Trump, Chieftain of Spite
It
must be cold and miserable standing in the shadow of someone greater
and smarter, more loved and more admired. It must be infuriating to have
risen on the wings of your derision of that person’s every decision,
and even his very existence, and yet not be able to measure up — in
either stratagem or efficacy — when you sit where that person once sat.
This
is the existence of Donald Trump in the wake of President Barack Obama.
Trump can’t hold a candle to Obama, so he’s taking a tiki torch to
Obama’s legacy. Trump can’t get his bad ideas through Congress, but he
can use the power of the presidency to sabotage or even sink Obama’s
signature deeds.
In
fact, if there is a defining feature of Trump as “resident,” it is
that he is in all ways the anti-Obama — not only on policy but also on
matters of propriety and polish. While Obama was erudite, Trump is
ignorant. Obama was civil, Trump is churlish. Obama was tactful, Trump
is tacky.
There
is a thing present in Obama and absent from Trump that no amount of
money or power can alter: a sense of elegant intellectualism and taste.
The
example Obama set makes the big man with the big mouth look smaller by
the day. But I believe that this nonadjustable imbalance is part of what
has always fueled Trump’s rage against Obama.
Trump, who sees character
as just another malleable thing that can be marketed and made salable,
chafes at the black man who operated above the coarseness of commercial
interests and whose character appeared unassailable.
America
— even many of the people who were staunch opponents of Obama’s
policies — admired and even adored the sense of honor and decency he
brought to the office. Trump, on the other hand, is historically unpopular, and not just in America.
As The Pew Research Center
pointed out in June: “Trump and many of his key policies are broadly
unpopular around the globe, and ratings for the U.S. have declined
steeply in many nations.” Trump is reviled around the globe and
America’s reputation is going down with its captain.
All
of this feeds Trump’s consuming obsession with undoing everything Obama
did. It is his personal crusade, but he also carries the flag for the
millions of Americans — mostly all Republicans — who were reflexively
repulsed by Obama and the coalition that elected him.
Trump
has done nearly everything in his power to roll back Obama’s policies,
but none are as tempting a target as the one named after him: Obamacare.
Republicans
— including Trump — campaigned for years on a lie. They knew it was a
lie, but it was an enraging one that excited their base: Obama was
destroying America’s health care system, but Republicans could undo the
damage and replace it with their own, better bill.
First,
Obama wasn’t destroying America’s health care system. To the contrary,
he simply sought to make it cover more people. He moved to take American
health care in a more humane, modern and civilized direction, to make
it more universally accessible, even by the sick and poor who often took
its absence as a given.
Second,
the Republicans had no replacement plan that would cost less and cover
as many or more people. That could not be done. So, their
repeal-and-replace efforts failed. But that also meant that Trump’s
promise was proven a lie. Trump has no problem lying, but in the end he
wants his lies to look plausible.
Trump
makes assertions for which there is no evidence — either knowingly
lying, recklessly boasting or wishfully thinking — then seeks support
for those statements, support that is often lacking because the
statements are baseless.
He
violates a basic protocol of human communication: Be sure of it before
you say it. His way is to say something wrong, then bend reality to make
it appear right. This is why the age of Trump is so maddening and
stupefying: He is warping reality.
Last week he took more swipes at undermining the A.C.A.:
Asking his administration to find ways to increase competition among
insurers (a move many worry will move younger, healthier people out of
the marketplace) and stopping the so-called “cost-sharing reduction”
(CSR) payments — federal subsidies paid to insurance companies to help
finance coverage for low-income Americans (a move many believe will send
premiums soaring for those people).
Trump is doing this even though it will likely wreak havoc on countless lives. He is doing this even though a Kaiser Health Tracking Poll
released Friday found that most Americans want Trump and Congress to
stop trying to repeal the law, and instead work on legislation to
stabilize the marketplaces and guarantee health care to Americans.
Furthermore,
six in 10 Americans believe Congress should guarantee cost-sharing
reduction payments, as opposed to only a third who view these payments
as a “bailout of insurance companies,” as Trump has called them. There
is no real reason to cut these payments, other than to save face and
conceal the farce.
Trump
isn’t governing with a vision, he’s governing out of spite. Obama’s
effectiveness highlights Trump’s ineptitude, and this incenses Trump.
