Just under 70 years ago, while he was serving at the American Embassy in Moscow, back at the beginning of the Cold War, senior diplomat George Kennan was asked to take a step back from all his day-to-day concerns and to examine the deeper sources of Russian political and international relations behaviour for the US Government as a way of helping evaluate strategic responses to recent Soviet moves in Europe. His report, sent by classified telegram, weighed in at the unheard-of length of over 8,000 words (at a time when telegraphic traffic put a virtue on brevity), and it took hours and hours to code and then transmit back to Washington.

The contents caused a sensation in official circles – including his recommendation for the policy of “containment” rather than direct military confrontations. Given the strong interest in Kennan’s document, it was quickly recast as an unclassified article to be published in the prestigious journal, Foreign Affairs. The resulting article greatly influenced American strategy for the entire period of the Cold War – and it still has resonances and influences well beyond its initial authorship. Beyond the Soviet-US conflict itself, Kennan’s paper gave impetus to an entire school of thinking about how best to confront seemingly unpredictable international rivals.

In order to suss out how best to understand Soviet behaviour and how best to respond to it, Kennan and his The Sources of Soviet Conflict took a truly deep dive into Russian literature, history and sociology in order to uncover the motivating mechanisms of contemporary Soviet actions. And then he went on to examine the method by which Soviet behaviour might best be dealt with or redirected over time, using a multifaceted set of interactive tools – economics, trade, aid, cultural activities, international coalitions and, yes, military efforts if needed – in order to rebuff Soviet expansionism.

Coming down from such Olympian heights of an evaluation of an entire national ethos, presidents, presidential candidates, prime ministers and others like are, routinely, similarly examined from such a holistic perspective as well. All except for Donald J Trump it would seem. At least so far.

So, let’s strap the Trumpster back onto that couch yet again to consider the likely, deep influences that have helped create Trump’s weltanschauung – his world view – and how he might, himself, visualise his struggles and ideals. And, of course, that should lead to some considerations of what he might do were he to gain a position of real power in the future – if that should come to pass.

As a child, and then growing up into a youthful entrepreneur, Donald J. Trump would have been under the powerful influence of his deal macher of a father, Fred Trump. Trump senior was a largely self-made property developer back in the early post-World War II days. He constructed, then managed/sold/rented apartments and semi-detached homes in the more suburban parts of New York City and nearby Long Island counties. Fred Trump built his business making liberal use of generous financial backing from federal and municipal investment guarantees and lending, as the authorities were eager to construct housing for the new families of the baby boom years. People still living in these buildings, even now, generally praise their quality, but it is also true that applications for leases and sales of those houses and apartments were coded with a discreet little “C” for Coloured (the usual term for African Americans back then), whenever one of those folks applied, in order to ensure their applications were rejected.

Dinner time conversations between the Trumpean generations and strong advice to the budding entrepreneur about who was trustworthy (and who was not) must surely have included opinions about race, and the supposed, innate characteristics pertinent to entire ethnic groups. This we can infer, beyond those leasing and sales practices, since it has been repeatedly reported that the late Fred Trump was fond of renting his flats to Jewish New Yorkers, citing their education and honesty as factors in their favour as tenants, in lieu of other possible clients.

An impressionable young man following in his dad’s footsteps would listen carefully and take note of what was said, especially when dad had given him a multimillion dollar nest egg so he could begin a career as a property developer. And those opinions and prejudices would most probably have lingered on subliminally in the mind of the young entrepreneur.

Even earlier than that, Trump the younger had been sent off to a military academy-style boarding high school because he was considered a “challenge” at a handful at other less regimented schools. While there, he would have picked up some important lessons as well. Bullying worked really well in such environments. People on top of a hierarchy could boss others below them until they acquiesced. Such efforts also impressed those above you as well. And being a great BS-er helped rather nicely too, as long as you didn’t get caught or you could brazen it out with your smile, regardless of what others said of your words.

Then there was his time at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Penn is a great university, but if you start out and stay in a specialised course like real estate management and business, you never really get the exposure to the great traditions available there of scholarship in the humanities. Now, in his eighth decade, he has publicly stated that he doesn’t read much except for supermarket checkout line tabloids and tweets.

By the time he entered the business world, with dad’s cash, he quickly learnt that pushing risk onto lenders and stiffing small business subcontractors and vendors was perfectly acceptable behaviour. And chasing possibilities of business with Russia was a kind of green fields opportunity as well. Beyond all that, the experiences of The Apprentice surely taught Trump that playing to the crowds and carrying out summary firings gained acolytes and admirers.

So, let’s summarise these lessons and see how they have helped shape the man who would be president, especially as we take on Wordsworth’s observation, “The Child is the Father of the Man”.

First there is the rationality or utility of making decisions based on ethnic characteristics – or supposed ones. Then there is the effectiveness of bullying, trash talking, and the purveying of outrageous ad hominem attacks and tall tales without excuses. Cheating or dancing away from one’s obligations to creditors is acceptable business behaviour, if you can make it happen. And knowledge comes best from seat-of-the-pants personal experience in order to become the smartest man in business.

There is little or no point in wondering what the corpus of experience from human history brings to bear on any important life challenges. The man has obviously not become a big fan of Socrates (as related by Plato) that “the unexamined life is not worth living”.

Now, let’s match these lessons to Donald Trump’s public political behaviour. There has been his racially charged rhetoric attacking Mexicans and various others. There has been the bullying addressed towards Mexicans, Chinese, Muslims, a variety of Nato allies; and, of course, his trash talking directed at his primary election opponents and now at his general election opponent. Beyond that, there is his outrageous use of provable, repeated falsehoods in order to egg on his most vociferous supporters to further ecstasies. Oh, and then there are his threats to force Mexico to pay for his infamous wall or to default on international debt if the Chinese refuse to do what he wants. Added to this, there is his dissing of two generations’ worth of largely bipartisan wisdom on international affairs mixed in there as well.

Sadly, he has made these styles work so far, even if his ultimate electoral chances to become president remain dubious. But he has drawn upon a larger national climate of fear, resentment and anger on the part of some (a substantial “some” to be sure) to get this far – and he obviously hopes that climate, married to his own life lessons, will be enough to carry him into the Oval Office.

What is unique about our times has become much clearer to the writer in the continuing impact of 9/11 on the American psyche – and the public remembrances of that event. On 10 September 2001, an American could easily believe that following the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet imperial system, the American global position was largely unassailable. There were problems – most notably in the Middle East – but on the larger scale of things we were, as writer Francis Fukuyama had argued, at “the end of history”, what with the nearly total victory of the liberal global political economy led by the US.

Moreover, while China was fast rising economically, it was not yet a major economic (or political or military) competitor to the US-led global order. Japan, meanwhile, was caught in the doldrums of economic activity, Europe was growing only slowly, and Russia was in a state of thorough economic disrepair. Yes, there was the troublesome, continuing movement of illegal immigrants into the US, but the country’s growth was absorbing most of them without seriously affecting job opportunities for most other Americans. But, 15 years later, the unease, the anxieties and the angst are now real enough for many.

There is an unease over a militarily resurgent and dangerously opportunist Russia (even if its economy is edging close to serious decline). There is yet another economic and military challenger in the shape of a China that has become the global workshop. Then there is a seemingly unstoppable ideology of Islamicist-based, non-state terror – emanating out of the Middle East and moving far beyond it. But then there is also the decline of heavy industry in the US (although unemployment is again near classically defined “full employment” and inflation is nearly invisible after the 2008-9 financial crisis), the feeling that illegal immigrants are laying siege to America, and that an older, halcyon, white America is increasingly slipping away.

Taken together, an opportunistic candidate like Trump, with his kit bag of life lessons, and his resentful gospel about an unfair world, seems nearly purpose-built to exploit such worries. He can offer a promise that he will apply the life lessons he has drawn from his dad, time at military school, his further education and then, finally, his business career. It’s not pretty but it clearly has an appeal to many. Meanwhile, the candidate of the bipartisan tradition, the established political order, and a proponent of incremental advancement on social and economic issues has her work cut out for her in upending that angry Trumpean rag-tag ideology the GOP candidate has drawn on for the mechanisms of his presidential candidacy. DM

Photo: The 2016 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida, USA, 10 August 2016. EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA