{"id":7006,"date":"2019-09-10T10:55:51","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T15:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/?p=7006"},"modified":"2024-11-30T12:03:57","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:03:57","slug":"the-incomplete-trump-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/?p=7006","title":{"rendered":"The Incomplete Trump Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author’s Note: <\/strong>This is the latest in a series of articles begun in February 2016. For quick reference previous articles are (one<\/a>) (two<\/a>) (three<\/a>) (four<\/a>) (five<\/a>) (six<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been missing is some clue, some insight, as to why the Trump revolution stalled out and lost traction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, suddenly, there it was, an implicit acknowledgement that Donald Trump did not win in 2016. A Sheneman political cartoon<\/a> in the Washington Post on August 24, 2019, has Jill Biden telling Joe Biden, \u201cwhy win when not losing is safer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump ascended to the Presidency because he did not lose.\nThere is a subtle but significant different between winning and not losing. The\nPresident does not and may never understand that. But that is just one reason\nhis revolution is incomplete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is a natural revolutionary but born into a business\nfamily. From his earliest years his father wrapped him in a business cocoon destined\nto never metamorphize. His family, friends, staff and Congressional leaders\nhave hardened the cocoon into a chrysalis from which he cannot break free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His frustration shows every day as he struggles to discover\nhis identity. He makes mistakes over and over because he is on the wrong path.\nAnd why is that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natural revolutionaries are few and far between in history. Trump\nis one, unrecognized by all, himself included. He could have stood among the\ngreats, a small but impressive list. Here is one view of that list and Trump\u2019s place\non it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the period 1974-1980, I taught Political Revolutionary Warfare at the Naval Amphibious Warfare School, Coronado. Over time we developed a list of the top 10 people in history who had understood revolution. I would put my name in as number four and then erase it leaving the slot open for students to identify someone, they thought we had overlooked. At the time, there was no awareness that some future person would deserve the fourth slot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That person could have been Donald Trump. And there are two\nimmediate problems with that. First, Trump would never acknowledge that he was\nnot number one. Second, his main competition is Iran. But that is a story for\nanother day. So, who is on the list?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The period 1974-1980 was a rich environment for the study of\nrevolutionary theory. It saw the end of the Vietnam revolution. It matters not\nwhether the revolution was two distinct events or a single revolution in two\nparts. Either way, Ho Chi Minh went through the revolutionary process twice,\nonce against the French and once against the United States. He comes in as\nnumber three on the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time the United States was celebrating the\nbicentennial of its own revolution. And, a bit ethnocentrically, the revolution\nmakes the list, number two under the name Samuel Adams. (The Grand Incendiary:\nA Biography of Samuel Adams, Noel Gerson, Sep 21, 1973)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five, six, and seven on the list are the usual suspects; Mao\nat five, Lenin at six, and Fidel at seven. This is a heady list. Fourth is the\nhigh-water mark, at best, for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last three slots are reserved for the\ncounterrevolutionaries. Those who oppose revolution deserve some credit. At\ntenth on the list is Tito. His strategy was to rotate the Presidency in\nYugoslavia. It worked in the short term but did not long survive his passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ninth on the list is King Juan Carlos of Spain. His strategy\nwas devolution, more enduring, but problematic in Spain and elsewhere.\nDevolution has long been in play throughout the British Isles and has\nimplications in the Brexit kerfuffle. Further discussion is left for another\nday and for those far more knowledgeable in the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight on the list is a group who probably deserve\nconsideration for a spot near the top, the Afrikaners. Their strategy was the\nbest possible for those who counter revolution. They joined the revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That leaves open the top spot, homework for the reader, and\nanother discussion for a future day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With slot four within reach what happened to Donald Trump?\nThere are three things successful revolutionaries do, Trump is zero for three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, as the Sheneman political cartoon tells us, successful\nrevolutionaries do not get themselves organized to win. They get organized to\ngive their opponents every opportunity to lose. Perhaps once, in passing, Trump\nacknowledged that Clinton lost. She did so because of four unforced errors,\nthree tactical and one strategic. She survived the tactical blunders but not\nthe strategic mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tactically, President Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on a\ntarmac in Arizona, a rookie mistake. Senator Clinton, for her part, decided her\nopponents were deplorables, tone deaf pure and simple. Then President Clinton\ndecided to trash Obama care, not just rookie, but a bush-league error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategically, all the airbrushing of the tactical errors\ncame to naught. The Clinton camp failed to protect the Northern flank. The\nresults were unforgiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, for his part, claims a win, still. It was not, his\nopponent lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, successful revolutionaries focus forward not\nbackwards. Trump\u2019s failure to do this, to keep revisiting the past, boht Obama\nand Clinton, is a Business 101 failure. Obama and Clinton, and all past\nadministrations are sunk costs. Business owners, large and small know about\nsunk costs. Heads of households do as well. Trump inexplicably does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, successful revolutionaries set out to govern, with\ndiligence, purpose, and consistency. Governor Christie set the table for Trump.\nIt was all for naught. Trump threw the baby out with the bathwater and\ngovernance ended up as 15 binders in a dumpster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolutionaries succeed because their opposition strangles\nin its own strength. Clinton did just that. Trump ascended to the Presidency\nbecause \u201cnot losing was safer.\u201d Will he, too, strangle in his own strength?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Homework done? Aristotle is number one on the list. Men make\nrevolution under the notion they are unjustly treated. Interesting times ahead\nthis election cycle. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note: This is the latest in a series of articles begun in February 2016. For quick reference previous articles are (one) (two) (three) (four) (five) (six) What has been missing is some clue, some insight, as to why the Trump revolution stalled out and lost traction. And, suddenly, there it was, an implicit acknowledgement … Continue reading The Incomplete Trump Revolution<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-revolutionary-warfare"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7006"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7006\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}