Thanks to Trump, Life is Like a Deck of Cards
Trump’s Cabinet and the Republicans in Congress, by Suit
By Adam Corson-Finnerty
How do we keep track of all the players now that President Donald Trump has come into power?
A standard Poker deck might be a good taxonomic system: four suits, 52 cards, and two jokers.
I’m going to make Clubs the President’s inner circle, in which case he is the Ace of Clubs. But Trump is also one of the two Jokers, a wild card.
To be a Club is to have Donald’s favor and respect. To have the Donald’s favor and respect requires slavish devotion and lavish praise, no matter what he says or does. Or to be a close family member.
The next most important member of the Clubs’ club is Ivanka Trump. She is the daughter who he sees as an extension of himself. Son-in-laws may come and go, but family is family. So she is the King of Clubs. She may be the most important card in the deck, because she is likely to be the one to tell him when it is time to leave.
Son-in-law Jared Kushner is the Queen of Clubs, a very powerful card. Politico and the New York Times report that Ivanka and Jared talked daddy out of issuing an executive order that would have rolled back Obama’s executive order providing for L.G.B.T. protections.
Keep in mind that no one has any real power in Donald Trump’s club. Only temporary influence. For a deeper understanding, study the reign of King Henry VIII. Or consult DSM-5 301.81 (F60.81)
The Jack — also known as the Knave — is currently Steve Bannon. In the early days of the Trump Administration, Bannon‘s influence and power seem supreme. But he is the Thomas Cromwell to Trump’s Henry VIII. Once Bannon is a liability, or a scapegoat is needed, he will be fired. (Cromwell fell out of favor with King Henry in 1540 and was beheaded.)
The Ten of Clubs could be Stephen Miller, the senior adviser who wrote most of Candidate Trump’s speeches, was given the lead on Trump’s executive order on Immigration, and is said to understand the President’s “vision” {?}.
An interesting Club is House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). McCarthy was an early and avid supporter of Trump during the primaries and he is close to House Speaker Paul Ryan. By playing his cards right, McCarthy has emerged as a “trusted intermediary” between the two. (See the Washington Post profile article of Feb. 5, in which Trump refers to McCarthy as “my Kevin.”) Other people temporarily in the Clubs include Mike Pence, Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn (Director of the president’s National Economic Council) and other minions yet-to-be-identified.
Notice that I have not named a single Cabinet member. At this point it is unclear whether any of these people will have any real power under Trump. Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, a globe straddling business giant and now Secretary of State, was left out of the loop on the Immigration Order, and just had his recommendation for Deputy Secretary trashed because Elliott Abrams said bad things about Candidate Trump during the primaries.
Let’s shift to Diamonds. Diamonds are the rich people who are going to get richer under President Trump. The Oil Barons, the Defense Contractors, the other Individuals and Corporate CEOs who will get a place at the trough, and/or those who will get tax breaks that they don’t need or deserve. Right now these big piggies are being welcomed at Trump’s banquet table. The Bankers are being promised a rollback of Dodd-Frank regulations. The Oil Barons are being treated to a menu of “all of the above” when it comes to drilling, fracking, and deregulation of environmental rules.
There are some people, like Thomas Friedman of the NY Times, who think that there are Diamonds who feel a sense of Civic Responsibility. Friedman has already called upon these people to ignore the temporary “sugar high” of Trump’s dessert table, and focus on reining Trump in, or ending Trump’s reign. He specifically names Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Jeff Immelt, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Jamie Dimon, Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Indra Nooyi, Ginni Rometty, Dennis Muilenburg and Doug McMillon. So far, Silicon Valley CEOs have vocally decried Trump’s immigrant “ban,” Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned from one of Trump’s economic advisory councils (under pressure from customers and his own employees), and money-manager Seth A. Klarman warned his clients that “The erratic tendencies and overconfidence in his own wisdom and judgment that Donald Trump has demonstrated to date are inconsistent with strong leadership and sound decision-making.”
Then there are the Hearts. These are the good guys, the guys who want to maintain the social safety net, who want to slow and then halt Global Warming, who want to maintain good relations with our allies, and who want to protect human rights at home and abroad. With Hillary’s defeat, there appears to be no Ace yet — unless it is the New York Times, which has been slicing at Trump from the get-go, and now is playing the role of Leader of the Opposition. The King of Hearts is Senator Chuck Schumer; the Queen is Senator Elizabeth Warren. The Jack of Hearts is Bernie Sanders. Other Hearts include Senator Cory Booker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Governor Jerry Brown.
The Spades are the Jedi Knights. They may be good, they may be bad, but they are powerful. And they are also “ronin,” the Japanese term for masterless warriors. They can and do act independently. Some of them are very public, some are practically invisible. We need to watch them closely.
Right now I would make the Ace of Spades Vladimir Putin. President Putin not only “played” our recent national election, he may also have some secret power over The Donald. If so, then he is like Rasputin, who controlled the Russian throne because he had a psychic hold over the Czarina, through his ministrations to her very ill son.
The King of Spades is China’s President Xi Jinping. The head of what will soon be the world’s largest economy, he is in the extremely ironic position of arguing in favor of the international economic system that capitalism has built, and which includes broad trade agreements and global institutions like the World Trade Organization.
The Queen of Spades is Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In this theocracy, the chief spiritual leader is also the head of the armed forces as well as Intelligence and Internal Security. Trump would like to pick a fight with Iran. Iran knows how to play dirty. Trump thinks foreign policy is like whack-a-mole. God help us.
The Jack of Spades is none other than Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea. Not because he holds vast global power, but because he has a few nuclear weapons and he is crazy. That makes him the other Joker in the deck.
The rest of the Jedi (Spades) include Senator John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Currently Ryan and McConnell are pretending to be Clubs, but they can change suit at any time. Also the Wall Street Journal, the ACLU, Fox News (currently trying to be a Club), CNN, and the three major TV networks (currently accused of being Hearts). The Two of Spades has already been assigned. It’s Alex Jones, and if you have never heard of him, consider yourself lucky.
While we are assembling our full deck, one must remember that the actual players will change as the game goes on. Remember Chris Christie? Rudi Giuliani? Hillary Clinton? They’ve all left the table.
There is one other very important factor to keep in mind. A deck of cards is just a deck of cards. It is only when the rules of the game are established that true play can commence — as we say — “According to Hoyle.”
Edmond Hoyle codified and published the rules of whist in the eighteenth century. Hoyle’s reputation is so closely associated with card games that his name is used in most current guides, including Hoyle’s Rules of Games; Hoyle’s Modern Encyclopedia of Card Games; and According to Hoyle.
In the case of President Donald Trump, the Rules are written in the Constitution and an independent body of judges interprets and enforces them. For which we may thank Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and a number of other really tremendous Founding Dudes who set the totally awesome Federal Game into play.
When Ben Franklin was asked by a group of citizens about what the Constitutional Convention had wrought, he answered “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Right now, alarums are being raised: The Donald may upset the table and our Republic will become TrumpWorld. Such alarums have been sounded before, but remember this: The Joker never wins in the end, and Batman wears a cape.
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