What to Expect From a Trump Administration

This, mercifully, may be my last say on the matter.

Initially, expect much happy talk b.s. about how President Elect Trump will be coopted and neutered by the Beltway Establishment, Republican and Democratic. It may even look this way early on in his administration with the appointment of reassuring economic and national security types, e.g., a loud but safe Larry Kudlow and an over-the-hill former CIA head James Woolsey who has just, surprisingly, endorsed Trump.

But don’t expect a reign by the wise heads and grey beards to last very long. The alt-right and Breitbart crowd represented by his co-campaign manager, Steve Bannon, has Trump’s ear, heart, and probably private parts—more so than co-chair pollster, Kellyanne Conway. I expect them relatively quickly to push him in a more confrontational direction with the Dems, regular Republicans, and media, at the same time he puts American foreign policy in Putin’s vest pocket and follows a zig-zag course in the Mideast: first pro-Israel, then erratic as even Netanyahu fails to stroke sufficiently Trump’s stupendous ego and Trump fails to square the circle between Tel Aviv and Putin’s Iranian clients.

There is also the potential of Trump exploding East Asia by unintentionally uncorking the unhinged nuclear North Korean regime of King Jong-un.

Here at home, I will be accused of alarmism, but I expect, not civil war as is brewing in the Philippines where bartender turned presidential hit man Duerte has already killed, disappeared, or displaced over 260,000 souls, but something approaching white/brown/black race riots whether Trump actually tries to deport 11 million undocumented or just causes his disappointed supporters to boil over by failing to do so. A severe recession, at the very least, seems a good bet, caused by a combination of trade wars with China, South Korea, Japan, and Mexico, plus soaring deficits and exploding interest rates. Trump's recent baiting Janet Yellen and the Fed Reserve to raise rates—and, if that is what he wants, he may get his wish.

We soon may be living the Chinese curse: “may you live in interesting times.”