Dear dissent right, Trump is just not all that into you

Bill Ram Z Paul Gates put out another video, this time calling out Trump for ‘de-platforming’ Michelle Malkin.

This is in regard to Trump’s resort, Mar a Lago, which rescinded hosting an event by ACT, with Michelle Malkin who was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, after protestations by the ADL and the SPLC. Bill is accusing Trump of disloyalty.

My take is, it’s hard to know Trump’s actual motive or if he approved this decision. Bill says he did, but we cannot know for sure. If Trump did, it’s maybe because he feared the bad press would hurt business for his resort and turn-off its wealthy and possibly left-wing clientele. But as president, Trump has hosted meetings and press conferences at Mar a Lago, so it’s not like his businesses are completely divorced from politics.

Contrary to the media narrative of Trump being a right-wing extremist, and contrary to his own public ‘tough talk’ persona, Trump is, I think, at heart and by his actions, possibly a pragmatist. That is why he is always compromising, capitulating, and working out deals. His main focus is negotiation and conflict minimization. I also think, judging by his body language, photos, and tweets, he prefers the company of left-wing and centrists and wealthy elite and foreign leaders, over his blue collar and middle class voters and fans. He would much rather schmooze with Macron and Trudeau than deal with farmers or average people, in general. So Michelle Malkin and her ilk would fall under the second category. But I think this could apply to any past president. Elites tend to prefer the company of other elites. Trump has never been that right-wing. Both sides project their own biases onto him. To the far-left, he is a fascist. To the right, he is a ‘god emperor’.

The media and pundits portray Trump as a provincial, hidebound, dictator-appeasing rube like Neville Chamberlain but less articulate, but his actions and how well he gets along with the foreign leaders of socially left-wing and moderate countries such as France, Canada, Germany, and Japan, suggests otherwise. He tweeted dozens of times gushingly about meeting Modi and about the G7 meeting in France. You cannot fake that kind of enthusiasm, magnanimity, and obsequiousness. Even Obama would have been like “yeah, the G7 meeting was great, but not so great that I need to tweet fifty times about it. I would rather be watching basketball.” At the same time, Trump has taken a hard line against more authoritarian counties such as China, Turkey, and Russia.

Trump is perhaps the first global or ‘world president,’ perhaps even more so than Obama. So far, 34 months into his presidency, Trump has matched Obama in terms of number of foreign trips, for a total of 15 trips to 22 countries (and four to France alone). That is even more than George W Bush, and in spite of the absence of any sort of crisis or war that would necessitate so many trips. In terms of global influence such as in the news, Trump is featured in more foreign newspapers and media than Obama was. This is party a product of Trump’s global appeal, but also the increasing economic, militaristic, and cultural dominance of the United States, especially since 2016.