meeting president Xi Jinping, and that he also took a newly favourable view of the Ex-Im bank after looking into it properly.
It is surely encouraging that Mr Trump is showing himself willing firstly, to accept facts about which he previously took a decidedly unconventional view and, secondly, to learn and to change his mind when the facts do too.
At this point some may cavil that I am setting the bar too low: these are matters with which Mr Trump should not have needed to be acquainted. But it was always obvious that having never held any elected office, nor command in the armed forces, Mr Trump was probably the least formally qualified person to become president in the history of the United States.
The people, through the electoral college, elevated him to that office nevertheless. He was not an unknown quantity, nor was his ignorance of foreign affairs – and much else – a secret. It’s good now that he has shown himself able to make up for those shortcomings, and lean decisively towards a group of able and experienced men in Gen McMaster and Gen Mattis, secretary Tillerson, and economic adviser Gary Cohn, as well as prefer the counsel of his more moderate son-in-law Jared Kushner over the headstrong Mr Bannon, is good news.
It is not, however, as I have argued above, and argued last year, entirely unexpected.
There has been something masochistic about the frenzy of outrage some have clung to for months now. One suspects that they could not quite bear it if Mr Trump fails to self-destruct and instead scores sufficient successes to be reelected in 2020, which is distinctly possible. His presidency will never be “normal” for sure. But apart from the theatrics and the tweeting, it might come close.
As of the moment, Mr Trump is showing every sign of being willing to learn, of being pragmatic, even of being sensible. The last in particular, is too much for those who assume he must have an inner Dr Strangelove just waiting to visit calamity on us all. If Mr Trump disappoints them, there has to come a point when his critics stop being up in arms about his being president. For their own health, I’d suggest that point might be now.
Sholto Byrnes is a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia
