There's nothing wrong with being a hard bargainer, with trying to win the best advantage for your side in a negotiation. If that were all Trump was doing by turning the country's back on treaties and agreements — NAFTA, NATO (sometimes), the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty — his actions would be defensible, if still regrettable.
However, that's not what Trump is about.
He wants to ride the populist wave he rode into office for as long and as far as he can because that's how he keeps his power base. As long as he holds the Republican Party in his grip, he keeps his own grip on the White House. If Republican lawmakers in Congress were to find that they could defy him and keep their seats, Trump would be out of office faster than you could say "impeachment". Those lawmakers would much rather put the drama behind them under a Pence presidency.
So Trump upends the status quo and vilifies anybody he doesn't like because that all delights his supporters. They like that he's manifestly enraging his opponents with his every word and deed. They also like that he's giving them plenty of people to hate and despise: Democrats, liberals, illegal immigrants, Latin Americans fleeing violence in their homelands, women who object to being treated as second-class citizens, non-heterosexuals, African Americans ... frankly, the list is too long to enumerate. His opponents, meanwhile, have tried to turn the popular discomfort with him — and yes, the rage at him — to their own advantage: thus the midterms.
All this rage, though, isn't good for us.
We can reject policies without vilifying one another.
We can disagree without despising one another.
In the end, living in rage and fear (fear is another emotion Trump has great success fostering) isn't just bad for our health, it's contrary to who we are as a nation. As a nation we're about looking forward.
Trump is all about looking backwards. For him, making America great again means resurrecting an America of an indeterminate past age, back when everything was just fine — for men like Trump. That everything wasn't "just fine" for a lot of others doesn't matter to him. And he has convinced more than forty percent of the voting population that it doesn't matter to them, either.
No matter what he says, though, Trump can't turn the clock back. He can't change the actual state of the world, or even of the country.
He can, however, repeat the mistake made by those who let him become president.
That mistake: ignoring those who disagreed with them in favor of rhetoric that sounded good.
That was the mistake made by two generations of D.C. politicians in both parties. They sang paeans to the free market, all while ignoring the costs to working people. The job market became a crapshoot, with all the ugly consequences that come with betting against the house. And make no mistake, employers are the house, and the rest of us are the gamblers.
White nationalists are Trump's most loyal supporters but it was economic uncertainty and fear that motivated everybody else who voted for him in 2016.
Stoking rage and fear among his own supporters gives them (and him) a temporary emotional high, but it doesn't do anything to fix the broken economic system that prompted the fear. Those among his supporters who aren't virulent white nationalists, then, will see no help from him.
Meanwhile, as long as his opponents drum up support by vilifying him and/or his supporters, they, too, offer no help to fix the broken economic system that got us into this polarized mess.
Trump will be defeated (electorally) by someone who offers an alternative vision of our national future — one that appeals to our desire to look forward. That's especially true right now because so many of us want to look anywhere but right here, because right here and right now are so ugly thanks to Trump.
Until that person comes along, we can lay the groundwork by rejecting Trump's all too sure talent for fomenting rage. Whether you support or oppose him, just stop letting him wind you up. It'll be better for you, and better for the country.
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