President Janus

Saying one thing on the campaign trail and doing the opposite after being elected is nothing new.  It has been going on ever since there were campaigns, nationally and internationally.  It doesn’t have to equate to lying or intent to deceive.  Bill Clinton, during a post-presidency interview, said that until he became president he didn’t realize how difficult it is to get things done at the federal level in Washington.

The current occupant of the Oval Office has taken it to another level.  As with the god in Roman mythology named Janus, He Who Must Not Be Named (HWMNBN) has since taking the oath of office displayed a disquieting tendency to go completely opposite to his statements on the campaign trail.  Here are some examples.

• During the campaign and as recently as this March, HWMNBN labeled NATO obsolete.  In a press conference on April 12 with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, he reversed course and said “I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete.”

• During the campaign and as recently as April 2, HWMNBN accused China of currency manipulation.  In November 2015, he wrote in an op-ed piece for the
  Wall Street Journal "On day one of a Trump administration, the U.S. Treasury Department will designate China a currency manipulator."  In his October 2016 “Contract with the American Voter”, he stated "I will direct the Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator." On April 12, he told the Wall Street Journal “China hasn’t been manipulating its currency for months.”

• In that Contract with the American Voter, he laid out his planned actions for his first 100 days in office.  A few days ago on April 21, he tweeted about “the ridiculous standard of the first 100 days”.

• In November 2015, HWMNBN said he knew Vladimir Putin “very well” and that he had a relationship with the Russian president.  In July 2016, he told George Stephanopoulos about Putin “I don’t have a relationship with him.  I didn’t meet him.  I haven’t spent time with him.”

• In 2013 and 2014, HWMNBN wrote multiple tweets stating “Do not attack Syria.”  On April 6, he authorized a missile attack on Syria.

• Regarding our military leaders, he did a flip-flop within the same November 2016 interview on 60 Minutes, hard to do even for him.  “We have some great generals. We have great generals.” which was followed within a minute or so with "Well, I’ll be honest with you, I probably do [know more about ISIS than the generals do] because look at the job they’ve done. Okay? Look at the job they’ve done. They haven’t done the job.”

• Again using his favorite form of communication, he tweeted about the Electoral College “The electoral college is a disaster for democracy.” (November 06, 2012).   “The Electoral College is actually genius in that it brings all states, including the smaller ones, into play.” is what he wrote on November 15, 2016.  As if that weren’t confusing enough, take this statement in the New York Times (November 22, 2016): “I'd rather do the popular vote, never a fan of the electoral college."

• He has stated that he doesn’t believe in climate change.  “We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement” is what he said in North Dakota on May 26, 2016.  In the New York Times on November 22, 2016, he commented on the Paris Agreement “I have an open mind to it."

Is flexibility and willingness to change one’s mind necessary for a president?  Yes but only up to a point.  Too much flexibility on important issues can be a dangerous thing because there can be a very fine line between flexible and impulsive.  The foolishness of many of his tweets shows that HWMNBN is impulsive, maybe dangerously so.  Kim Jong-un has made North Korea a menace to world security largely because he has proven to be very impulsive.  In the days of the Wild West, impulsive actions in dusty frontier towns often led to shootouts in saloons and on the streets.  In the current time of nuclear weapons, impulsive actions could lead to something much more serious.

~Posted by Exile in Medford, Oregon