Trumpian Shock and Awe Too many political forces are coming to life against the Trump presidency. Dan Henninger see note please
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumpian-shock-and-awe-1485994603
The opposition, namely the media and the “street theater” have no alternative….they are more aw shucks, then anything else….rsk
“Shock and awe,” a term of art from U.S. war doctrine, has been deployed by advocates of Donald Trump to describe the pace of executive actions the past two weeks.
The military originators of this concept, which is famously associated with the Iraq invasion in 2003, said shock and awe was a “doctrine of rapid dominance” whose goal was to affect the will of an adversary “to fight or respond to our strategic policy.”
That is the theory, and it fits the Trump strategic model: Put political actions in motion and force the world to adjust.
The Trump White House believed it was important for the president to fulfill his campaign commitments immediately, whether the border wall or the immigrant ban. Problems or objections could be dealt with later as the details got worked out.
So far, the White House’s shock and awe of executive orders mainly has effected a popular uprising, and not just in the streets.
To be sure, the political system, especially the bureaucracies, needed to be challenged and shaken up. Almost certainly one reason Team Trump didn’t pass the travel order through normal interagency vetting review is they believed—and experience bears them out—that agency lawyers might have tried to dilute or kill it. Instead, the Trump template will dominate their post-order implementation.
But the aftershocks from Mexico and now the executive order on travelers from seven mostly Muslim countries reveal the liabilities in transferring war-fighting doctrine to politics.
A well-understood law of political motion holds that every political act by a U.S. president puts other significant political forces in motion.
Mr. Trump’s partisan opposition, notably the organized squads of street people, was already on hair trigger. But the fallout from the Trump order on immigrant and refugee restrictions may be bringing to life too many disparate forces against him and his young presidency.
The Trump team, which is all about action, seems determined to push the envelope at every turn. That’s fine, so long as they don’t tear through the envelope, which is what happened when several federal judges poked holes in the executive order’s unfinished legal foundation.
To be clear: The point here has nothing to do with whether Mr. Trump is right on the merits of immigration vetting; Barack Obama imposed visa restrictions on Arab countries twice as antiterror policy. The question is bloodless politics: Is the poor execution of this order and its aftermath putting more negative political forces in motion than the White House or Republicans will be able to control in this presidency’s first 100 days—and beyond?
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