Transitioning to Trump

Tomorrow marks one week since Donald Trump triumphed in the US election. I have been wrestling with writing this article for over a week now. I needed to process and rationalize, to the degree I could, the results of the election. I am seriously disappointed and bewildered with the American psyche. I suppose that is what I have been grappling with. This election has huge ramifications for our world village and global economy. I needed to understand what the impacts would be with respect to our client’s portfolios and its implication on the future direction of our professional advice. It has been partly tempered by the reaction of the world stock markets (except the bond market) which pre-supposes the level of indebtedness the US may incur to potentially pay for Donald’s promises. That said, I am still processing this it but I finally needed to capture my current contemplation.

Here’s the trigger. I knew it would come at some point. I was sitting in a coffee shop late last week beside my Waterloo office meeting with a client. Of course, with the US election having happened on November 8th, we knew we had to gradually bring the election results into our conversation. Nobody can avoid this topic it seems. Neither could we. It was on the tip of our tongues waiting for the first one to speak. Somebody had to bite first. I guess my client bit his tongue first. It was like sitting in the room with an elephant. Sorry, Republicans, no slant insinuated against your mascot. My client and I are left leaning but probably are best described as experiencing no Clinton love loss. Yes, the loss of the Democratic Party, but not so much their presidential nominee. 

Our lack of love for a Clinton presidency is not driven by the Democratic agenda. We mainly side with their politics, policies and priorities. What we do not side with is having Hillary elected as President. People sum it up like having to choose between the worse of two evils. While I feel that the doctrine surrounding the Democratic nominee has definite grounding in Republican generation and spin, Hillary had too many potential skeletons in her closet to convince us she was the better choice. One thing we do say is that Trump was certainly the worst of the two evils.

At least that’s how we felt pre-election. What surprised us in our new conversation was how we apparently lowered our resistance to Trump since he became President Elect. If you listened to his acceptance speech and his interview on CBS 60 Minutes last Sunday night, he seemed to speak from a more conciliatory and subdued perspective. We also thought that the reality of his win was starting to sink in especially after spending a day with President Obama. We don’t believe he grasped the size, complexity, and enormity of the job ahead until Obama laid it out for him.  

My client and I agreed that the test is in the Transition. We now need to re-evaluate Trump and judge him on his future actions and not the election rhetoric. Horrible things, nasty names and false promises were made during the election. We do think that the political elitist establishment is pre-eminent in Washington and that their agenda is driven by their relationships and entitlements not the need or will of the people. Someone said it right. The thing missing from the US election was “we the people.” Wall Street wealthy drive the Washington agenda and the American people are lost in translation. This election result was for “we the people.”

Trump’s stance is he did what he needed to do to get elected. Not to justify it by any means, but it seems to be where our elections are going today. They should involve intelligent discussion, debate, counter debate and promotion of policies so an educated electorate can make a reasonably informed decision. Not anymore. People are voting on emotion and both sides played to that card. Trump was the ultimate successor at that game.

So, that said, here is our message. Relax. It's not the end of the world. For those who remember, think back to the Democrats upset at the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter. Reagan, primarily known as an actor (and California governor), had defeated a deeply moral, religious and intelligent man. President Carter rode silently to Reagan's swearing in ceremony with him. Carter said that Reagan had no interest in discussing world politics with him. He seemed to have no understanding or interest in the rest of the world, Carter said. This was the man who would free Eastern Europe from 40 years of communism, and would end up, after his death, loved by both parties. Funny how things turned out.

 I know what a deeply flawed man Donald Trump is. He is a combination of supreme ignorance, supreme arrogance, and intolerance of any perceived offense or insult. In Jeb Bush's words, he has "insulted his way to the White House." Most believed it was something he could not do. And Trump just did it.

But my point is this is not the end of the world. To the people posting on Facebook stuff like "we just elected a Fascist as President!" I say relax. Trump will grow in the job. He must grow into that job. He has no choice. Further Trump needs to work within the constraints of that job and the Republican party he supposedly represents. He has no direct authority to do whatever the hell he wants. That’s where my friend and I believe that there will be, and should be, a difference between pre-election and post-election Trump. In some way, we hopefully are starting to see that already. He will deliver on some of his promises. He also must work with others to achieve anything, including deeply moral people in politics and business. Watch Paul Ryan as an example.

People are suggesting that the American electorate did not want a woman to become President. I suppose there is a small vein of that primitive mindset somewhere. This was not what this election was about. People didn't care in voting that Hillary Clinton was female. They are used to females in positions of power. Some of the world’s best and most pre-eminent world leaders are ladies. Theresa May in the UK and Angela Merkel in Germany. US citizens cared that Clinton was privileged so much so that she bragged about how foreign leaders were calling offering endorsement. Forget the emails and Benghazi. Think Clinton Foundation. Americans had enough with the political sense of entitlement. They see Trump as an alternative which is na?ve.

Hillary did not grasp the gravity of the American grievances which were stoked by the flames of Trump’s verbal tirades. She told a room full of coal miners in Western Pennsylvania that they would have to give up their coal mining jobs because of global warming. She suggested that they need to be retrain for high tech jobs. Guess what Hillary, they don't want to be retrained. Trump tapped into that and promised to give them their jobs and dignity back with an extreme and probably false offer of hope.

You want to know what this labelled “revolution” is about? As flawed a candidate as Trump is, he had his finger on the pulse. The polls were off because nobody wanted to admit that they were going to vote for him. But it is a populist revolt and a lot of people believed in Trump’s message: too much regulation, too much government. The whole thing is a bunch of guys getting rich in Washington and not paying attention to the people who elected them.

Rest assured, the US will continue and survive Trump. Their social and health programs are safe although they will go through some change. Remember that these populist “revolutions” are part of the US electoral process. They had one with Obama in November 2008 albeit with a much more professional, respected and credible choice to become Commander-in-Chief. Take the long view. This happens every eight or twelve years in America. People were nervous when an unknown Senator from Chicago was elected. Eight years have passed and everything turned out, in my opinion, for the better.

I admit though that I am much more worried about an incumbent President Elect who has serious character flaws and a perceived incapability of doing the job he was chosen to do. Well, at least by the Electoral College. He has certainly stoked some worrisome flames. But he also has exposed some very definite raw nerves in the American populace. He clearly has been swallowing his pride and starting to rationalize that he may have bitten off more then he can chew. Let’s see if Americans can spit him out at some point.