BY Baba Grumpy
Some 41 years ago, the people of Agbor in what is now Delta State in the South of Nigeria crowned a two-year-old as their king, a feat recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records. 37 years later, the people of the United States of America came very close to erasing the Agbor Monarch’s world record.
The Americans voted a 3-year-old as their king, a man who has become their lord and master. Americans are very lucky. Unlike the people of Agbor, the American kingship is not for life to the eternal disappointment of their 3-year-old king. They have a chance to do it all over again in the next few months. From all available information, there is no guarantee they will pass on the opportunity.
In crowning a two-year-old as king, the people of Agbor took a big gamble as many of those reading this article will be familiar with the phrase ‘Terrible Twos’. However, they mitigated that gamble by appointing a wise head, a Regent to superintend over the affairs of Agbor allowing their king to grow up before fully taking the reins. It is a big shame that the Americans have not adopted the same approach as their “thrashing threes” of a king is not only thrashing all the established norms in that once great country, he is threatening the freedom of many the world over.
In addition to my day job, I have spent the last few weeks reading The White House Memoir of John Bolton, King Trump’s former National Security Adviser – “The Room Where It Happened”. On balance, I think Mr Bolton has pulled a fast one on all of his readers because he was never in the room where it happened. He was largely an order taker, an enabler and only got asked to get off the gravy train when the King had no more use for him. From the contents of the book, the title should be similar to that of this article.
I have written two articles for The Cable on the subject of Trump’s election and his first few months as King. You can find both articles here https://www.thecable.ng/thoughts-american-election-2016 and here https://web.thecable.ng/donald-trump-democracy-weird .
The second article was based on what I read from ‘Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House by Michael Wolff. Based on the contents of Mr Bolton’s book, nothing has changed in The White House and the Trump reign, except all the misguided so-called grown-ups who thought they could moderate the behaviour of the 3-year-old king have been kicked out and replaced with clowns masquerading as yes men. In fact, some of these clowns have themselves been replaced by other lower grade clowns.
The sum total of Mr Bolton’s book is the American version of the Nuremberg Defence. All the Nazi Generals who conspired with Hitler to murder 85 million people and didn’t have the guts to add themselves to that fatal statistics claimed they were only following orders (“Befehl its Befehl” in the German language). Mr Bolton’s later day version is to follow the orders of the 3-year-old who got elected. He clearly forgot that the Americans might have voted for this 3-year-old to be President but they did not vote for the total destruction of their way of life.
Mr Bolton’s nerve is unbelievable. The first few pages of his book and the last few pages are dedicated to blaming others for the 3-year-old king’s thrashing of America. First it was the so-called adults (General J. F. Kelly, Trump’s Second Chief of Staff; General H. R. McMaster, Trump’s Second National Security Advisor; Rex Tillerson, Trump’s former Secretary of State). Bolton blamed these ones who tried to moderate King Trump’s behaviour for turning him into a monster.
In the concluding pages of Bolton’s book, The House of Representatives was to blame for not throwing the whole book at Trump. Nowhere in the book is Mr Bolton curious enough to draw any conclusions about the pernicious motives of his master in constantly kow towing to Russian, Chinese, Turkish demands or that of any of the criminal oligarchs and billionaires funding his 3-year-old king’s associates. Bolton is happy to conclude that the chaos wrecked by the 3-year-old king is in line with Trump’s character and there is nothing more to it. Despite blaming those who wanted to remove Trump from office, Bolton said that obstruction of justice as a way of life was the pattern of the Trump presidency. Why then rail against those who wanted to remove such a person from office.
For someone with a CV to die for (Ex National Security Advisor, Ex UN Ambassador, Ex Under Secretary of State, veteran of 3 Republican administrations, a qualified Lawyer and Yale College graduate) Mr Bolton’s lack of curiosity is staggering, so is his poor judgement. He appears to have trusted Mike Pompeo on the subject of both of them leaving Trump’s administration at the same time. Guess how that worked out. For someone who didn’t approve of Trump’s methods and was very close to exiting the administration at that, he must have called Pompeo all of 5 times to relay Trump’s message to fire US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
His views on impeachment are a pile of crock. He thinks Trump deserves to be impeached but he is railing against the people who decided to do it. He then goes on to suggest that the manner of impeaching Trump will cheapen impeachment. This is a huge overreach. For all of his experience, you will expect him to be pragmatic.
Bolton claims that some House Republicans would have been inclined to consider articles of impeachment against Trump if the Democrats had done things differently. He is either naive or insincere. Justin Amash was thrown out of the Republican Party for supporting impeachment against Trump. There were no other House republicans willing to support impeachment against the 3 – year – old king. They are all enablers including Bolton. More on the subject of enablers later.
As part of the impeachment proceedings in the Senate, Bolton agreed to testify. My guess from reading his book is that he sensed that the Senate will refuse to take his testimony. He also believes his testimony would have made no difference.
What I don’t understand in all of this is why anybody thinks that a 3-year-old, someone with “no intellectual curiosity” according to his niece is deserving to be president. Why did his party allow him run as a candidate? Why did they allow him win the nomination? Why did Americans vote for him as a president? Why did the so called ‘adults in the room’ and people like Bolton accept appointments in his administration? Why did nobody realise that a 3-year-old will behave like a 3-year-old? What was Mr Bolton’s motive in serving a president he considered the most ill prepared president for office or the most ill-suited individual for office?
While it is par for the course that an administration will have one or two scandals or a few or even a dozen but to have one scandal every day or one every week is beyond the pale. It is staggeringly unbelievable. How did America get here?
Bolton was unable to say in this book that his decision to serve Trump has advanced America’s cause. It doesn’t look like it was it worth it even if you factored his help in getting America out of the JCPOA / Iran deal.
Do I consider the £20 I spent on the book and the countless hours I spent reading the book a waste? No. I find it a brilliant book for understanding the challenges of decision making in the heart of government, negotiation amongst peers, global diplomacy, security challenges and a perfect example of how to run a shitshow of a presidency.
Outsiders might think decision making at the heart of government should be straight forward but the book outlines how easy it is for something straight forward to become complicated.
What else did I learn from the book?
For one and in this book, Bolton is saying if the 3 – year – old king wins re – election, America is doomed. The baby king is quoted in the book as saying “When somebody is the President of the United States, the authority is total, and that’s the way it’s got to be”.
I will follow up with more information from the book next week.
Baba Grumpy works in financial services in the United Kingdom. He blogs mostly about football at http://babagrumpy.blogspot.co.uk. His Twitter handle is @BabaGrumpy
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