A weak and paranoid president leads rapidly to a weak and paranoid government

A weak and paranoid president leads rapidly to a weak and paranoid government
Richard Wolffe

Donald Trump and his dishonesty seep everywhere in Washington, and it is taking a toll on America’s claim to moral leadership – and harming its economy

Thursday 6 April 2017 13.59 EDT
Last modified on Thursday 6 April 2017 17.22 EDT


In Donald Trump’s Washington, the first casualty is truth. His dishonesty seeps across the city until it poisons what’s left of anyone’s reputation. Congressional leaders, administration officials, ethics lawyers, America’s moral leadership: it has taken less than three months to undermine them all.

snip//

The Trump effect is already leading to 40% of colleges reporting fewer applications from international students, depriving the US of one of its greatest resources – the best of the world’s brainpower.

And analysts estimate that Trump has cost the US travel industry more than $185m in lost business since the start of his presidency. Which more than outweighs all that Oval Office bluster about job creation.

It turns out that a weak and paranoid president leads very rapidly to a weak and paranoid government. It also turns out there’s a difference between playing the role of a business exec on reality TV and actually knowing something about the economy.

Tourism and academia can rebound, once Trump abandons his follies or simply leaves office. It will take far longer to restore trust in the principles of American leadership.

Truth-telling used to be so easy for previous occupants of the White House that honesty was itself a forceful measure of American influence. Behind that truth-telling lay the implicit power of the world’s greatest armed forces, the world’s biggest and most expert diplomatic corps, and the world’s richest economy.

So when a foreign tyrant engaged in mass murder using chemical weapons that threaten global security, it used to be a simple response for any presidential staff: tell the truth, with moral clarity.

Instead, we have a White House that witnesses the horror of a chemical attack on Syrian civilians and contrives first to condemn its predecessors more than the perpetrators. With as many as 100 dead and the smell of toxic chemicals lingering in the air of northern Syria, the White House laid the blame on Barack Obama.

more...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/06/donald-trump-weak-paranoid-president-government?CMP=fb_us