TRUMP GASLIGHTS HIS CRITICS

Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight 1944

Abroad, Abu Ivanka al Amriki is loved by America’s friends, feared by our enemies.

But at home, Donald Trump is the Rodney Dangerfield of presidents. He “don’t get no respect” from critics Left and Right, or from many who claim to be his strongest supporters.

Mr. Trump is vulgar, reckless, impetuous, egotistical, ignorant, say his critics. He’s a naïf led down the primrose path by whoever talks to him last, some Trumpkins evidently believe.

So as a carrier task force steams toward North Korea, Topic A in the “mainstream” and conservative media is whether Steve Bannon is on his way out.

A favorite pastime for journalists is to gossip about who’s up and who’s down on the White House staff. Usually, it’s much ado about not much.

With rare exception, the direction of a presidency is determined by the intellect and character of the president – not by who whispers in his ear at any given time.

If Barack Hussein Obama had been served by the best and the brightest, he still would have done (or not done) pretty much what he did/didn’t do.

And because Zero is Zero, he wouldn’t choose the best to advise him. He’d choose Hillary, John Kerry, Susan Rice and ValJar.

That President Trump assembled the best national security team ever says much about his intellect and character. But most of his critics – and some supporters – won’t acknowledge this.

Trump “got Syria and China right,” grudgingly admits David Ignatius of the Washington Post.

Ignatius gives the credit to his national security team. But it was Trump who picked them, followed their advice, made the tough calls.

Accounts of their meeting indicate Trump’s handling of Chinese President Xi was masterful. He was friendly, charming, assertive, persuasive, willing to deal, but leaving Xi no doubt the United States is the world’s number one superpower, and would act like it.

Informing Xi between the entrée and dessert he’d just bombed Syria was a nice touch. This is a triumph that can’t be attributed to staff.

Critics on the left and right assume they’re smart, Mr. Trump isn’t. They should rethink that.

If Bannon said about my daughter and son-in-law what they say he said about Ivanka and Jared Kushner, he’d have been gone yesterday. But he isn’t – yet.

Could Bannon’s ego be so huge he thought he could win a micturation contest with Trump’s son in law? Maybe. But only idiots think he’s an idiot.

So I wonder if the Bannon/Kushner feud might be a ruse to gaslight the Lying Swine. While they’re running down rabbit holes, the president quietly is doing important things.

(Note:  “Gaslighting” is manipulating people’s sense of reality to their detriment.  It comes from the 1944 film Gaslight starring Ingrid Bergman and Charley Boyer.)

I criticized Candidate Trump. I support President Trump because I’ve paid more attention to what he’s done since the election than to what he said before it.

Trump flipped on four campaign “promises” Wednesday (4/12), noted the Lying Swine and #NeverTrump conservatives.

Smugly satisfied with playing “gotcha,” few analyzed why the president flipped.

He’s no longer attacking China on trade. Did the president offer China American coal so they don’t need to buy coal from North Korea? Sounds like a win-win to me. The (state controlled) Chinese media talk as if China and the U.S. are buddies now.

NATO is “no longer obsolete,” he said at a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Other NATO countries will spend 3.8 percent more – the biggest hike in decades – because of President Trump, Stoltenberg said.

Mr. Trump typically would begin a business negotiation by making a ridiculous initial offer. How many “flip flops” are due to applying that tactic to politics?

How often has the president changed his mind because he knows more now than when he was a candidate?

Did Mr. Trump say things he didn’t believe to get votes? How many politicians do you know who haven’t?

Donald Trump sometimes has exaggerated, trimmed, skirted, misstated, twisted the truth. It’s fair to criticize this.

But it’s past time for those who claim to be his supporters to recognize we have a president who has big brass Made in America balls, who isn’t a weathervane.

Mr. Trump has no fixed ideology. He’s conservative on some issues, liberal on others.  But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t think things through, plan ahead.

Nothing the president has done to date conflicts with his promise to put America first, with his goal of making America great again.

President Trump will do some things I won’t like. But I’m confident they will be what he wants to do – not what Steve Bannon or Jared Kushner or anyone else manipulated him into doing.

If it turns out the President/Bannon/Kushner have been gaslighting the Lying Swine, I’ll have even more respect for him. And I’ll be fascinated to see what shoe drops next.

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret, and was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration.  Until his retirement in January 2017, he was the national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.