by Chinedu Chukwumnedum George

These days, no day goes by without statements and actions attributed to the new President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, adorning the headlines of major news outlets the world over. As much as they would hate to admit it, the media are loving the buzz he generates. In fact, at the moment, he’s the oil that lubricates the printing press and gives journalists things to talk and speculate about. And the celebrity-turned-president, it seems, will go to any length just to remain topical.

Not even a political Octopus Paul would have predicted such a frenetic start to the Trump administration, even if he was one of the most unconventional candidates in his country’s 228-year-old presidential democracy. Barely over two weeks into his four-year mandate, his demeanour has ranged from bizarre to puerile.

First was the haggling with the press over as trivial an issue as the size of the crowd at his “unprecedented” inauguration. Then was the furtherance of one of his cardinal electioneering promises of constructing an “impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful, southern border wall” along the 3,145-kilometer-long US-Mexico border to block out illegal immigrants.

His antics would also draw the ire of some of America’s oldest and most chummy allies by questioning the relevance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), attempting to undermine the European Union and berating the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a “dumb” asylum seekers resettlement deal struck with the previous administration in a telephone conversation he described as the “worst by far” with a foreign leader.

The tempo would then be raised by several notches on the heels of a travel ban imposed on citizens of seven Middle Eastern and North African countries, setting him on a collision course with members of his own party in Congress and resulting in the firing of his acting Attorney General.

Also worth mentioning is his peculiar addiction to the social media platform Twitter, which he has often utilised to knee-jerk effect when he really should be busy getting himself acquainted with the rudiments of diplomacy. These may be no ordinary set of events for everyone else, but for his persona, they’re all in a day’s work for the Donald.

As someone with no stake and a casual interest in American politics, one of the reasons I actually rooted for Mr Trump during last year’s US presidential election was the unconventionality and truckload of fun he would bring to the White House as opposed to the more solemn and calculated approach of a Hillary Clinton administration. Besides, I was also not very comfortable with a budding Clinton-Obama-Clinton hegemony.

However, too much of everything, they say, is bad. At this breakneck pace, it won’t be long before even his staunchest supporters desert him. In the interest of his presidency, his legacy and that of the country he so fervently pledged to “make great again,” it is pertinent that he draws the line between Trump the showbiz personality and Trump the President. As yet, I’ve failed to discern any distinction between his famous TV shows and his rollercoaster ride of a presidency. This, after all, in his mind, could be his ultimate reality TV show.

But while he’s at it, there’s the danger that eighty years of painstaking diplomacy, stretching as far back as Franklin D. Roosevelt, to position the United States at the epicentre of global politics could be flushed down the drain by the time his circus of a presidency is over. He has already signalled his intent of engineering a more inward-looking United States, tearing up the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reached by the previous administration in his first few hours in office and threatening to withdraw from more deals.

America cannot afford to turn its back on the rest of the world. In addition to the fact that no country can survive on its own, America is a country of immigrants. It’s a country that has prospered by absorbing the very best from every part of the world and built itself into vast economic, political and sociocultural empire and, arguably, the most successful nation in the contemporary world.

The wheels of the American machine can come off in different directions if Donald Trump is not reined in by cooler heads and made to realise that governance is serious business and not entertainment where unpredictability and chaos can send ratings through the roof and get things done fast.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Chinedu Chukwumnedum George is a writer and social commentator.