When 100 days feels like eternity

There is something artificial about most political anniversaries, though they are an opportunity to stop and reflect. A first milestone for any US president is their first 100 days in the White House. In the case of Donald Trump, one of the main challenges is to tell the content from the theater. Thus far his style of governance is erratic and hectic, reflecting his volatile and unpredictable character, as demonstrated throughout the election campaign.

Trump is certainly a departure from anyone and anything that preceded him in the Oval Office. It is hard to follow any thread of coherent policies in domestic or international affairs. This is reflected in the way the public sees him three months into his presidency. It might not be that surprising for Trump, who won the election with a minority of the popular vote, that his public approval ratings are not high. Yet at 41 percent, as measured by Gallup, he entertains the lowest approval rating for a newly elected president at this stage of the presidency since this measure was introduced under Dwight Eisenhower.

The Trump in office is not very different from the man who campaigned for the highest post in the country. He largely seems unaware that electioneering is over, and that he is already the person in power. He still enjoys mass rallies instead of the painstaking process of decision-making or learning the complex task of running the most powerful country in the world. Had he concentrated on the latter, he could have avoided many of his early fiascos, from appointing unsuitable people to senior positions, to issuing executive orders that ended up being overridden by federal courts. His decisions have so far ranged from the bizarre to the reckless, with the occasional flicker of rationality. Most worrisome is that it is not clear whether he is able to discern fact from fiction, or truth from lies.

He failed miserably in delivering two of his major promises during the election campaign — on immigration and taxes — because of dogma mixed with hastiness. It is one thing to accept that he is a novice president with no political experience trying to execute many of his election promises early in his tenure to gain credibility. It is completely different to do so without assessing the consequences of his actions. The White House is not Trump Tower, in which he can rule in an authoritarian manner. Banning the travel of Muslims, despite denials by the new administration it was aimed solely at Muslims, caused consternation at home and uproar abroad. It painted the country under Trump’s leadership as racist. Furthermore, when the travel ban failed to pass its first legal hurdle in its two incarnations, it exposed the Trump administration’s ineptitude. Similarly, attempts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known better as Obamacare, failed due to opposition from both Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives, who could not reach an agreement on a replacement plan. These embarrassments indicate a lack of groundwork and basic understanding of how the US political system works.

This is largely due to awkward appointments to top positions in the administration, while not filling hundreds of key executive branch positions, leaving the administration short on much-needed expertise. Instead, Trump favors cronyism, appointing close family members, friends and business associates to influential positions regardless of their qualifications. Consequently, deep rifts have allegedly already appeared within his very close circle of advisors, not to mention losing his first choice of national security advisor, Mike Flynn, in record time. Flynn had to resign due to allegations of his undisclosed engagement with Russian officials.

If this is not alarming enough, Trump the self-proclaimed isolationist presidential candidate is becoming Trump the adventurist president. Using military force in Syria as retaliation for the use of chemical weapons by the regime has its own logic, as much as curbing North Korea’s growing bellicose behavior and nuclear program. But there is no evidence in either case that the Trump administration has a well-thought-through strategy toward these countries. There is much posturing with a real danger of miscalculated escalation. The unprecedented summoning of the entire US Senate to the White House for a briefing about the situation in the Korean Peninsula makes good television, but in conjunction with a growing US Navy presence in the region, this might elicit a military reaction from the inexperienced and impulsive North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It is where assertive, subtle and multilateral action is required instead of only a show of force.

It has been merely 100 days of President Trump, and despite his compulsive policy-setting, we are none the wiser as to whether this administration is able to settle down and have some strategic vision of the US and the world. If anything can be learned from Trump’s first 100 days, it is that policies are made on the hoof, with the likely outcome of moving from crisis to crisis with dangerously unforeseen results. He summed up his experience to date by saying he was missing his old life. He is not the only one.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations at Regent’s University London, where he is head of the International Relations and Social Sciences Program. He is also an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media.