The New York Times - USA (2020-11-15)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020 SR 9

A

PRESIDENTIAL transition can
be a perilous time in the world.
That’s particularly true when
the departing president denies
that he is departing and fires America’s
top defense officials.
President Trump dismissed Defense
Secretary Mark Esper and several other
top national security officials across the
government. At the Pentagon, he has ap-
pointed four new top officials, one of
them an extremist who had publicly
called President Barack Obama a “ter-
rorist leader.” Another hard-liner was in-
stalled at the National Security Agency
over its director’s objections, and two
senior officials at the Department of
Homeland Security have been forced
out.
Rumors fly that the purge may contin-
ue with the removal of F.B.I. Director
Christopher Wray and C.I.A. Director
Gina Haspel. The president’s oldest son,
Donald Trump Jr., denounced Haspel a
few days ago as “a trained liar.”
The new appointments may increase
the risk of aggressive action toward Iran.
And the upheaval certainly undermines
our national security in a transition peri-
od that is already fraught.
“Trump has figuratively decapitated
our operational civilian leadership in the
Pentagon,” James Stavridis, a retired ad-
miral and supreme allied commander of
NATO, told me in an email. “Jubilant
high-fives are the order of the day in Bei-
jing, Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang.”
He added: “I worry about a North Ko-
rean or Iranian miscalculation, thinking
the U.S. is too distracted to respond ap-
propriately to a fresh tanker seizure in
the Arabian Gulf or a new long-range bal-
listic missile test — something either
might do to gain leverage in negotiations
with the incoming administration. Simi-
larly, China could move even more ag-
gressively on Hong Kong or even worse
Taiwan, while Russia might be tempted
to launch a significant cyberattack.”
The greatest risks may be in Asia.
North Korea still hasn’t demonstrated
that it has a warhead capable of surviv-
ing re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere
— and Kim Jong-un may feel that this is
the time to do so, thus presenting Joe Bi-
den with a fait accompli.
North Korea has probably absorbed
the lesson that nobody pays attention to
it when it’s calm and reasonable, and that
it gets rewards only when it threatens
mayhem. On the plus side, a negotiated
deal is easier to imagine now than a few
years ago, and after Trump’s meetings
with Kim, it may be more difficult for Re-
publicans to denounce Biden for negoti-
ating with North Korea.
The scariest possibility would be a Chi-

nese move on Taiwan. President Xi Jin-

ping may want to signal to the United

States and Taiwan alike that any deep-

ening of ties will carry a steep price. If so,

Xi might prefer to lay down that marker

in the transition so that Biden isn’t forced

to respond.

The risk isn’t so much an all-out inva-

sion of Taiwan as it is a lesser step meant

as a warning shot across the bow: snip-

ping of undersea telecommunications

cables that carry the internet to Taiwan,

turning out the lights with a cyberattack,

impeding oil tankers in ways that alarm

investors and tank the stock market —

and, from Xi’s point of view, teach Taiwan

a lesson. Clashes could quickly escalate,

for Taiwan would want China to pay a

price for such bullying.

“Beijing might calculate that the time

is ripe for a move on one of Taiwan’s

outer islands, but it would sacrifice any

opportunity for a moderated U.S. posi-

tion toward China once President-elect

Biden takes office,” noted Elizabeth

Economy, a China expert with Stanford

University’s Hoover Institution. Beijing

should also realize that any provocation

could backfire and result in closer ties

between the United States and Taiwan,

plus pressure to boycott the Beijing Win-

ter Olympics in 2022.

One not-so-reassuring sign, Economy

noted, is that China recently proved will-

ing to sacrifice its larger relationship

with India over a border dispute.

As for Iran, most experts believe that

it will be on good behavior in hopes of

getting a fresh start with Biden — unless

it is provoked by some aggressive step

concocted by the newly installed hard-

liners in the Pentagon. In other words,

any dangerous provocation is more

likely to originate in Washington, not

Tehran.

Another risk is that Israel may con-

clude that the next two months offer a

last chance to strike Iranian nuclear sites

with support from Washington. The en-

suing storm would reverberate through

the region and might make it impossible

for Biden to get Iran back into the nucle-

ar accord.

Robert Malley, president of the Inter-

national Crisis Group, said that one risk

generally is that governments may pre-

fer to take aggressive steps now, while

the United States is distracted. For ex-

ample, Ethiopia’s prime minister has ig-

nited a civil war and Azerbaijan began an

offensive against an ethnic Armenian en-

clave. There’s no proof that the timing for

either was shaped by events in Washing-

ton — but if you’re an autocrat, this is not

a bad time to start a war.

“Any transitional period presents for-

eign policy risks,” Malley said, “but a

transitional period involving Trump by

definition magnifies them.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF

As if We Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About

Trump shuffles the

Pentagon leadership,

raising anxieties more.

DANIEL SLIM/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

WASHINGTON

M

ANYsee a wannabe despot
barricaded in the bunker,
stubby fingers clinging to the
levers of power as words that
mean nothing to him — democracy, elec-
toral integrity, peaceful transition, consti-
tutionality — swirl above.
One presidential historian sees some-
thing different in Donald Trump’s swan
song. Michael Beschloss has been tweet-
ing pictures of Hollywood’s most famous
divas, shut-ins and head cases.
Norma Desmond watching movies of
herself, hour after hour, shrouded in her
mansion on Sunset Boulevard as “the
dream she had clung to so desperately en-
folded her.” Howard Hughes, descending
into germaphobia, madness and seclu-
sion. Greta Garbo, sequestered behind
her hat and sunglasses. Charles Foster
Kane, missing the roar of the crowd as he
spirals at Xanadu, his dilapidated pleas-
ure palace.
The president and his cronies are likely
to do real damage and major grifting in the
next two months. But in other ways, the
picture of the president as a pathetic, un-
raveling diva is apt.
Trump has said in interviews and at ral-

lies that two of his favorite movies are the

black-and-white classics about stars col-

lapsing in on themselves, “Citizen Kane”

and “Sunset Boulevard.”

In “Sunset Boulevard,” Max the butler

and a camera crew conspire to make the

demented silent film star believe she’s

getting her close-up when she’s actually

just being lured down the staircase to an-

swer for her sins.

The Republicans enabling Trump’s de-

lusion are like the camera crew, filming a

scene with the disintegrating diva that is

never going to be seen.

“What is the downside for humoring

him for this little bit of time?” a senior Re-

publican official told The Washington

Post. “No one seriously thinks the results

will change.”

Trump, who once wanted to be a Holly-

wood producer and considered attending

U.S.C. film school, never made the pivot to

being a politician. He got elected because

he played a competent boss and wily

megabillionaire on a reality TV show —

pretty good acting now that we know he is

neither — and he has stayed a perform-

ance artist and a ratings-obsessed show-

man.

Even after Georgia and Arizona were

called and Joe Biden clinched 306 elector-

al votes — the same number Trump de-

clared “a massive landslide victory” when

he reached it in 2016 — the president is

putting on a play within the play, one in

which he’s still the star.

Trump Boswell Maggie Haberman re-

ported that there is no grand strategy and

the president “is simply trying to survive

from one news cycle to the next,” playing

his familiar game of creating a contro-

versy and watching it play out.

As a growing number of Trump advis-

ers and Republican Party leaders pri-

vately admitted the end was nigh — and as

the Secret Service was rocked by corona-

virus infections and quarantine orders

from the president’s mask-defying, super-

spreader campaign travel — White House

officials propped up Donald’s grand illu-

sions. This, even as his lawyers deserted

him and judges ruled against him.

“We are moving forward here at the

White House under the assumption there

will be a second Trump term,” Peter

Navarro, the White House trade adviser,

said on Fox Business Friday. Kayleigh

McEnany chimed in that the president

would “attend his own inauguration.”

In his remarks about Operation Warp

Speed Friday afternoon in the Rose Gar-

den, Trump showed how tortoise-slow he

has been about accepting that he’s out.

“I will not go, this administration will

not be going to a lockdown,” he said.

“Hopefully, the — the, uh, whatever hap-

pens in the future, who knows which ad-

ministration it will be — I guess time will

tell.”

Time has told. Do we detect a sliver of

reality creeping in?

The president, who has never shown

much interest in governing, has finally

dropped all pretense to focus on the core

tenets of the Trump Doctrine: himself, ca-

ble news, Twitter, self-pity, and cater-

wauling about perceived slights.

“.@FoxNews daytime ratings have

completely collapsed,” he tweeted.

“Weekend daytime even WORSE. Very

sad to watch this happen, but they forgot

what made them successful, what got

them there. They forgot the Golden

Goose. The biggest difference between

the 2016 Election, and 2020, was

@FoxNews!”

The goose was at Fox’s neck. What an

unnatural and delicious sight.

The network helped Trump become

president and allowed him to maintain his

viselike grip on his base. Fox was the oxy-

gen inside his alternate-reality bubble.

But because Trump is 100 percent

transactional, he couldn’t accept pure

math, training his laser beam on Fox

when it dared to veer ever so slightly from

total fealty by correctly calling the race

early in Arizona.

Trump is right about this one thing: He

has been a Golden Goose for the news

business. Every time he opens his

mouth, 50 headlines jump out.

But the Golden Goose is also a Silly

Goose. He should just recognize that Bi-

den winning is actually the best outcome

for him. He doesn’t have to do the job

anymore and can simply get on with the

branding and the whining and the pot-

stirring — the parts that interest him.

He certainly branded the Democrats

very effectively with socialism, defund-

ing the police, shutting down the country

and ending fracking. Biden escaped but a

lot of down-ballot Democrats didn’t.

Now Trump should move on and stick

to what he knows best: promoting him-

self. Like Norma Desmond, he should

give in to the fantasy of his life that he is

so devoted to and leave the rest of us to

live in the cold, cruel, unforgiving, incon-

venient reality.

Mr. DeMille just called, Mr. President.

He says he’s ready for your close-up.

Keep your pancake makeup on and step

on out of the house now. The cameras will

be waiting.

MAUREEN DOWD

Goodbye, Golden Goose

ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Time for Trump to head

down Sunset Boulevard.