Another Presidency???

I will be disappointed if Donald Trump got elected again as I don’t have great expectations for his presidency, but I have even less confidence in the American political system, so I realise that it could easily happen. Trump is now eight years older than when he was last elected, so his focus and energy levels will have declined. I expect that he will be as mediocre as he was last time.

• The United States is probably heading towards a serious economic crisis. Trump does not have the skills to deal with a crisis. The economic progress during his presidency was just a continuation of the slow recovery from the global financial crisis and had very little to do with his policies.

• Trump’s policy of imposing punitive tariffs on China will make the world economic situation worse. Bifurcating the world economy will reduce specialisation and eliminate some of the benefits of economies of scale. Inflation will make everyone worse off.

• The people living in the “Rust Belt” cities feel aggrieved by the way that their nation robbed them of their economic livelihood by sending their jobs to China and other parts of Asia. Trump has tapped into their grievance, but he does not have economic policies that would restore their economic situation. He instinctively supports policies that benefit the wealthy, so many of those who have supported them the most will experience the greatest disappointment.

• Christians who assume that he will place restrictions on the availability of abortion will be disappointed.

• Trump loves military power. He liked the thought of having his finger on the nuclear button. The thought that he could release the power of the American armed forces when he chose animated him. He enjoyed launching 60 cruise missiles against Syria, even though his efforts there failed. There is a danger that he will blunder into another war due to his over-confidence and ignorance of foreign policy. His unpredictability scares the people of the world.

I don’t believe that Trump is capable of being a dictator. I don’t believe that he is even capable of being an effective president. I suspect that if he is elected again, he will be a second-rate president, but that the political system will constrain his worst pretensions.