President Tough Love Melts the Snow

Trump’s first couple of weeks in office have been very interesting.

I don’t really follow the news any more, but I’ve noticed a few things. Trump is doing stuff he promised to do, and that is making heads explode all over the world.

This morning I realized that the single thing that makes Trump a revolutionary president is this: he is the first president elected in my lifetime…who didn’t owe anything to special interests. That’s incredible!

You can say I’m wrong, and that this faction or that faction helped him. That’s not what I’m talking about. No one gets elected without support. Trump got help from various groups, but unlike every other president elected in (at least) the last 50 years, he was not the CREATION and SERVANT of any particular group, except for his bona fide grassroots fan base.

Democrats serve large corporations, unions, minority blocs, women, and various fringe-nut groups. Republicans serve wealthy donors and a certain percentage of corporations liberals are trying to destroy. Trump serves millions of nuts in red hats. I don’t mean “nut” in a bad way; I’m just describing their enthusiasm.

I also realized Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. Do I mean he understands foreign policy or the ins and outs of his job? No. I mean that when he acts like a loose cannon, it’s very deliberate. He’s using negotiating skills he learned from multiplying a $1 million seed loan by 9,000. He is being the same aggressive businessman he has always been, and even if he’s a nasty guy on a personal level, his aggression is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. It’s just good business.

Americans have a sick tendency to treat business contacts like family members. We talk about “offense” and “feelings.” That’s not healthy at all. Business is hardball. Attorneys use the term “arm’s length” to describe the way businesspeople treat each other. You try to do what’s right, and you avoid breaking the law, but other than that, you look after your own interest, and you expect the other party to look after his. This may not be a great strategy in the Christian world, in interpersonal dealings, but in secular business, it’s normal and correct.

Why is Trump offending foreign leaders and other poobahs who are used to being treated like snowflakes? Because unlike them, he’s a businessman. He has spent his life getting things done, not trying to get elected and collecting poorly disguisded bribes. Unlike government employees around the world (like Obama, who has never had a real job), Trump knows what it’s like to wake up in the morning and know that if he doesn’t hustle, he can lose everything he has and end up selling cars for a living.

Trump is hungry. Most government employees are not. They are parasites, and they’re used to failing upward. Naturally, they expect deference and butt-kissing. The people Trump deals with in business don’t expect that, and Trump probably doesn’t know how to do it anyway.

Trump is giving world leaders a lesson in growing up.

People say he’s going to start a war. Really? Did the Ayatollah Khomeini start a war when he kidnapped and held Americans for 444 days? Did Kim Jong-Il start a war when he violated international agreements and built nuclear weapons? It’s pretty hard to start a war. Even Hitler had to take over half of Europe to really get other countries off their duffs and into uniform. I seriously doubt Trump has the ability to start a war except by large-scale military action. Tweeting and making blunt (truthful) remarks in phone calls will not do it.

People say other countries will be less likely to cooperate with us and help us. Seriously? Like they help us now? Are we going to lose all the aid the Saudis send us? Are the Japanese going to stop funding our military? Are Mexicans going to stop sending us unvetted people they can’t feed? Trump understands something the rest of us have forgotten: we have a very powerful negotiating position. Suddenly, we’re using it, and Trump is the only one who isn’t upset.

This is how he got rich. He wasn’t born a billionaire. This isn’t a charm offensive, intended to butter up nations that don’t respect us and don’t do anything for us. It’s business. Trump isn’t doing anything new. He’s doing what he has done for fifty years, in a different office.

Trump won’t start a war, but he will get us better deals. He doesn’t care what rich people or selfish voting blocs think, because they didn’t do a thing for him, and they can’t give him orders. He will be motivated by egotism, the joy of the game, and a desire to make America more powerful. I never thought I’d see someone like that occupying the Oval Office.

Is this a good thing? I don’t think it matters. His policies, not his manners, are what will determine whether America prospers on his watch. Making stupid decisions politely will kill a country just as quickly as making stupid decisions rudely. Obama used to go on apology tours, criticizing America and bowing to sleazy tinpot leaders in silly nations that cause problems. It wasn’t helpful at all. We lost respect all over the world. He attacked business and caused a dramatic upturn in the pathological entitlement mentality of the unproductive and irresponsible. If the Fed hadn’t inflated our currency, we would still be in a recession, and we will eventually have to eat the bill for that inflation. We cannibalized ourselves. You can’t gain weight by eating your own flesh.

I hope Trump will make good decisions. He probably will, because he is dynamic and extremely capable. His big obstacle will be pride. If he can manage to change direction when needed, admitting error, he’ll be a great president. If not, well, at least he saved us from a socialist federal judiciary, and he slowed down America’s slide into all-out, open, state-sponsored persecution of Christians and Jews. I suppose our lives are worth something.

I don’t care if he offends people. He’s not a game show host. He’s a president. Obama offended me and my kind a thousand times. No one seems to think that matters. If leftists hate listening to Trump and living under his rule, all I can say is, welcome to my world. I got over it, and so will they.

America is a snowflake nation, and because we’re snowflakes, we can’t even see it. Electing Trump is like rolling a car window down while driving on a freezing day. The shock will do us good.