Can the US president–elect stay the course?

What a silly question to ask, and may be unsettling too, for the world's greatest power! When Trump  has been elected US president, has all but picked his transition team and is moving full steam ahead to his  inauguration as a Republican president after a decade of Democratic rule ,why this damper of a question? Admittedly, however, an issue of uncertainty dogs his steps. Why is there an eerie feeling about him? The possible answer appears to be that he is becoming a prisoner of his own vote-catching devices. He has tossed up to the public dreams and promises that are for the most part undeliverable.

 People's  aspirations  have been so spiked by Trump's unexpectedly successful campaign that every instance of his underachieved agenda will be held against him. The seething anger that he exploited to ride to power may recoil on him. Besides, he has some integrity issues to overcome from a position of power. Washington DC-based Professor Allen Lichtman, who has accurately predicted outcomes of US presidential elections for the last 30 years including the last one, has expressed his 'gut feeling' that Trump may not complete his tenure. He might be impeached  for either 'doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocket.'

It is important to note that Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House on whom Trump has to depend critically to legislate his difficult agenda, has not been on the same page with him since the primaries. He would not endorse his ticket initially and with his so-called lock-in sexual scandal, Ryan even refused to have anything to do with Trump candidacy. It is Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus who had brought Ryan back on board. Priebus is credited also with having persuaded Mike Pence to accept the vice-presidential slot. And Pence is now the head of the transition team. So the equations among Ryan, Priebus and Pence are going to be a paramount balancing factor in Trump presidency.

Experts believe that with an 'uncontrollable' Trump and white supremacist Steve Bannon as his chief strategist and counsellor, the value for a sobering Priebus-Pence-Ryan trio can be hardly overemphasised.

House speaker Ryan, on the back of Trump's CBS interview in which he spoke of deporting two to three million illegal immigrants with  allegedly criminal records, told CNN that the focus should be on securing the border, not mounting expulsions or putting a deportation force in place.

Discrepancies between Trump's promises and Ryan's plans may indicate that the president-elect and the future Congress do not yet know how they will go about implementing 'the mandate' that the  voters have entrusted them with.

On the proposed ban on Muslims entering the US, Rudy Guiulini, a top adviser to Trump said it "would now  be imposed on a country by country basis, restricted  to Syria and Yemen. All the rest from countries with "dangerous populations" would be subject to "extreme vetting". Those from Egypt and Pakistan would face "pretty good vetting but not a complete ban".

It is important to bear in mind that until last year Speaker Ryan, who supported Obama's free trade agenda with Asia, was not entirely behind Trump's promises to impose high tariffs on countries like Mexico and China. Meanwhile, China is bracing itself to counter the 'naivety' of an American trade war with Beijing. The US is heavily indebted to China through bonds.

Steve Bannon's appointment on an equal footing with chief of staff Reince Priebus has drawn considerable criticism of political classes in the Capitol Hill. His hyper-nationalist anti-establishment agendas are equated with the so-called alt-right values. He is labelled as white supremacist being opposed tooth and nail to any notion of multiculturism, the bedrock of a now teetering melting pot American society that should be reinstated.

Bannon's ultra-right orientation may be also be measured by the fact that he and his associates in Breitbert News think Fox News is 'too polite and restrained.'

At the end of the day, however, there is much in the Republican legacy that is benevolent in the lineage of presidents which may be co-opted into the present day GOP.

The writer is contributor of The Daily Star.

Email: shahhusainimam@gmail.com