IN last year’s campaign for the US presidential elections, the Democrats’ Hillary Clinton threw a powerful power to all voters.
She asked, “Imagine, if you can dare imagine... him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”
Then she recalled what the late US president John F. Kennedy’s wife Jackie had said. “What worried President Kennedy during that very dangerous time was that a war might be started--not by big men with self-control and restraint, but by little men, the ones moved by fear and pride.”
Clinton reminded voters about Trump’s losing his cool so easily--at the slightest provocation, when given a tough question by a reporter, when challenged in a debate, over protest rallies.
Behaviors from the likes of little men moved by fear and pride.
So when US President Donald Trump recently ordered a military attack on the base in western Syria from which the chemical weapons were launched, the world--including the Americans themselves--were stunned.
Was this a one-time offensive, or was it a signal of the worst to come? Was the attack triggered by the swell of sympathy for the chemical weapons victims, many of whom were children and babies?
Was he moved by moods and whims, or was he guided by any fixed philosophy? If the latter, how then to reconcile his military attack because the chemical weapons victimized babies, and his strict travel ban on them.
New York Times pointedly asked, “The babies prompt outrage and heartache when they’re writhing in Syria, but God forbid they come here?”
Americans and the rest of the free world had waited long for some disciplining move on Bashar al-Assad’s cruel attacks on his own people. They had found Barack Obama’s restraint infuriating, and even a sign of weakness.
When Trump did what Obama could not do in his eight years at the help, Trump earned adulation and support from other world leaders and their people.
That did not stop them, however, from expressing concern about Trump’s next moves, most especially because of his unusual background--no government experience, no military service, and a queer mix of handpicks for political positions and advisers known for their controversial stands and track records.
Unto Trump’s head must as well be thrown the roles of chief of state, chief executive, chief diplomat, chief legislator and commander in chief.
And such other roles as world leader, protector of the peace, manager of prosperity, voice of the people, and chief of his party.
Roles for which, researchers contend, there is no existing orientation book or step-by-step guidance for incoming or wannabe presidents.
In his “On Becoming President of the United States,” writer Robert Denton Jr. cites Richard Nixon as the worst-case scenario.
Despite his over 20 years of political experience, Nixon committed such gross leadership blunder as Watergate, which triggered his resignation in light of inevitable impeachment.