You have never heard so much BS from so many supposedly knowledgeable writers. Why would anyone think that Donald Trump’s grandstanding in the Indianapolis Carrier plant was a win? It was a farce that cannot survive an Indiana winter.
For President-Elect Donald Trump to show up at that plant with his Vice-President Elect in tow was nothing but hokum. He is reported to have threatened the management of the plant if the production there is moved to Mexico. He is reported to have told them that he would impose exorbitant tariffs on their products coming back to the U.S. if the plant is moved. That would be a serious breach of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
You would think that VP-Elect Mike Pence would know that. You would also want to believe that somebody told Mr. Trump that. A smart lawyer could probably convince a judge that the plant management thought the President-Elect was kidding. No harm, no foul.
But Trump cannot keep doing that. He would be interfering with the free trade agreement as well as making an ass of himself. And he is hardly going to keep threatening big business. Business people know that they just might be the only possible beneficiaries of the Trump Presidency. We know he is no fan of people. He uses women and fires men. A shrink might question whether he even likes himself. We know he has one hell of an ego but he has to look in the mirror as well.
The more serious challenge at this time is that big business supports free trade. Free trade contributes growth and profits and will continue to be an anchor of business support for the politicians. Business expects that Trump will come to them for advice and they will now be hoping he comes earlier than later.
What we writers will have to do is set up a tally board to record President Trump’s goofs. They will need to be graded in some fashion as not all goofs are the same. We could measure them, for example, on a scale of one to ten. That way a small goof based on his vanity that did not much harm to the economy would be a two or three. A cataclysmic boo-boo that cost thousands of jobs for Americans would rate an eight or nine. Going to war, as did George W. Bush, would earn a ten. We could get the same people as keep track of the Doomsday Clock to keep track of Mr. Trump’s boo-boos. There are going to be a lot of them.
We should all hope there are no number tens!
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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