Asked what he had done during the French Revolution, a rather cynical student of sovereignty replied: “Me, I survived”. After a global financial crisis, the Covid epidemic, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and now Trump’s tariffs, the Abbe Sieyès answer might seem sound and sufficient. Otherwise, we may as well start hoarding toilet rolls again and converting dollars into gold necklaces.
Worrying about retirement savings might not provoke quite as much anxiety as fretting over financial meltdowns, random coughing, possible nuclear exchanges or mass migration movements. In the case of Trump’s tariffs, though, the new and unsettling element is not unpredictability (Covid produced plenty of that) but the United States President himself.
An inveterate opponent of globalisation has become its biggest beneficiary, on every screen across the world on any given day. Imagine if Narcissus had been lucky enough to look at himself, not in some dank, weedy pond but through the lens of a television camera.
A few aficionados might know who Taylor Swift is dating this week or what Elton John enjoys for breakfast. By contrast, all of us know all too well what Donald Trump is thinking, saying and doing day by day. His capacity to intrude and impose himself is an ironic endpoint for Marshall McLuhan’s theories six decades ago about the collapse of conventional time and space into a “global village”.
History provides no real parallels for such a dominant, domineering presence. Franklin D Roosevelt invited himself into people’s homes through the radio, with only a handful of props: his tone of voice, cigarette holder, beloved dog. Benito Mussolini strutted and banged on. John F Kennedy confected a version of himself as reliably natty, smart, dapper and witty. Ronald Reagan wistfully shrugged his shoulders and whimsically shook his head. Joseph Stalin hermetically sealed his private life from public view.
Donald Trump no more embodies the United States than does Uncle Sam or a bald eagle.
The Trump beamed out of our televisions, however, demands far more of our time and space. His presentations sometimes even resemble Tolkien’s malign Eye of Sauron, “watchful and intent”. In its worst incarnations, the Eye becomes “a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky”.
The trick to evading the Eye of Sauron was to stay well out of its way. That tactic does not work so well now, not even – in terms at least of tariff rates – for Norfolk Island pines or Heard and McDonald Islands penguins. Confronted with such an eerie, all-seeing presence, we might be tempted to borrow techniques used when meeting a new dog. Show that you are harmless. Hold out your hand for an appraising sniff. Bring a treat. Resort to flattery (defined as pats and belly rubs in the canine world). Fawning and fussing pay few dividends; dogs can see through ruses like those.
Critically, as the sum of these parts, work out what the dog wants and needs. Panicking and catastrophising are not relaxing behaviours either for the dog or the human. Perhaps most importantly, remember that dogs can sense and smell fear.
Without pushing that dog analogy any farther, a huge amount of analytical talent is currently deployed on establishing which ploys might work with the Trump administration. Steadiness and sturdiness might serve as a good start. Winston Churchill had a point when he observed that courage comprised a cardinal virtue because it guaranteed all the others. Patience, a virtue as well, equally commends itself. If steadiness, courage and patience seem like retro qualities, then that may be a reflection on us rather than on the virtues themselves.
To borrow a phrase from the creator of New York’s Central Park, we need to focus on matter-of-fact matter. Plenty of high-paid, high-voltage analysts will talk about coalition building, diversifying trade, checks and balances, new trade blocs or the like. That work, necessarily a bit febrile and frenetic at the moment, should be complemented by a few more retro points of view.
One important reminder is that leaders do not personify a country. Nor do national symbols. Trump no more embodies the United States than does Uncle Sam or a bald eagle. Britain under Churchill, like France with Charles de Gaulle, pretended that their leaders represented the best in the nation’s traditions, values, temperament and culture. That was a silly contrivance, but no more so than identifying one American President with a great, vast, diverse, powerful country.
Some leaders, such as Konrad Adenauer in post-war Germany, catch and mirror the mood of their times. Others, none more so than Abraham Lincoln, rise to the occasion. “If these the times, then this must be the man.” Some lesser leaders (Emmanuel Macron in France, for instance) merely surf a wave for change – then are eventually dumped. When others disappoint us, or prattle about being swamped by uncertainty, voters might feel that they have let the country down too. So we should.
