Thread by @ThreshedThought

Trump: the digest.

A 🧵

It’s been an exhausting 3 weeks listening to President Trump’s executive orders.

Are there any patterns?

Trump’s thought processes: he is 💯 a New York property developer. You see it in how he throws ideas out to see if they stick (or to watch how people respond them them), so as to guide his next steps.

Trump’s communication style (or his administration’s comms style): we have entered an era of what you might call news management 2.0.

News Management 1.0 was the 1990s style government communication grid with structured, coordinated daily announcements with people holding to a ‘line’

News Management 2.0 is different and reflective of the internet and social media age: the Trump White House issues a blizzard of announcements on diverse topics with the intention that they bury each other and the media (and the public) don’t know what to follow/what is important.

In a sense it’s the opposite of News Management 1.0 which was about structuring a media landscape and giving it a narrative arc.

News Management 2.0 is about obscuring the narrative through hyperactive disjointed announcements. Our brains spend all their time trying to pick out a pattern.

Trump Internationally: it’s clear that Trump is now actively trying to tear down the international order from leaving (or threatening to leave) the WTO and the WHO; sanctioning International Criminal Court people; to pulling out of the Paris climate accords.

Trump sits alongside Russia (and to a lesser degree China) in seeking to destroy the international network of organisations that help us regulate and negotiate between countries.

The US has become unilateral coercive bully just like Russia and China.

The middle ranking powers - of which the UK is a prime example - rely extensively on the international order with its relatively predictable environment of rules and laws.

They need to start thinking very fast about how these middle powers can come together to make the international order work - at the moment the three big are dividing and ruling the middle power - they need to come together to reinforce the international order and try and hold the big powers to account (easy in the case of Russia, less so with the other two).

In the mean time - the unpredictable international environment continues and it’s only a matter of time before some leader makes a mistake or some crisis (migration from the Sahel anyone?) tips us over into war.

And if you want to stay safe in that environment, or avoid being coerced, you need to increase your defence capabilities.

This is 2025.

We are coming to the end of the post World War Two consensus internationally, and we don’t yet know what the new consensus looks like.

It’s gonna be a rough ride.