One Day that Shook the World

By Marvin Kalb

It took the Bolsheviks, wrote American journalist John Reed, ten days to “shake the world.” They were, of course, launching a communist revolution, and those upheavals often took at least a week. But Donald Trump, all by himself, “shook the world” in only one day by arbitrarily raising the alarming prospect of a recession and a trade war. “Onslaught of Tariffs Ripples Across Globe,” headlined the Washington Post. The showman in Trump clearly delights in demonstrating his Samson-like grip over the world’s economy.

Many were shocked by Trump’s “economic revolution”; but MAGA Republicans, trapped in their otherworldly cult, cheered wildly, as their hero, in one fell swoop, raised unusually high tariffs on almost all global imports—he’s loved tariffs for years, he boasted. I must admit that while they cheered, I wondered whether any president (any human being, for that matter) should have, and be able to use, so much power, checked by the occasional legal challenge.

Trump is not a king.

The Founding Fathers believed that, in the United States, no one should have the power of a king. Every person—with one glaring exception: the Black slave—should be equal to every other person before the law, and no one should be subjected to the overbearing power of a monarch. With this goal in mind, they established a new system of government, based on three co-equal branches of authority. No one branch would be more powerful than the other two.

But now, in the early months of the second Trump administration, it’s painfully clear that our system of government has been devolving day by day into an autocracy. We already have a supremely powerful executive branch of government, noted by the fact that old and distinguished law firms are bowing before the president’s demands, the owners of newspapers and networks fear the president’s temper, and immensely wealthy businessmen promise Trump millions of dollars to win his favor. By comparison, though theoretically a co-equal branch of government, Congress, our federal legislature, has slipped pathetically into obedient subservience. And, finally, our judicial branch of government seems split between admirable pockets of courageous resistance and cautious justices considering the boundaries of presidential power.

Donald Trump now stands as the supreme authority in the land. But should he have so much power? Should any president have so much power? Time tends to wipe away the treasures of memory, but it is worth recapturing a few facts from recent history. During the last presidential campaign, Trump promised revenge and retribution against his political opponents. Violating most rules of the road, he has, as president, signed dozens of executive orders to hurt said opponents. He vowed to eliminate the “deep state.” Again, he has pushed the limits of presidential authority to achieve that nebulous end. As a candidate, he was found guilty of violating the law, but managed to escape punishment. He lies so routinely his White House has had to create a universe of “alternative facts.” And he has bizarrely twisted the norms of governmental business into abnormal shapes and routines, some utterly unrecognizable. Nevertheless, Trump is still our president, even though he often operates in utter defiance (or ignorance) of the law.

Trump has been described as a “malignant narcissist,” a man obsessed with himself, operating essentially on his gut instincts. Presidents are usually surrounded by experts, but this president rarely uses them. When economists questioned his judgment on the meaning and value of tariffs, he dismissed their doubts with a wave of his hand, certain he was right and they were wrong. Evidence be damned. The next day, when it became known that the stock market had lost $4 trillion of value, Trump blared “March On,” advancing the magical formula of “short-term loss for long-term gain.” Trump then compared the shaken economy to a “sick person,” who will soon recover from the tariff surgery he so desperately needed.

Wherever he is, Trump creates tumult, chaos, and fear, clouding his administration with dark uncertainty. His senior advisers seem to always be seeking ways to praise him, and most end up looking like fawning fools. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has described Trump as “the only person on this planet” who can bring an end to the Ukraine war. That’s hardly the case, but Rubio keeps repeating the phrase.

One discovers upon examination that Trump’s decision-making is—put charitably— capricious. His number one adviser is Donald Trump. Sometimes it’s the last person who caught his ear. Just the other day, for example, he decided suddenly to fire a handful of senior officials in his National Security Agency, including the general in charge of the super-secret U.S. Cyber Command, because Laura Loomer, a young, right-wing, conspiracy-loving activist, had somehow gained entry to the Oval Office with a list of advisers she considered inadequately loyal to the president’s agenda. Trump listened, and out they went.

Trump cannot be trusted to act with caution, wisdom, or perspective. Taste is foreign to his manner, and golf governs his calendar. The day after his devastating tariff announcement, which demolished decades of trade policy and created panic in stock markets around the world, not to mention the disruption to the national economy, Trump faced a choice. He could, of course, have stayed close to the Oval Office to manage the economic upheaval his decision on tariffs had unleashed, which is what any other president would likely have done. Or he could have taken a few hours to go to Dover Air Force base to honor the return of four US Army soldiers tragically, accidentally killed during NATO training in Lithuania. These were men in their twenties who had decided to protect and serve our country. But instead, just as he chose a few weeks ago not to personally supervise his decision to bomb rebel terrorists in Yemen, he decided once again to sidestep the difficult, unpleasant consequences of presidential decisions…to play golf.

Less than twenty-four hours after sending the nation and the world into economic convulsions, Trump flew to his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida for a weekend of golf and fundraising, looking like an aging multimillionaire with not a care in the world. Then chose to post about it on social media.

With this Trumpy scene in mind, I could not help but reimagine a page from the Watergate chapter of American history. Richard Nixon, in crisis mode, as was usually the case, received three top GOP Senators at the White House. They were there with bad news: the president’s illegal adventures had cost him majority support on Capitol Hill, and he’d better stop, admit his guilt, and abdicate. Nixon, a day later, resigned.

What would Trump do, assuming for a moment there were three GOP Senators with the clout and courage to inform him that his tariff decision was a disaster and that he should resign?

No answer is possible, I know. The scene is so utterly unrealistic, and Trump is no Nixon. Rather than resign, Trump would fight the system, appeal to the Supreme Court, denounce Biden, Democrats, and the “deep state” on Fox TV and social media, and then, in prime time, double-down on his tariff proposal.

Welcome to Trump’s America.

Marvin Kalb, Murrow Professor Emeritus at Harvard, is the former diplomatic correspondent at CBS and NBC and author of eighteen books, including the recently-published A DIFFERENT RUSSIA: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course.