Here’s why:
For many liberals, the ascendence of Donald Trump to the Presidency seems nothing short of apocalyptic, and while that may be objectively true from the point of view of the campaign, all bets are off going forward, especially given the abject failure of pollsters, pundits, and cultural prognosticators to see the Trump train steam into the station with such full force.
You’re all wrong: the Trump presidency will have negative consequences, but he will go down in history as just the character we need at this juncture, as cultural and economic shifts tectonic in scale, and an impending environmental catastrophe force their way into our lives and the national consciousness.
Trump is an angel because his ability to get anything done is in inverse proportion to the rancor with which he trumpets his message. Trump’s lack of resolve, expertise, and adequate support staff will fatally hamper his ability to carry out his so-called plans. Did Trump ever actually want to be President? Or did he slavishly crave the attention, controversy, and heady self-importance of huge rallies and omnipresent media coverage? One can imagine him watching porn in the Oval Office, eating Big Macs on Air Force One, and loving the ritual importance of motorcades and the Secret Service, but how long could this guy last during a policy briefing? His most important roles will be symbolic, and perhaps he will be transformed by the next level of celebrity his role of world leader will afford. Trump used to hang out with Steinbrenner’s good-time, Manhattan playboy crowd: he now seems to play grumpy because it was getting him elected, but why does he need to continue in this vein? Maybe he’ll be our garish and garrulous rock star cultural liaison, a sort of C.E.O. Elvis, who makes anyone with a shred of decency and education shudder from head to toe, but who is loved by the masses across the country and the globe. An elderly but virile, hetero Michael Jackson with an up-do and a spray tan. The perfect guy to throw out the first pitch or decamp at an international summit, supermodel wife and photogenic family in tow.
Clearly he will be leaving the nuts and bolts to a group of dubious provenance and expertise. Of all the aides, counselors, and surrogates who carried him across the finish line, many of them are utterly discredited and incompetent. How can Chris Christie be taken seriously after the stinging convictions of two of his aides in the “Bridgegate” affair? Rudy Giuliani? Newt Gingrich? Isn’t the populace as sick of those guys as they apparently are of the Clintons? They seem more suited to bloviating on Fox News, which they have in fact been doing for months. The three of them are attack dogs, and since the GOP controls two branches of government, whom do they need to attack, sidestepping for now the question of an impending civil war within the party itself. Kellyanne Conway, on the other hand, will be a formidable character in the Trump White House, no matter what her role. Luckily for all of us, she is utterly rational, competent, and while decidedly conservative, she is neither insane nor on the fringe.
Why would she support someone as abhorrent as Trump? Because she saw an opportunity, and has a will to power. The same can be said of Jared Kushner, The Donald’s son-in-law. After that we get into quite shady territory with Roger Ailes, and Steve Bannon. As effective as these men have been, I again see them as most useful in an attacking way, although I suppose the social media misinformation, fear mongering and personal attacks on the opposition they specialize in could be deployed for manipulative purposes, but it is going to be immensely interesting to follow the new administration’s relationship to the press. Continuing to blame and attack the free press surely has to backfire at some point: otherwise how can they get their basic messages out to those beyond the Breitbart alt-right fringe? Compared with the deep, experienced bench of advisors attached to the campaigns and administrations of all presidents in the modern era, Trump has no one. I know, I know, Trump says “Washington elites” are nothing more than “political hacks,” but where are the Ivy law graduates and well regarded economists on his team? Trading in misinformation, bombastic rhetoric, and personal attacks does not constitute a skill set of how to run a complex administration. Make no mistake: Trump’s business experience does not count here at all. A tax-dodging, get-rich-quick shyster is supposed to run something as prosaic as an actual bureaucracy? He thinks his ability to intimidate and dazzle the Atlantic City local government into building over-leveraged, insolvent casinos constitutes the same skill set needed to actually take on our international rivals. The Chinese for one, own a huge percentage of our debt and real estate, and they constitute a massive trade imbalance. Slap them with punitive tariffs? Wait for the revolt of the Walmart shoppers, who will no longer be able to buy unrealistically cheap goods with their poverty-level wages.
No matter how controversial and extreme some of Trump’s ideas are, many of them are non-starters in the Congress, the place where laws are actually made. It seems clear that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are in the driver’s seat now, not Trump. Let’s return to the specter of a civil war within the GOP itself, an almost certainty given the tenacity and vehemence of the #nevertrump movement among conservatives, combined with Trump’s obvious propensity to hold a grudge. Best case scenario: Congress rejects crazy Trump ideas like the wall, Trump goes to war with them over their budgets, and the GOP trips over its own elephant tail until 2018, when the Dems take over the Senate (an upwind sail, given the unfavorable map). Worst-case scenario: Ryan and McConnell call the shots, we get some extreme budget and tax cuts that will enrage liberals and hurt the country, but which can be undone when we come to our senses the next time around, and more later on why the county will absolutely go blue in 2020.
Another case for why Trump is an angel lies in the stark reality of how many rust belt Bernie supporters, independents, and Democrats either voted for Trump or sat this one out. I have always called for experienced, rational policy wonks to hold the job: people like Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton. I am now thoroughly convinced that in ours, the age of new media and the shiny symbol, someone like a Kennedy, Reagan, or Obama is the best fit. We need a person through which we can channel our aspirations, and although Trump has tapped into some of our basest desires, how is it different than the utter glee even far-left liberals felt when Obama “took out” Bin-Laden? Trump taps into our inner Kiefer Sutherland from “24” and Jason Bourne: the aggrieved action hero who swaggeringly breaks the rules for an ultimately greater cause: a Dirty Harry in the mean streets of international diplomacy and trade, who will take ISIS out to the woodshed and sell China that undercoating package and lifetime limited warranty they don't need.
Trump fulfilling the action-hero role is grotesque and terrifying, because as commander in chief, he has few checks on his power (See George W. Bush in the early 2000s). Yet, if we can somehow escape a nuclear winter for four years, the table is set for a young, charismatic, attractive, and capable Democratic Senator to step into the breach in 2020. The demographics were ripe in 2016 for a Democratic pickup: we just fielded the absolutely wrong candidate. Call it establishment backlash, sexism, racism, or what you will, but the voters decisively rejected her where it counted. In four years, the white male hegemony will be that much older, and that much smaller a percentage of the electorate. I looked at my fourth graders today and realized they will be voting two cycles from now! Get an eloquent, young, hopefully diverse candidate, and it's an easy sell. Do we really want to look at a smirking, overweight 74-year-old in 2020 and beyond when we can be looking at Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, or Kirsten Gillebrand?
The strongest case for Trump as savior to mankind, harbinger of peace and healing is his relentless assertion that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. The kind of incrementalism that is the front line in the battle against climate change favored by the Obama administration won’t do at all. We need a youth-based, radical, motivated, idealistic, and ideological movement to save this planet. Hardly enforceable international accords and vague promises from our rivals are too little, too late to stop the ravaging affects of the impending man-made climate apocalypse. Who better than Trump to galvanize the young and disaffected, the socially committed. Gut the E.P.A. Slash clean air and water regulations. Drill for shale, drill offshore, drill in the Arctic, build all the pipelines. Go ahead: let’s get all the cards out on the table. Anyone with sense can see that is the economy of the dying, while the new economies of sustainable energy, automation, virtual reality, genomics, and artificial intelligence are vital and ascendant. The people and the economy itself are going to rise up, and the foil and unlikely hero has come among us in the bloated visage of Donald J. Trump, who will force the issue with relentless energy and ignorance.
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