President Trump’s performance in Helsinki on Monday was less than optimum. Now, before I get accused of Swamp residence, as I live thirty miles from DC in a place that approaches dry land, I state this as a strong supporter of the president who fervently wants to see him succeed. But if we refrain from respectfully criticizing the president when he is wrong, then we become like a Khmer Bleu automaton—my latest leftist insult, replaced by “Bolshie scum,” which was getting a bit dated—who thinks the only thing Obama did wrong was peacefully leave office.
Thus in this case, the president screwed up. He scored a minor own goal for his enemies because he got understandably fed up with the meritless and relentless hammering he endures day in and day out. Let’s hope their basic screeching idiocy keeps it minor. Let’s hope they don’t remember that revenge is a dish best served cold. The bigger hope is that in the end the president gets, as Tom Hagen understood, it’s all business.
I come to this conclusion as a former US Army intel analyst during the Cold War in Germany. In fact, Putin was serving in Soviet intel on the other side of the then-German border at the same time. But I see this more, given my time in the game, as a GOP campaign operative and media gunslinger for over twenty years in the Mid-Atlantic states.
The problem is that the president is taking the witch-hunt (and it is a witch-hunt) personally, and it is clouding his operational effectiveness. To a point this is only natural, as the Left’s various indictments against him are so absurd he has more than enough reason for apoplexy. If anything, on many fronts like energy, Syria, and Ukraine, the president has aggressively challenged the Russians. But letting this cognitive dissonance get to him personally is giving the Left the advantage because his obvious irritation made him look defensive and evasive at the press conference in Helsinki.
He’s got to be careful not to fall into the Nixon trap. Richard Nixon had been hated by the press for twenty years before he became president. He, like Trump, did something the Left hates the most: he brutally defeated and humiliated one of the icons of their establishment. For Nixon it was Alger Hiss. For Trump, it was Hillary Clinton. Leftist lust for payback is reminiscent of Ahab to Moby Dick: “To the last, I grapple with thee. From Hell’s heart I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.” I think Khan used that line in referring to “Ahdmeerahl Kaark” as well.
But I digress.
When facing that kind of irrational hatred there are several logical responses. The best is to use it for your own ends. Nixon did the opposite. He internalized the hate and acted out of that vast resentment, thus playing the exact game his opponents set up for him. They baited him until he went too far and turned a botched burglary, easily dealt with by chopping heads and changing the subject, into a constitutional crisis. He was paranoid and they gave him reason to be.
President Trump has not done that. Up to now, he has brilliantly channeled the hysteria of his opponents into political capital. Perhaps that was his intention here. If so, he was too clever for himself as he got caught in his own trap. You’ve got to make sure the reward is worth the risk. Here, he clearly miscalculated. He gave the Left the opportunity (not his intention) to portray him as a lapdog to Vladimir Putin. Is he? Of course not. But reality means little in this game. As I used to tell political clients, “If I can convince enough people that the sky is powder blue at midnight on the US east coast, then it is effectively powder blue and I can exploit that false perception to our benefit.”
Putin knows this well, old Intel dog that he is, and probably used it with the president, using vague parallels to his own internal dissent, thus making common cause and bonding with Trump. He set him up with an old trick: confirmation bias. He used the confirmation of Trump’s personal feelings to leverage an advantage in business.
The president hates the leftist press, right? Vlad opines, “So why not go out there, Donald Fyodorivich (close enough) and give the nekulturny swine what for, eh?”
But hate does not suffice when tactics and strategy are paramount. His response should have been, “Sound counsel, Vladimir Vladimirovich. There will be time for that. But to continue my policy of maskirovka in regards to our mutual enemies on the pre-adolescent Left, I will need to extract a bit of rhetorical flesh from you today. Nothing painful, you understand. Just several turns of phrases that will signal to the gullible that we are having a personal spat. You may respond in kind. They will have a meaningless victory and we can go on to do business.”
As intelligence officer Putin would recognize the political jujitsu and how it could be mutually beneficial, he’d bite, thus proving the inherent negotiation superiority of an American business mogul over even the best of Chekists. Jack Donaghy, call your office.
Is it conspiring with the Russian leader against the American press? Damn right it is, and justifiably so, as the vast majority of the US press actively seeks to injure American interests…as long as it hurts Trump. It is a sad day when this is the case, but here we are.
Where to from here?
Expect Dems to wrap themselves in fake patriotism and excoriate the president for not standing up to Putin. Never Trumpers will follow suit. Expect to see this in media cycles during the midterms. They may even make a negative comparison between Reagan and Trump in facing the Russians, trying to make sideways points from the right. This will sting the GOP but not bleed much. Many will remember that the main reason the Dems loathe the Russians now is because they are no longer communists. Or maybe some have forgotten the Dear Commandante Letter.
The president will recover and go on to more triumphs, especially with Kavanaugh, between now and November.
But from now until then, and as long as he is president, he would do well to remember the permanently parting words of Salvatore Tessio to Tom Hagen: “Tell Mike it was only business.”
Respectfully, Mr. President, it always is.
