Everyone wants to be thought of as a disruptor, from cupcake makers in Brooklyn who reimagine the lowly pastry to app creators in Palo Alto who upend entire industries.
Well, here’s to the disruptor living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
President Trump — the Great Disruptor who is challenging the premises and practices that all the Serious People tell us are immutable — is disrupting business-as-usual in Washington, New York, Geneva, Brussels and Beijing.
{mosads}Donald J. Trump has been upsetting the status quo ever since he descended the escalator in Trump Tower to disrupt the make-believe world of mendacious politicians mouthing meaningless talking points and the media that pretend to believe them.
Washington conventional wisdom told us economic stagnation, higher taxes, greater regulation and fewer manufacturing jobs were metaphysical certainties. President Trump disrupted that.
Beijing had figured out how to displace America as the world’s No. 1 economic and military superpower by gaming the international trading system and gulling somnambulant elites into believing “as China grows more prosperous it will become more democratic and an ally of the U.S.” President Trump has disrupted that, and rewritten the conventional thinking about China.
In the process, the president disrupted the World Trade Organization, which the world now acknowledges is incapable of defending the international trading system against the depredations of a recidivist China.
President Trump disrupted the Wall Street-Washington cartel that deliberately mislabeled globally managed trade as “free trade” and its strategy to move American factories to China and import goods to the United States tax-free. As the president’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, said, “Some businesses and some Wall Street guys will have to figure out another way to make a fortune.”
In the Middle East, President Trump disrupted the diplomatic fantasy that Israel would ever surrender control of Jerusalem to an international authority that has proven itself incapable of managing a piece of real estate on the east side of Manhattan, let alone an entire city in the most volatile region on earth.
Whether the G-7 summit, a meaningless communiqué or global compact on this or that, the United Nations or some other sacred cow of the “liberal international order” that’s never been questioned or updated since its invention more than 70 years ago, President Trump has disrupted them all.
While he was at it, he disrupted the notion that American taxpayers would foot the bill for NATO in perpetuity and finance Europe’s slow drift to socialism.
Most fundamentally, President Trump has disrupted the consensus belief that says the decline of the United States is inevitable and can be managed only, not averted.
When Silicon Valley tech titans disrupt industries and destroy the jobs of thousands of Americans in the process, media pundits cheer them as heroes. When President Trump disrupts an ossified status quo that has ill-served our nation and its people, these same pundits harrumph and recoil in horror.
The truth is, America always has welcomed disruption and disruptors — the rebels, the troublemakers, the ones who see things differently. They invent. They explore. They create. They inspire. They change things. They push the human race forward.
Disruption is the price you pay for change you can really believe in.
Thomas Hicks Jr. is chairman of the board of America First Policies and America First Action PAC. He is a partner of Hicks Holdings LLC, a family investment firm with interests in manufacturing, energy services, consumer products and technology. He also is a founder and partner of Scout SSG, a firm specializing in advising and investing in special situations. He was national finance co-chair of Donald J. Trump for President in 2016 and assisted in the transition and inaugural activities.
Curtis Ellis is senior policy adviser with America First Policies. He was a senior policy adviser with the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign.