This hip shooting and pugilistic president of the United States has not much to lose, but for the assurance of a second term. That he would win the first time was itself something that he himself was surprised at, but playing the contrarian party spoiler has been his penchant from the start and perhaps that is what he had set out to do by standing for the post.
Today, in politics or any public position - with social media granted freedom of speech sans all accountability, with novices making expert comments on subjects they do not know a whit about, with rumors running the round robin at the speed of light - being thick skinned is an essential pre-requisite. And Trump has it in abundance.
Trump recently was in Scotland accompanied by his wife as well as his constant consort - controversy - which this time was about a date. Trump claims he predicted the Brexit one day in advance of the vote that the Englanders cast in favor of it. But dates don’t lie. The Guardian chose to call it Trump’s “towering lie”. But the English are still grateful to American Presidents for standing by them in their times of need, but they are even more grateful to Trump for not affectionately whacking the queen on her butt or brushing dandruff off her shoulder. While the cowboyishness is fine, the English take the queen as a relic of their colonial past and wish to preserve the aura of that institution.
I have, in my personal travels to US not met a single person who admits having voted for Trump, but some sure did, and foisted Trump to the presidency. But one thing is clear. With a dyed in the wool Red State Alabama glossing over a Republican to elect a democrat is not an aberration but a presage of what holds in the times to come. While one could argue that it was not Doug Jones the Democrat winning, but the teen sex scandal stigmatized Roy Moore, a Republican losing. Yet, undeniably, Alabama the most Red state voted for a democrat against Moore who had Trump’s support and backing does not augur well for the Trump.
The summit at Helsinki has triggered a spate of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) victims. The twitterati have admonished Trump as a “traitor”. That is harsh, unless proven otherwise. But surely, right from his accession, there has existed a constituency that nurses a consistent and smoldering desire for his impeachment. The growing factionalism in the Republicans not withstanding, I think, impeachment, due to the sheer Republican numbers is a foregone conclusion, at least till the party is willing to throw its lot behind Trump, yet a censure for sure seems more likely. How the party fairs in the mid-terms in November will also decide how the party treats Trump going forward.
But regardless, the one thing that can be undeniably said is that Trump is the most unpresidential president that United States has so far had.
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