The importance of getting real

The importance of getting real

Trump has made being unpresidential his greatest asset. And he is loved for it.

That’s why they call me pit bull ’cause I’m the man of the land when they see me They say oooooh Who let the dogs out? — ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’, Baha Men “ I may be wrong, I mean, I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey I was wrong’,” said US President Donald Trump after his historic meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. Then he added, “I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

This was probably the most honest statement Donald Trump has made in a long time.

The pundits are divided on what really happened. Many feel Trump turned out to be the Apprentice here, outfoxed by young Kim who got way more than he gave up. The State-run North Korean media says that Trump will eventually lift sanctions and has promised to end joint military drills with South Korea, drills Trump called “provocative (causing anger or another strong reaction, especially deliberately)” . North Korea only talked vaguely about “complete denuclearisation” without any real timeframe.

But, really, this is not about peace on the Korean peninsula. Trump’s ardent America First followers at home do not care about Korea. But they care about Trump getting to play “nice and handsome” world diplomat and getting his personal Nixon-goes-to-China moment.

Trump was regarded by many folks as an accidental president who had blundered his way into the White House, one who would soon trip over his own ego. But like him or mock him, he is changing our idea of a politician. The North Korea meet is proof of that.

His goal has always been to give the public what they secretly craved: a politician who would appear unscripted, a what-you-see-is-what-you-get man. Barack Obama was the carefully calibrated politician, with a picture-perfect family, always striking the right note, not a word out of place. Trump is Mr Combover with a messy family life and trigger-happy on Twitter at 3 am. Somehow, he has sold that as being real, even though it’s a script like any other.

Apoplectically Apologetic

He has made being unpresidential his greatest asset. He has no qualms (an uneasy feeling of doubt, worry, or fear, especially about one's own conduct; a misgiving) about insulting old allies like Canada. He upends the G7 and ignites trade wars. His followers love him for it. Because, finally, here’s a White man unapologetically throwing America’s weight around. They are not reading op-eds that analyse what trade wars will really mean. They like the turbulence (a state of conflict or confusion).

Trump who once threatened to annihilate (destroy utterly) North Korea now calls Kim a “talented man who loves his country very much” and says it’s an “honour to meet him”. It sounds much like George W Bush looking into the eyes of Vladimir Putin and seeing his “trustworthy” soul. And we all know how that turned out.

Liberals who are apoplectic that a dictator accused of mass-scale human rights violations against his own people be so feted would do well to remember that previous US presidents have done pretty much the same to equally brutal dictators whether in South America or Africa or West Asia. Former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld famously cozied up to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Uganda’s Idi Aminsent a telegram to Richard Nixon wishing him a “quick recovery from Watergate”. Obama dropped everything for Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah’s funeral.

The real issue is that other US presidents were paying lip service to democratic ideals while hugging dictators. Trump makes no bones about the fact that he likes his despots (a ruler or other person who holds absolute power, typically one who exercises it in a cruel or oppressive way) because of their authoritarianism. Kim might have gulags, but he’s a “tough guy” and a “smart guy”. The crudeness of President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines does not deter Trump, and Duterte crooned ‘You are the light in my world’ for him at a dinner in Manila for leaders from across Asia.

This is a lesson that leaders across the world must be absorbing. When Narendra Modi came to power, he was seen as the leader who eschewed (renounce) the courtly grace of an Atal Bihari Vajpayee, choosing instead to campaign with loaded terms like (the ‘Ajmal Kasab’- hinting) CASAB (Congress-Samajwadi-Bahujan) and ‘shehzada’. But with the arrival of Trump, Modi has seemed like a textbook disciplined politician.

As PM, Modi sticks to the script, turns vikas (development) into an acronym, maintains a studious silence on contentious issues, and releases yoga videos. Like his hair, he never has a tweet out of place.

Boringly Boorish

But now Trump has normalised his outsized abnormality. He is boorish (rough and bad-mannered) and pugnacious and thin-skinned. Words mean nothing to him, since he can make a U-turn without blinking. All of that is spun not as inconsistency but as ‘being real’. We are witnessing a reality show like no other. It’s just that instead of Kim Kardashian, we have Kim Jong-un in it.

But as we are keeping up with the new Kims, we have to realise something has shifted. We were used to politicians and dog-whistle politics. Trump has been happy to dispense with that, cry havoc and just let the dogs out.