U.S. President Donald Trump salutes during a dignified transfer of the remains of six U.S. Army service members who were killed in Kuwait.Nathan Howard/Reuters
Woodrow Wilson drafted speeches and manifestos that thrilled his fellow Americans and inspired the world. Franklin Roosevelt conducted comforting fireside chats. Lyndon Johnson brooded in the White House and worried about being impeached. Richard Nixon gave sober Oval Office addresses. George W. Bush foreswore golf.
American presidents adapt their peacetime personas to wartime exigencies.
For his part, Donald Trump donned a white hat when announcing the early strikes against Iran, perhaps an allusion to the white hats worn by heroes in early Hollywood Westerns – probably an inadvertent choice by the President but the sort of symbolism Ronald Reagan, who wore one while playing a U.S. Cavalry officer opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the 1954 film Cattle Queen of Montana, might have adopted. In the days that followed the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes, Mr. Trump sparred with a comedian he disfavours, convened a meeting to discuss college sports and sent out scores of social-media messages.
“Leading the country in wartime is one of the most challenging presidential responsibilities, and the one that almost no other part of a typical resume prepares them for,” said Peter Feaver, who served in the National Security Council under both former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. “But Presidents also show their distinctive personalities in the role.”
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to escalate the war with Iran if it blocked oil shipments from the Middle East, even as he predicted a quick end to the conflict.
Reuters
As a result, the ruminators ruminate, the mopers mope, the extroverts are energized. Mr. Johnson became more Johnsonian (fatalistic, even depressive), Mr. Nixon more Nixonian (secretive, even paranoid), Barack Obama more Obama-like (careful, detail-oriented to the point of indecision), Mr. Trump more Trumpist (bombastic, even overblown).
“We will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world,” Mr. Trump said Monday. Later, he added on his Truth Social platform: “Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them.”
There is one ritual all American presidents follow in wartime. They travel to Delaware and, at the Dover Air Force Base, greet fallen American military personnel. The rite carries a sombre name (“dignified transfer”) and Mr. Trump, in solemn step with presidential custom, was there when the remains of the first six Americans killed in the war in Iran were returned to the 7,246-square-metre mortuary that sits on a military campus, where for 74 years has been the destination of American wartime dead.
Otherwise, Mr. Trump, characteristically, has blazed his own trail as a wartime president.
From Roy Cohn, the 1950s master of the dark arts of politics who later became a Trump mentor, the President learned the merits of a “Never Explain” philosophy. This has not been an advantage for Mr. Trump in wartime. A majority of voters (53 per cent) oppose the war, with 40 per cent supporting it, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday.
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The President has yet to fully explain the rationale for the Iran attack nor set forth plans for the postwar period. Nor has Mr. Trump made a public effort to bring the American people behind the war effort.
The approach – an open-ended major combat offensive with no discernible end or identifiable policy ends – is far different from what he displayed in his first term.
“He doesn’t seem like the same person,” said David Schanzer, a Duke University public-policy professor. “He’s started a hot, kinetic war causing mass havoc – not typical Trump, who was restrained in his use of force until now.”
What remains the same is his swashbuckling style, which was earlier displayed in domestic affairs and now in wartime – a marked contrast with his predecessors.
Theodore Roosevelt was famous for his motto of speaking softly and carrying a big stick. Mr. Trump speaks loudly and carries an airborne stick. Mr. Roosevelt was a war hero in the 1898 Spanish-American War but didn’t initiate major hostilities as president. Mr. Trump had repeated Vietnam-era draft deferments and has initiated a series of armed interventions.
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The 26th president won the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Trump thinks he has earned it but didn’t get it.
Mr. Nixon was formal, in a dark suit and deep blue tie for his “silent majority” speech, and seldom was seen in casual clothing; he was once photographed wearing a suit and wingtip dress shoes walking on the beach at San Clemente, California. Mr. Trump is far more casual. Mr. Nixon would never have donned a hat the way Mr. Trump did while saluting the dead at Dover.
In fact, a Nixon Campaign Plan Book set out a rule: “The 37th President of the United States of America NEVER WEARS HATS…no honorary hats…no protocol hats…no “great photo” hats…no “the law requires” hats…no “it’s the custom” hats…no cute hats…no beanies…no stovepipes…no firehats…no captain’s hats…no caps…no Indian headdress…no feather hats…no hard hats…no soft hats…no ladies hats…no mens hats…no fur hats…no paper hats…no grass hats…no thorn hats…no ‘Nixon’s The One’ hats…no nothing. HATS ARE TOXIC – AND CAN KILL YOU.”
Mr. Trump apparently hasn’t read the memo.