What Trump got Wrong

Given all the things Trump got right and might make him re-elected and a consequential POTUS, we should think that Americans and the rest of the world should be happy and hopeful as they were when Ronald Reagan showed he was more than a Hollywood actor and a Cold War warrior. 

Unfortunately, this is not as a clean-cut case. Reagan was a transparent man with strong personal, political and ethical principles. Even those who hated his policies came to love or at least respect the man.

Trump is the polar opposite. While many Republican, Independent and even some Blue Dog Democrats understand and share his policies -especially in the economic, foreign policy and derregulation/deburocratization fronts-, most have strong reservations towards the man in charge as a person, as a politician and as a leader.

Here are some of the things Trump got wrong and could cost dearly not just to his Presidency but to the country:

• Short-term focus, simplistic, past-mirrored vision. MAGA is a hat, not a policy. It is also mired in a symbolic, idyllic past (Again) rather than on a real future. It assumes that everything will go back to the 1950s postwar dominance and the 1960s economy. MAGA is more about undoing the Obama-Clinton-Bush legacy than creating new policy. "Policy is me", could say Trump paraphrasing King Louis XIV. "After me, the flood", could add as well, in this case paraphrasing De Gaulle. Well, the flood is at best coming by 2024. Something that the older, silver-haired Trump base might not care as much as the millenials or early Baby boomers.
• Trade wars and protectionism. Even if Trump is telling the truth (something even his closest aides have come to doubt) about this being a "rough bargaining" tactic and not a preference, its side effect has been stimulating protectionism (a popular trend everywhere among those economically illiterate) in both Trump's supporters, his antagonists (the Sanders-Antifa-La Raza- BLM-Dems and the anti-globalization Far Left) and foreign governments, forcing unpredictable consequences in the near term. If China and Europe -who are reluctantly pretending to resist a trade war- continue to decline economically, the world will suffer a major economic slowdown. Peter Navarro and other fringe protectionists -as in many other cases- are running the show with bad advice and half-baked theories. As in many other cases (Steve Bannon's white nationalism comes to mind) Trump might end having to backtrack after some significant self-damage is done and felt (watch US farmers).
• Financial irresponsibility After (correctly) blaming Obama administration for balooning the debt (something that would not have been necessary without Bush 43 reckless spending in "nation building" abroad) , Trump shows no interest in changing the destructive course of US finances and debt. Worse than that, POTUS 45 brags about his record in bankrupting his way out of financial trouble in business and talks about a possible US default as an option (no matter that it's explicitly banned by our Constitution). The potential result of the accumulated thrust of the collective POTUS heritage and the direction of the debt might cost dearly to US and the world, not to mention POTUS 46 and 47.
• Hate-mongering, exploitation of cultural wars, hatred-fanning. What is good for a reality show rating seems to be good for ushering the "base" vote and win (narrowly) elections. Trump has proven an artist in using insult and personal attacks as a way to taunt opponents, making them move far to fringe, unelectable Left-wing candidates and positions. The net result is a toxic climate that turns traditional culture wars into a low-grade civil war and compromises constitutional institutions, checks and balances. There is a method in  Trump's theatrical madness, but his performing talent reminds of the worst of vernacular populism -from William Jennings Bryant's People's Party to "Every Man a King" Huey Long and Joe McCarthy's witch-hunts (which Trump characteristically -it was his shared mentor  Roy Cohn's favorite tactic- turns around presenting himself as a victim of). The most negative consequence of Trump's tactics is tarnishing good policies with negative, self-destructive politics.
• One-man-show government. Trump has brought to POTUS 45 his (bad) management habits in spades: one-man-show, lack of organization, repelling or burning out competent people, crowding with sycophants and family, not delegate, half-delegate, then undercut the delegate, zig zagging positions, run-by-whim decision-making, and so on. A full playbook of bad small business management with pages taken from The Apprentice. Only that the real apprentice is POTUS 45. 
• Opportunistic, amoral approach to government. Trump inherited bad advice from his own father, real estate business experience and some mentors borrowed and inherited from Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon such as Roy Cohn and Roger Stone.. 
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• Like Nixon, Trump has a penchant for using crooks and checkered characters to do "special operations" in his favor. Like in Nixon's case, these seem to be causing him headaches and political risks beyond his own calculations.

• There is no principle to come before economic or tactical convenience, as shown by Trump's casual 360s on the wall, one of his hobby horses. This lack of principle combines with a Nixonian tendency to intrigue and secrecy that has already driven the Mueller investigation, a constant flurry of disaffected whistle-blowers and a climate in the White House that has been recurrently described as dysfunctional. 
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• The good that inspiring fear on enemies can cause can be outweighed by the lack of trust on the words and commitments from the current POTUS office. 

Will the things Trump got right outweigh the things he got wrong? Will it be the other way around? 

There is no way to answer that better than it would be in a small business ran by a egotistic owner. Think of Henry Ford I. Or Juan Peron. Those of us who grew in populist-driven Latin America have seen this over almost 80 years. And the consequences are in plain display in Argentina, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

Let's hope for the best. And be prepared for the worst.