President Trump

Since November 8th I have thought on more than one occasion that the election of Donald Trump was just a bad dream and that we'd all soon wake up. But it's not a dream; we've elected for the first time a President who has no previous public service experience. Most previous Presidents have either served as a state governor, a member of Congress or were a high-ranking military officer. A small number served as cabinet secretaries, or ambassadors. As recently as eight years ago, lack of experience was viewed as a liability. Barack Obama was criticized for being a rookie, having been a US Senator for less than a full term with previous experience of only seven years in the Illinois legislature. This time around lack of experience was seen as an asset, rather than a liability. And lack of experience is what we got. We now have a President who says what his base wants to hear, but has no idea, no idea how his slogans would translate into actual policy. He talks tough about bringing back jobs, resuscitating moribund industries and "putting America first", but, aside from the question of whether it is truly desirable to do some of these things, there has not been a plan, or even the outline of a plan, of how these things will be achieved. This is something that has concerned me since it became apparent that he would be in the running for the Republican nomination, let alone elected as President.

One of the things that was put into motion when the Constitution was ratified was separation of powers. Not only does this doctrine spread out authority, making it difficult for one person or faction to fully control the government, but it also ensures that, usually, things will move slowly & deliberately. Even when one party controls both the Presidency & Congress, there are disagreements & factions within parties and among the country's different regions and constituencies. And add to that the size and complexity of the government and its many moving parts, the intricacies of international relations, the complexities of economics and order becomes chaos very quickly.

Of course I understand that a President cannot know, or even understand, everything. Even Presidents like Bill Clinton, who seemingly was deep into the details of every aspect of government didn't really understand it all. An effective President appoints people who understand and are effective in their areas of responsibility. This is management 101. With a few exceptions, notably in the Defense Department and the CIA, Trump has appointed people who seemingly have no expertise in the areas which they will be overseeing. At State, an oil executive whose experience mainly appears to be his ability to negotiate oil contracts; at Education, someone who appears to be against the very idea of public education; at HUD, Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who said that he lacked the experience to run a large government department (but apparently thought he could be President) and whose only qualification seems to be that he once lived in public housing and Trump needed a token black guy; a head of the EPA who has been suing the EPA continually for years; and most egregiously, former Governor Perry of Texas, who once suggested eliminating the department and recently admitted that he had no idea what the department even did. Does anybody know what they're doing?

The President, unlike a monarch, a dictator, or even the CEO of a privately held corporation, cannot get things done just by giving orders. The President cannot give orders to the Congress; in politics consensus and compromise must have a place, or nothing gets done. President Trump has criticized previous Presidents, not to mention all politicians for being "all talk and no action", as if nothing has been accomplished in generations. He is ignorant of how things work, that just because he won the election he is not guaranteed cooperation from Congress or the courts. He does not understand that there is a process to getting things done. And as a powerful CEO of a family-owned business, or more poetically, a family business empire, President Trump is used to getting his way, defining the rules and being the center of adulation. He is not used to people disagreeing with him; he is used to achieving his goals by any means necessary: ethics, morals, rules and even the law, are for other people. This, when you think about, explains a lot.

It explains the constant emphasis on crowd size, the volume and duration of applause and the personal attacks on people and organization that disagree with or criticize him. It explains his need to control the narrative, to spin things that make him and his "ideas" look good, by spouting "facts" that have no basis in reality. I haven't figured out yet whether his regurgitation of "fake news" is due to a cold calculation on his part to discredit his adversaries, or just a refection of his lack of discernment. Either way it appears, for a not insignificant portion of the electorate, to be working. He has convinced many people that the fly-by-night, axe-to-grind websites that churn out hard-to-believe conspiracy theories are what we should be paying attention to, and the established, mainstream news organizations with decades of experience, that actually research and fact-check, and provide evidence for their stories, are the "fake news". He can say something on camera one day and deny, with a straight face, that he said it the next day. He lies about things that can easily be checked, but still insists that what he said was true. He is well on his way to convincing people that no matter what the facts, what he says is true, that any source that contradicts his version of reality is by definition false.

Used to defining his own rules within his company, and using his wealth to bully others with less resources into submission, he is thumbing his nose at long-established rules and guidelines, interpreting ethics rules in novel ways, and seems to be acting as if the Presidency is a "side gig" to his business holdings.

It doesn't take too much imagination to see the beginnings of demagoguery.

And that brings us to the divisive, bigoted, misogynistic, hate-filled rhetoric paired with the calls for unity.

On the day after the election I asked if we were supposed to just forget all the divisive, bigoted, misogynistic, hate-filled rhetoric that had gotten Trump elected, just pretend it had never happened and join hands with the people who cheered the hate and, as Trump said, heal the wounds. Trump was elected, in part, by energizing a portion of the population that felt marginalized and left behind, and he did it by demonizing portions of the population that were other. Just like he demonized President Obama with his allegations that he was Muslim, that he was born in Kenya, that he was a Socialist bent on destroying America. Everything would be fine if we could just keep out the Mexicans, keep out the Muslims, put the Chinese in their place, vote out all the elitist liberals, and impose law & order. He spoke disrespectfully of the parents of a veteran who died in service, mocking their religion, he mocked John McCain for being a POW, he mocked the generals, claiming he knew more than they did, he mocked reporter Serge Koveleski's medical condition, he attacked a union leader who called him out for his falsehoods. The day after the election he adopted a conciliatory tone, thanking Secretary Clinton for her many years of service, speaking warmly of President Obama and announcing that he wanted to be "President of all the people, because that is very, very important to me". That didn't last long as a stream of attacks emanated from his Twitter account on an almost daily basis.

Then, as the transition ended, his inaugural address - a call-out to those whose vision of America resembled a Mad Max movie; a repudiation of all politicians, including the former Presidents, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who sat there a few feet away, and the Congressional leaders who sold their souls to endorse him during the campaign. While he didn't explicitly say it, as he did during the campaign, it was clear that he believed that he alone could solve the nation's problems - real and imagined.

In the past, we have elected Presidents who did not represent my views, but I still respected them and believed that they had the best interests of the United States at heart. But the current President has explicitly and vociferously attacked and degraded so many segments of the country, well beyond the norms of political battles, that I cannot take seriously his protestations that he wants to unify the country, heal the wounds and end divisiveness. His history is one of bending the law to take personal advantage, and screwing the little guy. It is clear that he ran, not to serve the country, but to elevate his own ego. I cannot support this man and will do all that I can, insignificant though it may be to oppose him. I will not "get over it".