The sun came up this morning. I was very relieved, but then I recalled that President Obama is still in the White House. Trump’s Presidency won’t start until January, 2017. That’s months away. And if I’m honest, as dismaying as the Election Night results were, the smart money is still on the sun.
But even though the sun was bright and the sky a brilliant blue the anxiety created by the thoughts of a Trump Presidency continued to drag me down. What would he do? Is he going to be as awful as he said he was going to be? How predictable and unpredictable is he going to be? Are the Russians really pulling his chain? So many uncomfortable questions.
So, I did what I am trained to do. I grabbed a marker, a huge sheet of paper and started to dump every thought in my crowded brain. It was mad, it was frantic and at the end I had a constellation of related possibilities interlinked across the taped together pieces of paper on my floor. The map was huge.
I should take a moment and let you know that I am trained to be a political analyst. Being a visual person my preferred method of looking at a problem is a mind map. And as I looked at the interlinking possibilities on my floor I saw several very clear groups of action that might come out of the Trump presidency.
This article, or series of articles, I’m not sure yet, is going to look at each of those distinct groups of actions. There are 2 distinct categories that hold the patterns that I saw. Each pattern relies on the driving forces behind the Trump Presidency. I don’t know which of these patterns may occur, but, having mapped them out I find myself both more and less anxious.
Unlike most presidencies Trump has already opened himself up to speculation about precisely who is pulling strings. There is the distinct possibility that this is self-driven ego. Another option is that his run for the presidency is driven by his creditors.
Both of those scenarios open distinct pathways that a Trump Presidency could follow. I am going to try to describe each of the pathways that I see possible in a Trump presidency. Some of the items I will describe are going to happen, others would take such a concatenation of events as to be almost impossible. I’ll try to identify each as I mention them.
There are 5 patterns that I will describe.
- The Dictator
- The King
- The Puppet
- The Sellout
- The Cappo
In each of these scenarios there are a multitude of steps. Many of the visions share the same steps, so please forgive me if I repeat myself. I’ll try to encapsulate each pathway as it’s own package. So stay tuned and catch them all.