Observations on the Article “Trump widens rift with key Republican leaders”
The Christian Science Monitor, August 23, 2017, by Linda Feldmann, Staff Writer

The American people have, for some time, demanded the entry of “outsiders” into the political process. For good or ill, Mr. Trump fits that bill.
As I have frequently written in both the United States in Colombia, Mr. Trump has been a Democrat longer than a Republican, and also a member of Ross Perot’s reform party but, in the end, he is his own person. That gives him significant freedom of action but also deprives him of a political base in Congress or in his own administrative agencies. We know have government through a duopoly plus one, and that one is frequently a wildcard.
He is the antithesis of a modern politician which enervates the political establishment on a bipartisan basis and drives the mainstream media to distraction since the buttons they are accustomed to pushing don’t seem to be working. As for the People, some are furious, mainly Clinton — Obama Democrats, but they would have been furious no matter what; many are confused, not surprising given the unprecedented level and intensity of mainstream media attacks on the president and the serious attempt to orchestrate a soft coup; but many others are very pleased, they understand his language and love his transparency, regardless of its frequent lack of coherence.
As the Chinese curse warns, “we are living in interesting times”.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2017; all rights reserved. Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.
Guillermo Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia although he has primarily lived in the United States of America (of which he is a citizen). Until recently he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). He can be contacted at wacalvo3@autonoma.edu.co or guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at www.guillermocalvo.com.
