Nearly 200 years ago, New York senator William L. Marcy defended President Andrew Jackson’s appointment of Martin Van Buren as minister to Britain with the words — “To the victor belongs the spoils of the enemy.” It appears the old principle is not dead yet as US President-elect Donald Trump has named a dozen personalities to be in his team, many of them so unconventional in their thinking that alarm bells are ringing already.
Having promised to carry out the largest ever deportation process, give even more tax breaks to the corporates and the wealthy and punish his political opponents for their various acts in getting him convicted as a felon, the incoming President is ready to seize all avenues possible to reshape his nation in his “America First” paradigm.
Having achieved the trifecta of the White House and control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the grand old party will have many Trump acolytes on board to carry out their agenda and it remains to be seen how the Democrats can meaningfully oppose any outlandish measures. Joe Biden too had the trifecta when he came to power in 2020, but his government had to contend with Covid-19 first before attempting to reshape the economy.
Among the 12 appointments that Trump has made so far (subject to Senate approval), he has an anti-vaxxer as health secretary, a Russia admirer as director of national intelligence and an attorney-general who resigned his House seat in a hurry so as to pre-empt a report by the ethics committee about a sex trafficking probe that the justice department ran against him and who called for the FBI and the justice department to be abolished because they investigated Trump.
A war veteran more famous for his pro-Trump stance as news anchor is the defence secretary tasked with running the world’s most powerful armed forces and a border hawk to run his anti-immigration operations completes the picture of a palpably transparent agenda of seizing control with his Republican Party mirroring his call of “Make America Great Again” along with a top court dominated by conservative judges.
Not to forget the appointments of billionaire friend and benefactor Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to a department of government efficiency to cut federal spending and, presumably, a whole load of staff as the X owner may have got accustomed to after buying out Twitter (now X). The cocktail of ideas and men with such an agenda has, naturally enough, given the rest of the world the jitters.
It is understandable if Trump had absolute loyalty to him as a criterion for selection to high-profile government posts, but it is the basic desire for disruption that is seen as a red rag with every government and global company trying to hazard a guess about the future. If a hard line on China with high tariffs is a given, India might be one country that could sense an opportunity. But even genuinely skilled persons could face obstacles to getting US visas to work in the world’s largest economy.
The worst may be feared about where “Trumponomics” is going to lead in terms of inflation and inequitable growth, but there must be room for optimism if deregulation leads to economic progress in the United States with a trickle-down effect helping its bigger trading partners like Mexico, Europe and India too. Trepidation among illegal immigrants, anxiety in many places, most of all China, and a bit of optimism stemming from Trump’s promised role as a peacemaker in this war-ravaged world makes for a melange of feelings ahead of January 20, 2025.
