The Trump Presidency (X2)

TMS PEACE JOURNALISM, 28 Nov 2016

#X2 | Johan Galtung from Washington DC, 23 Nov 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service

Trump 5 was supposed to be the last mini-column, but things happen, calling for a Trump X2 for a second Extra. Like for Trump, promises can be broken.

          Trump 4 covered 12 election promises, concluding for many “better forgotten, Trump’s new focus is much better”.  Washington Post 23 Nov 2016 has a long update “Trump shifts on Clinton, climate”. A review:

1. Putting Clinton in jail: “no plan to prosecute Hillary Clinton”, “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons”.
2. Building the US-Mexico wall: not mentioned.
3. Stricter Iran deal: not mentioned.
4. Withdrawing TPP: not mentioned.
5. Replacing Affordable Care Act: not mentioned.
6. Deporting criminal immigrants: not mentioned.
7. Shrinking the military: not mentioned.
8. Canceling the climate agreement: “keeping an open mind”, “there is ‘some connectivity’ between human activity and rising temperatures”.
9. Waterboarding: “not a good idea”, “not useful”.
10. Banning Muslim refugees: not mentioned.
11. Shrinking federal government: not mentioned.
12. Drilling for gas, oil-coal: mentioned indirectly in 8 above.

In the article from an interview in NYT 4 of 12 promises are canceled. 3 of the 12, nos. 4, 5, 7, in the view of this column, should be kept.  That leaves us with 5 to watch, nos. 2, 3, 6, 10, 11.  Hypothesis: before 20 January he may have distanced himself from (almost) all 5.

As a businessman he marketed a product, his presidency, with unlimited praise and contempt for the other product on the market. He won in the sense of monopoly for his product, and then changed the product. No sense of contract with voter-buyer based on his publicity.

If he has changed his product basically once, he may do so again. However, following Trump, this column keeps an “open mind”.  So far.

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Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. Prof. Galtung has published 1670 articles and book chapters, over 450 Editorials for TRANSCEND Media Service, and 167 books on peace and related issues, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations, including ‘50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,’ published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Nov 2016.

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