With President Trump in the White House this time, his character as a distinctive “agent of chaos” is on full display.
In American and world literature, an “agent of chaos” character is usually an important villain or antagonist who in the tale at hand deliberately disrupts the established order and stability of the society being featured—sometimes to its ultimate destruction— most often to amuse themselves or to achieve a particularly destructive social goal. Shakepeare’s Iago (from “Othello”) or the Joker (from “Batman”), are prime examples. Frequently ruthless and unpredictable, these “agents of chaos” characters thrive on disorder and confusion (usually that they’ve caused themselves or have latched onto from others), and most frequently that they personally profit from. Mr. Trump’s earlier adventures in owning gambling casinos offered the perfect prediction for his behavior as POTUS.
In all six of his casino scenarios in the 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Trump stuck his chest out, pranced around as a showman, stiffed basically everyone he suckered into investing in his properties, continuously lied about the businesses’ success, waffled out of attempts to pin him down, and ultimately achieved personal profitability as others suffered ignominously. Each of the casino properties fizzled into bankruptcies in which virtually everyone but Mr. Trump lost a lot of money.
Clearly, we all should have paid much more attention to the character he brought to politics from those six casino bankruptcies that he presided over during the 1990s and early 2000s. In all six, he personally profited while raining down poverty, bankruptcies and destruction on banks, workers, unions and other investors he had suckered into doing business with him. He drove away each time “fat” in a limosine, while others were left to clean up the hefty load of trash, crumbling buildings, and broken contracts. He expressed no sorrow at their fate, but did proclaim himself as the genius who walked away with major cash in his pocket each time.
The Agent of Chaos trope is on full display again with Mr. Trump as POTUS. With Elon Musk as his Acolyte-General Devil with Trident, he is raining down confusion and chaos as executive leader of the American government. His zealous adherence to a nothing-but-chaos tariff policy, if sustained as expected, will surely bring plenty of marketplace pain to ordinary Americans. As befits the ‘chaos character trope’ however, he ‘doesn’t care’ and stubbornly persists in implementing more and more tariffs, oblivious to the sensible economic view that such tariffs, if continued, will surely cause an American recession that will benefit virtually no one (although he aims to personally profit). The courts apparently cannot stop him—only Congress can, if it indeed decides to step up and take that extraordinary step—but meanwhile he continues to deploy what every viable economist says is a nonsensical, destructive policy that cannot ultimately benefit the U.S. economy nor regular Americans.
Though he did not place his hand on the Bible to take his oath of office (which should have warned us all), Mr. Trump is the chief steward of the American government and economy. So for him to continue to insist on imposing tariffs as the principal economic activity of government when it has already been shown to be a guaranteed loser for the country, it clearly demonstrates that he is more attached to living up (or down) to the stereotype of the “agent of chaos” character than he is to being an effective POTUS.
This fact alone will ensure that he does not lose his current title—bestowed by American historians—as among the 10 worst presidents in American history worst even than Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, and Herbert Hoover, the latter most often blamed for leading the U.S. into the Great Depression.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
