Among the many promises made by Donald J. Trump when he was seeking to defeat Kamala Harris in the 2024 US Presidential polls was that he would end “forever wars”. These were wars that have lasted for years and which during the campaign were ongoing and still are. In a Truth Social post on September 5, Trump spoke of India and Russia moving closer to “deepest darkest China”. What he forgot to mention, or avoided mentioning, was his own role in Prime Minister Modi, President Putin and President Xi getting together in Tianjin, China.
In the case of Russia, President Trump has been the (and not backstage either) prime mover in the three (out of four) major powers being seen together in China. PM Modi made an implicit statement to President Trump through his personally attending the SCO Summit when it was held in China. This was that India would not allow itself to be bullied by Trump into making concessions that would severely impact ten and more million farmers and dairy producers.
Trump is seeking to force PM Modi to make concessions that are not simply politically but ethically ruinous. When his own niece Mary Trump wrote about her uncle as being totally without empathy for other human beings, she was dismissed by many as simply being a disgruntled relative of Trump. In hindsight, it is clear that Mary Trump was only speaking the truth.
Had he a shred of concern about the lives of millions of farmers who he is seeking to plunge into starvation by the impossible demands he was making on India through US Trade Representative Peter Navarro, he would have desisted from such a course. Instead, he and some of his Administration appointees let loose a farrago of abuse against India, and even against PM Modi, the elected Prime Minister of the largest democracy in the world for three terms and counting.
Soon after he once again assumed the trappings of Presidential power in the US for the second time, they began to get to him in a way that had been absent during his first term. Even then, he had shown symptoms of slipping into a world of alternate reality as distinct from the real world. Nothing else could explain his insistence that then Vice-President Mike Pence, a leader of conscience and conviction, refuse to accept the results of the delegate count in the election of the 46th US President, which gave the win to Joe Biden.
Now, in his second term, won, it must be said, by the grit and determination he showed while campaigning against then Vice-President Kamala Harris, Trump has once again revealed a disconnect with reality. For one, he is acting as though the US Government is a facsimile of the Trump Organisation, which he and his family control. It is unlikely that even the present US Supreme Court, which has six of the nine Justices who are conservative, would serve merely as a rubber stamp to the decisions taken in the White House.Trump is showing symptoms of slipping into a world of alternate reality as distinct from the
real world. He is acting as though US Government is a facsimile of the Trump Organisation.
More than one Justice is a believer in the primacy of the US Constitution, although they differ about the date from which they need to function in accordance with its dictates. However, even in the first iteration of the US Constitution over three hundred years ago, the framers never abided by the principle that an elected President is an elected dictator. Quite the opposite, for the founding framers of the Constitution began with the statement “We the people…ordain and bequeath to ourselves this Constitution”. Indeed, freedom of speech by the people was established in the Constitution. Freedom does not mean freedom to foment violence and hatred such as would harm the integrity of the country, but refers to dissent exhibited in a peaceful, democratic way. The people of the US treasure their freedom in the land of the “free and the brave” and will not allow their rights to be snatched away, even by the White House.
Hence it is not a surprise that the approval ratings of President Trump have slipped to levels not reached until the disastrous Presidential Biden-Trump debate, a debacle that caused Democrats to replace Biden with Harris as their 2024 Presidential candidate. Trump still won, as indeed he deserved to where his campaign and the promises made there by him are concerned. Or indeed, much of the Cabinet officials he chose.
Candidate Trump promised to end what he called the “forever wars” taking place during the Biden Presidency. Instead, they have gathered momentum. In what some Israelis term the “promised land” and Palestinians claim as their own, Trump has spoken of a copy of the French Riviera coming up along the Gaza coast, which is fantastical. No viable plan has been put forward for the two million residents of Gaza, nor is their relocation possible to the neighbouring countries, another of the alternate reality plans of Trump. Some EU members are pushing for a Palestinian state that will accept 200,000 Jewish citizens of Israel living in the state. The Palestinian Authority has accepted, on condition that some of their own people, who have left Jerusalem as a result of its complete takeover by Israel, should be allowed to return there. Jerusalem being the Bethlehem, the Mecca of the Jewish community, this would be politically impossible for any elected government in Israel. Meanwhile, Trump continues to peddle such fantasies on the assumption that the US is strong enough to enforce its will on Israel and its Arab neighbours, another fantasy.
In the Indian subcontinent, Trump declared himself to be the peacemaker between India and Pakistan in a border tussle of “thousands of years”. Pakistan was born in 1947 through the desire of the then British Empire to create a “loyal Muslim state”. India has almost as many Muslims as Pakistan, and many have distinguished themselves in various fields in a manner absent in Pakistan. Far from being the peacemaker between India and Pakistan, President Trump further energized hotheads such as Asim Munir, who was his dinner guest not long ago. The coddling of a Chinese satellite, Pakistan and the war he has unleashed between himself and India have not brought peace between the two. Indeed, he has energized the hotheads in the Pakistan army to launch yet another terror attack on India after Pahalgam, thus ending the pause that Prime Minister Modi decided upon in Operation Sindoor. Should another Pakistan-sponsored terror attack take place in India, President Trump merits much of the blame.
Now that he is unable to stop the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts, President Trump has created a diversion by threatening a kinetic attack on Venezuela. As a consequence, another “forever war” may spring up. Where he will let his military loose next is unclear, but given his need to create diversion upon diversion, such an outcome is not beyond the realm of the possible. Unless that is, President Trump shakes off his dystopian phase and returns to his earlier pragmatism. Those around President Trump, his inner circle of family and friends, need to intercede with him so that he reverts to the course he took during the initial phase of his Presidency.
His latest comment, surprisingly friendly, about PM Modi met with an equally warm reciprocal post by the PM. Such an exchange would indicate that there remains a chance that Trump would revert to his earlier self. It needs in such a context to be remembered that Trump finally ceased talking incessantly of the “stolen” election that Biden won and focused on matters at hand. India is a partner, not an adversary in the manner China is. As for Russia, Trump would make history were he to co-opt Russia as a friend of the US including by getting some in the EU give up their suicidal effort (financially for themselves and in terms of human lives and territory lost for Ukraine) to defeat Russia on the battlefield. And that he seek to make the India-US partnership stronger rather than take a wrecking ball to it. There would be a collective sigh of relief among MAGA enthusiasts were such a transformation to happen, given that his current tariff policies towards friends and allies of the US is bringing closer the risk of a recession in the US.
