Framing Trump otherwise to offer strategic opportunity

Public Enemy #1 as Supreme Leader? (Part #4)

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It could be argued that through their negative framing of Trump progressives have effectively "painted themselves into a corner" offering limited capacity for any strategic maneuverability and nimbleness on their part. How an opponent is framed says as much about the framer as about the framed. The current framing has clearly placed the framers at a disadvantage, since it is Trump who now occupies the White House. Protest would seem to be the "best shot" progressives currently imagine themselves to have.

Caricature? What imaginative opportunities are there to frame Trump otherwise? Typical of an unsuccessful effort was through positioning nude statues of Trump in major cities of the US (The Emperor Has No Balls). Why was that strategy a failure? He did not choose to riposte by positioning nude statues of Hillary Clinton around the country.

Political cartoonists have had multiple opportunities to reframe Trump during the campaign, but such efforts would seem to have done little to reframe the debate. Many more such cartoons will now be produced -- but to what end? Progressives are similarly vulnerable to such caricature.

Appreciative reframing? More intriguing is the possibility of appreciative caricature -- perhaps in the spirit of appreciative inquiry. What forms of reframing would offer new modes of communication with Trump? One strange possibility is mixed martial arts of which he has been acclaimed, and deprecated, as a sponsor. Clearly there is a sense in which he identifies with that modality -- however much his critics may deplore such combat (Alexander Reynolds, The Mixed Martial Philosophy of Donald J. Trump, Vice Sports, 20 January 2017). Could "martial arts" be framed otherwise as a mode of engagement with Trump, as separately argued (Ensuring Strategic Resilience through Haiku Patterns: reframing the scope of the "martial arts" in response to strategic threats, 2006).

In sporting terms Trump would have been laughed out of the political arena into which he threw his hat. However his trajectory is curiously reminiscent of " "Eddie the Eagle" who represented the UK in the ski jump in the 1963 Winter Olympics. As with Eddie, the media were so fascinated by his innocent daring (in a discipline in which he had no training whatsoever) that the rules had subsequently to be modified to ensure that media attention focused appropriately on the stars of that discipline (who had plaintively complained of being neglected). Trump is clearly to be appreciated for his daring and skill in "giving it a go" -- against the array of odds so frequently portrayed by commentators, later to be proven wrong.

Challenging respect? Another approach to reframing an opponent is that cultivated by the Maori, namely the haka, most evidently on the occasion of encounters of the All Blacks rugby team of New Zealand. The style contrasts curiously with cheerleading, most notably on the occasion of American basketball and football games. The haka is a collective challenge to another with whom a competitive encounter is anticipated. It is designed simultaneously to greet, honour and threaten. It is an evocation of respect

Such respect is arguably fundamental to honourable engagement with a threatening other (Engaging an Opposing Ideology via Martial Arts Philosophy: reframing the challenge of Trump and Jihadism as worthy opponents, 2016). Failure of the US military to respect the enemy with which it has engaged in recent arenas has presumbably been a major factor in the surprising duration of engagements -- even over decades.

As separately argued, the tepid formal congratulations offered to Trump on his election could have been more appropriately and honourably framed by some analogue to the haka. Use of any analogue to cheerleading, as is the convention in greeting parades on state visits, completely distracts (disrespectfully) from the issues in play.

Aesthetically enabled engagement? A variant of performance evocative of respect is the use of poetry, notably as in the cultural tradition of the war lords of Afghan tribes. This also suggests another approach to reframing Trump in terms he could respect , as separately argued (Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran an unexplored strategic opportunity? 2009). How might the anguish and anger of progressives take aesthetic form, through poetry and song? Could this be done in such a way to frame a terrain of fruitful encounter with Trump -- perhaps challenged to riposte in a similar mode, as was traditionally the case of the tribes of Arabian culture?

As in chess and other games, how is it to be expected that Trump will respond to protest which seeks to pull him down? Any insightful strategist anticipates the response of the opponent to any move made. Already recognized as hypersensitive, will Trump react to mockery in a manner reminiscent of the explosive response of Islam to blasphemy?

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