If anyone thought Trump’s campaign rhetoric was overblown bluff, the last week should have disabused them of that notion.
The man-child that they now call Mr President has been issuing executive orders at a blistering pace.
The only trouble is, there is no plan behind any of them.
Many of them appear to be unconstitutional, others illegal, others a green light for wealthy mates to transfer public money to private pockets without oversight, and others that are just not feasible.
Some, like the ban on people from certain countries entering the US, were enacted with no warning causing total chaos for people in transit and immigration and airline employees. A judge has already put a stay on that one for those who were in transit.
One example of the human face of this decision – Seyed Soheil Saeedi Saravi, by all accounts a brilliant young scientist from Iran, was due to travel to Boston to take up a fellowship to study cardiovascular medicine at Harvard – but his and his wife’s visas were suspended indefinitely.
Trump did not suspend entry for citizens from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Turkey – perhaps because he has multimillion-dollar business operations in all those countries.
Donald says he can build the wall because that is his expertise – construction. He can get it done. I would hazard a guess that Donald has never actually constructed anything in his life or even considered the logistics involved beyond paying for it, and even that he is unreliable about.
His idea of putting a 20% tariff on Mexican imports shows he has absolutely no understanding of the trade between the two countries and that it would be American consumers paying for it and American jobs that are reliant on that trade lost.
And where will the wall be built when the border is the Rio Grande? Will he block off access for American farmers to the river?
He has signed an order for the joint chiefs of staff to submit a plan in 30 days for defeating Islamic State. If it was that easy I think it would already have been tried. How will Americans feel about committing ground troops and how will they tell who are the terrorists?
He still wants to know what’s the point of having nuclear weapons if you don’t use them.
Trump apparently thinks that, by wiping all mention of climate change from the US government web site and placing gag orders on government departments, that he can make the problem go away. Approvals are to be fast-tracked, objections ignored, full steam ahead on two pipelines. This has prompted scientists to take the unprecedented move of organising to march on Washington.
There are many threats in the orders, for example the threat to border sanctuary towns which have many illegal immigrants – do as I say, deport them or I take away your funding.
The language of these proclamations and orders is unsophisticated. They read like the Christmas demands of an over-indulged child.
Don’t tell me there’s no such thing as a pink unicorn. Get me one or you’re fired.
Donald is very used to barking orders at people and, when things go wrong, walking away leaving disaster in his wake.
We are about to witness that on a grand scale.
