{"id":56133,"date":"2025-04-27T13:44:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T13:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=56133"},"modified":"2025-04-27T13:44:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T13:44:33","slug":"trump-and-the-art-of-dealism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=56133","title":{"rendered":"Trump and the art of \u2018dealism\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\">Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=eb780115-80ec-48c4-ab96-4936624ff167&amp;newsletter-id=65b8fec772badb00166eafc6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>\u201cI never get too attached to one deal or one approach\u201d \u2014 words attributed to a certain Donald J Trump in 1987. \u201cFor starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You might think it pointless to try to come up with answers to what exactly is going on in the mind of the US president by referring to a book ghostwritten for him some 38 years ago. And yet perusing through <em>The Art of the Deal \u2014 <\/em>as many people, friend and foe, appear to have been doing of late \u2014 is the closest you can get to making sense of Trump\u2019s mindset. \u201cMy style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward,\u201d he explains at another point. \u201cI aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I\u2019m after.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But while the book might provide a lens through which we can better understand Trump\u2019s psychology, his trademark style of transactional, winners-and-losers statecraft \u2014 or how his administration has descended into quite this degree of chaos in less than 100 days \u2014 it does not exactly provide any kind of blueprint for American leadership. Think less <em>Diplomacy <\/em>by Henry Kissinger, and more <em>If I Did It <\/em>by OJ Simpson (albeit without the stuff about *hypothetically* committing murder). <\/p>\n<p>And yet for Trump\u2019s most ardent acolytes the book has become a kind of bible, whose blessed scripture can be used to rationalise, justify and glorify every wild gyration the president makes. \u201cMany of you in the media clearly missed <em>The Art of the Deal<\/em>,\u201d 27-year-old White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters recently, as Trump announced a pause on tariffs amid a market meltdown. \u201cYou\u2019ve clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here.\u201d (She was right about that part.) <\/p>\n<p>In Trump\u2019s mode of thinking, the means \u2014 which can be as outlandish or unrealistic as he likes \u2014 are justified by the ends, which are always the same: winning. The means do not need to be taken too seriously. It must be quite disorienting, then, to come up with policies, ideas and arguments on the hoof and to have an army of lackeys and zealots ready to defend them as part of some grand plan. Consider Treasury secretary Scott Bessent bending over backwards to justify Trump\u2019s tariff seesawing as the \u201cstrategy all along\u201d. Or vice-president JD Vance telling reporters that \u201cwe can\u2019t just ignore the president\u2019s desires\u201d when asked about threats to annex Greenland, or attempting to use the Bible as justification for Trump\u2019s America First policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So how can we describe the belief system that Trump\u2019s faithful disciples have created and now subscribe to, which treats <em>The Art of the Deal <\/em>as evidence that Trump is the saviour of America? I like the word that Martin Walker, a research fellow at Warwick Business School, uses: \u201cdealism\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The great thing about dealism is that it can never be wrong \u2014 it is utterly bulletproof because it is never clear how far into the game of four dimensional chess we are. Telling lies, flip-flopping or making a huge mess is all just part of the process. \u201cIf things don\u2019t turn out the way they were promised that\u2019s because it is part of a bigger hidden strategy that includes lying about the strategy,\u201d Walker explains. \u201cAnd if that doesn\u2019t happen it\u2019s OK because that\u2019s part of an even bigger strategy.\u201d You get the gist.<\/p>\n<p>The other thing to understand about dealism is that it is not so much about any particular policy as it is about having blind faith in the infallible master dealmaker Trump. This is a kind of cult of leadership that was described very well back in March 2016 on CNN. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have a leader that emerges and says: don\u2019t put your faith in yourselves, don\u2019t put your faith in society, put your faith in me,\u201d the man said. \u201cFor years to come, there are many people on the right\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. that are going to be having to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump, because this is not going to end well.\u201d The interviewee was Marco Rubio, now secretary of state, who is these days more likely to be found shrugging off Trump-induced market crashes or suggesting he should get a Nobel Peace Prize. <\/p>\n<p>The irony of all this is that, if they had inspected their bible a little more closely, the followers of dealism might have realised they are taking it all rather more seriously than they are meant to. \u201cThe real excitement is playing the game,\u201d Trump says in a section called \u201cHave Fun\u201d. \u201cI don\u2019t spend a lot of time worrying about what I should have done differently, or what\u2019s going to happen next,\u201d he continues. \u201cIf you ask me exactly what the deals\u2009.\u2009.\u2009. all add up to in the end, I\u2019m not sure I have a very good answer.\u201d Luckily for him, the dealists will always be ready with one. <\/p>\n<p><em>jemima.kelly@ft.com <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/eb780115-80ec-48c4-ab96-4936624ff167\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world \u201cI never get too attached to one deal or one approach\u201d \u2014 words attributed to a certain Donald J Trump in 1987. \u201cFor starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-56133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Trump and the art of \u2018dealism\u2019 | Prosfunds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump\u2019s second term means for Washington, business and the world\u201cI never get too\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prosfunds.com\/?p=56133\" \/>\n<meta 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