Interesting Times

What am I missing? President Biden's performance released an avalanche of panic within the Democratic Party, especially among its big donors. I watched that "debate" - all 90 minutes of it (I wrote a blog post about it) and while I thought he did a bad job, and responded poorly to Losin' Don's barrage of lies I certainly didn't believe that it negated his overall solid performance as our nation's leader. Other than a few flubbed facts and some run-of-the-mill politician's exaggeration, I thought he did fine. Unlike his opponent, he actually answered the questions put to him. The only thing that I can think of is that his performance was part of a trend that went back at least a year, maybe longer, and that the Democratic leadership was either covering it up or were engaged in wishful thinking about Biden's ability to campaign effectively and win the election. If...and that's a big "if", either of those scenarios are true the conversations that have been taking place since last month's debate should have taken place long ago. 

Despite the chaos, I give the Democrats credit for addressing the apparent (yes, apparent) unfitness of their candidate, something that the Trumpublican Cult would never do, despite the nonsense that comes out of his mouth at his rallies. "The late, great, Hannibal Lector? Sharks and batteries? No water in washing machines and showers? Well, now that the major mainstream news organizations have amplified the worries about President Biden's age and mental agility, can we expect them to start beating the drum of Losin' Don's very apparent mental decline, as well as his age (only 3 years younger than Biden). Did we forget his inability to take a drink from a water bottle without using two hands? His shakiness on a not-very-steep incline and grabbing onto the U.K. Prime Minister in order to navigate some stairs is still something I recall. 

One of the criticisms I hear is that the Democrats, by pressuring Biden to drop out, are acting undemocratically, effectively cancelling the decisions of primary voters. But did they really? When an incumbent president is running for re-election it's extremely rare for there to be any serious challenges. Anyone from the president's party with presidential aspirations sits it out until the next election. There is no choice to speak of. (Not to mention how the very existence of the de facto two party system limiting choices by design). Could other Democrats theoretically have run? Sure, but it just isn't done. Of course they don't see the hypocrisy of accusing the Democrats of subverting democracy when plans are in full swing to challenge the results if a Democrat wins in November. (On a side note I've heard a few Sanders 2016 supporters popping their heads up to complain about Hillary Clinton and the party bigwigs giving the 2016 nomination to Clinton. They never really go away, those Bernie fans!)

This raises another question: if President Biden is unfit to campaign for re-election, and is unfit to serve a second term, is he fit to complete his current term? I'm not convinced that he is unfit to campaign or serve a second term, but if that is the prevailing opinion, is a call to resign next? If he does resign, Vice President Harris becomes President and goes into the campaign as an incumbent, with all attendant advantages. Since the president's dropping out is new news, we still don't know how the replacement candidate will be chosen. The Democratic National Committee has rules, and there is a process - I just don't know what it is. It's my hope that the party leadership and the delegates unite behind Harris and present a solid front against the Republicans. Harris was my first choice in 2020 and I was disappointed when she dropped out before the primaries.

Everything I have ever presented as reasons to defeat Losin' Don in November are still true. The assassination attempt didn't make him more fit for office, President Biden dropping out of the race didn't make him a better or more effective leader. He's still a horrible, hateful man who is in it for one person, and one person only. Let's make sure we can still call him Losin' Don in November.

Poor Judd is Dead

If Donald Trump were to drop dead of a heart attack today, this country would be a better place. 

No - I am not suggesting that political assassination is a good thing nor am I wishing that the bullet had struck a fraction of an inch to the right. I'm not making jokes about it; I'm not sharing "clever" memes. It's not funny. Even as bad as things are now, that's not how to do things. 

I'm holding off on forming an opinion about the shooter's motives, about whether it was a false flag operation, whether someone in the Secret Service was in on it or incredibly incompetent or any of the myriad conspiracy theories percolating from all quarters the last few days until some facts are presented. 

But do I think Trump dying (of natural causes) is a good thing? Absolutely. 

Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business. Idealistic people of all political persuasions run for office but get caught up in the system and often are corrupted to greater or lesser degree. They spend so much time and effort raising money and campaigning for the next election that it's amazing that anything ever gets done. Members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election every two years! But Trump is an entirely different political animal. Policy is beside the point with him and his legions of followers are loyal to him no matter what he does and says. He is upfront about wanting to tear down any semblance of democratic institutions - the danger that he poses is well known and documented in detail. 

But what about Project 2025 and the many Trump supporters who have been taking over the Republican party? Wouldn't they still be a threat? Of course. The anti-abortion movement didn't suddenly spring up in 2017; Mitch McConnell was stealing Supreme Court seats during Obama's time in the White House. But the grass roots support, voters who will turn out for their guy just wouldn't be there without Trump. I was in a cult and have seen first hand what happens to a cult when their charismatic leader dies. And make no mistake about it, Trumpism, "MAGA" if you will, is a cult. Can you see anyone in MAGA-land who can energize the crowds like Trump does? Anyone who can, without fail, cause millions of people to believe their every lie? 

That person does not exist.

The reason that Project 2025 is such a threat is that its authors are counting on Trump getting elected. They are counting on Trump appointing 2025-friendly cabinet members and staff. If the Republicans have a majority in both the House and Senate they are counting on Trump bullying members into supporting the program. If the Democrats win one or both Houses of Congress they are counting on Trump using executive orders or novel constitutional interpretations to achieve their goals. It all falls apart without Trump. All the local MAGA election officials, school board members, county board members, they all lose interest and fade away without Trump. 

As long as he is alive Trump is a threat. Even if he loses again we'll see a repeat of "Stop the Steal". This time it won't be Confederate Wannabes and Sentient Oakleys beating up cops with flagpoles, or Rudy Giuliani's hair dye running down his forehead - it will be real lawyers flooding the zone with lawsuits and challenges just inside the boundaries of legality. Without Trump - no one cares. And you don't have the MAGA cult leader telling them to care. 

Losin' Don can't live forever, and the poison that he has spread will take a while to dissipate, but there is no doubt that the country will be a better place. And the daisies in the dell will give off a different smell because Losin' Don is underneath the ground. *

* Apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein

Presidential Immunity

Let's talk about presidential immunity, shall we?

Let's talk about the fact that we never had to talk about it until Donald Trump became president. 

It's been understood since the beginning of the republic that presidents, as well as Congress, have to have the ability to do their jobs without the threat of prosecution if things don't go well. There will always been unintended and unforeseen consequences to government decisions - sometimes resulting in deaths. That's why no one was seriously suggesting that Trump be prosecuted for his mismanagement of the Covid crisis, even though his incompetence arguably contributed to hundreds of thousands of the deaths that ultimately resulted. Likewise, President Biden shouldn't be prosecuted for his mishandling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in thirteen service members being killed at the airport in a terrorist attack. Policy differences aren't crimes. Miscalculation isn't a crime. Incompetence isn't even a crime. 

The Supreme Court, in their recent decision regarding presidential immunity, did not rule that everything a president does while in office is shielded from prosecution. They made it clear that they were talking about official acts and core constitutional duties. Why did they even agree to take the case? Didn't we already know this? Of course we did. It even came up because a president engaged in allegedly criminal acts  in his election campaign and in his attempt to overturn the results of an election. 

There's a lot of exaggeration and misrepresentation about this decision. It does not mean that a president "can do anything that he wants". The checks and balances that existed before the ruling still exist. Biden, for example, has always had the power to add justices to the Supreme Court. The reasoning behind not doing so is, and always has been, a political calculation, not a legal restriction. What has been affirmed is that nothing a president does as part of being the president is not subject to prosecution. 

So what's the problem?

Two main categories of problem.

1. The court majority went beyond what they were asked to rule on - the majority opinion stated that in any question about whether an act was or wasn't part of a president's official duties there must be a presumption that any act is part of those duties. And that potential evidence that derives from the president's official duties cannot be considered. This leaves the door open for all kinds of challenges to the charges that Special Counsel Smith has brought. 
2. This is nothing but a delaying tactic. The Supreme Court was asked to rule on the question of immunity months ago. They refused, saying it had to make it's way through the lower courts. (Which all ruled that Trump was not immune). Even now, they haven't ruled that Trump is immune from prosecution in the specific cases he accused in, but have sent the case back to the appeals court for them to determine which, if any actions Trump took are immune. Surely whatever they decide will be appealed. 

The mindset of the Supreme Court majority is also disturbing. The problem as they see it, is not that president can break the law with impunity, but that a president will be constrained from doing his best for the country due to fear of criminal prosecution. This is exactly the rationale that Trump's lawyers presented. They have bought into the tale of persecution that Trump revels in. They have internalized the lie that it is the Biden administration, even President Biden himself, who is pushing these supposedly political prosecutions. Yet it's Trump who brags about exacting retribution on his political opponents, promising to jail Biden and anyone else who he doesn't like for imaginary crimes, or for exercising their constitutional responsibilities. 

The Supreme Court didn't authorize the president to be a dictator, but they did authorize him to be a criminal. 

The Sky Is Not Falling (The "Debate")

90 minutes. That's how many minutes of Thursday night's debate I watched. In other words, all of it. I didn't watch the post debate discussion about the debate, although I read a few news articles, tweets and Facebook posts about it this morning.

The sky is falling!

I guess I'm one of those rare individuals who doesn't expect my elected officials to entertain me. I don't expect them to be exciting, or witty, or even play a mean round of golf. I also don't expect the president to single-handedly support the weight of the entire country, let alone the world, on his or her shoulders. I was a manager for most of my adult life, and the way I understand the role of a manager, a leader, is that they are not responsible for doing things, on the contrary, they are tasked with getting things done. Of course the leadership positions that I held were pretty puny compared to the job of President of the United States, but the principle is the same. The president is the head of a huge bureaucracy, which includes hundreds of thousands of federal workers and the world's largest military. His responsibility, as George W. Bush once said, is to be "the decider" - to delegate the details to subordinates and make the big decisions. As long as those big decisions are ones that I feel are best for the country I don't care if he sounds like one of the hillbillies from Deliverance.

President Biden is an inconsistent public speaker, especially if he's speaking without a script (i.e. a teleprompter) At times he sounds bold and dynamic, at other times rambling and off on tangents. He stutters, which requires him at times to stop, take a breath and allow his brain and mouth to coordinate. I don't think people fully grasp how difficult it is to answers questions and give long detailed answers on the fly like that, even when you don't have a speech impediment. I don't stutter, but I would never officiate a wedding without a script. Even in meetings at work, I always come prepared with notes that I can refer to. I even stammer a little when I get an unanticipated question. The fact that Biden is, and always has been, a meandering and uninspiring speaker with a penchant for embroidering his stories shouldn't have been news for anyone. The fact that an 80+ year old man is not that steady on his feet and walks with a stiff gait shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone either. 

I watched all 90 minutes. In reviewing my Facebook comments about it I didn't once make any reference to Biden's demeanor or presentation as problematic, nor indicative of his inability to continue as president. Not because I'm brainwashed into thinking Biden can do no wrong, but I just didn't see it that way. I thought he started off somewhat uninspiring, but that he picked up steam as he went along (although he let himself get sucked into an argument about golf handicaps towards the end). I concentrated on the substance of what he was saying, not the optics. I thought we had progressed past the days when Nixon's o'clock shadow was a deciding factor in a presidential election. I was wrong - we have not. I had expected the mocking and attacks by the adherents of Losin' Don, but the panic and calls for Biden to end his candidacy by Democrats and by Democratic-leaning news organizations was quite surprising. (Although I shouldn't have been surprised by the complaining by Sanders supporters that Sanders got screwed out of the nomination [twice] and we can blame the DNC cabal for bringing us to this point)

I've always thought that determining who "won" a debate was mostly subjective and can be spun by both sides by spotlighting what  each wants to emphasize. So, who "won" the debate on Thursday night? Who did a better job of presenting their own accomplishments and policies? Who did a better job of pointing out the other's weaknesses? We should ignore comments like "my opponent is the worst president in history" - or "my administration was the most successful in history", They're subjective statements and are basically meaningless. So what did each do right to present themselves as the better choice? Biden answered the questions put to him by citing specific policies. He muffed some details (he initially referred to insulin co-pay as $15, but corrected himself with the right number - $35; he incorrectly said the Border Patrol endorsed him - they did not - perhaps he was talking about the BP Union's support for his border bill that the Republicans would not support - he corrected himself there too). A subject that he should have stayed away from was the "very fine people on both sides" quote. A lot of people think this was debunked by Snopes, when it is more nuanced than that, as this article lays out. It made him look uninformed. 

At the risk of engaging in whataboutism - what about Trump? Trump didn't bring his usual debate style of interrupting and yelling to this event. He was restrained and very un-Trump-like. (maybe he was the one on drugs?) He didn't interrupt (likely due to the muted microphone), he stood up straight and looked calm and, dare I say it, presidential. This was a smart move by Trump, as I'm guessing that Biden's debate preparation involved a Trump stand-in who was yelling and interrupting, throwing him off. So the optics looked better for Trump than for Biden, what about the substance? Here's some fact-checking by CNN's Daniel Dale. Trump, whether he was just lying or just uninformed ,was largely fact-free for most of the debate. He didn't answer at least half the questions that were put to him, circling back to his favorite misrepresentations. Most concerning was an actual answer and a response to Biden. Biden had brought up Trump's promise to engage in retribution if re-elected. If you paid any attention to Trump's public statements, he's very clear that what he means by retribution is going after his political opponents with the legal system. In the debate he first claimed that it meant that his success as president would be his retribution, but quickly pivoted to a rant where he called Biden a criminal and was very clear that he thought Biden should be prosecuted for his (according to Trump) mishandling of the border and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Trump was asked by one of the moderators whether he would accept the results of the election, no matter who won (he was given the wiggle room of "after all legal challenges are exhausted"). His answer was "if it's free and fair"...and we all know he didn't think the last election was "free and fair". Related to this was his insistence that he had nothing to do with encouraging what happened on January 6th, and blamed it all on Speaker Pelosi. 

President Biden was shaky and inarticulate at times during the debate, had a facial expression that a friend of mine described as "slack-jawed", and presented some inaccurate information. Trump on the other hand refused to answer questions, rambled on with lies and misrepresentations, and once again confirmed that he had no respect for our elections and would not accept any election results where he was not the winner. If you think Trump won anything on Thursday night, I question your standards.

Do I wish that our president was younger, stronger and a better communicator? Absolutely. But you go to elections with the candidate you have, not the one you wish you had. The calls for Biden to step aside are not helpful, and would, in my opinion, cause chaos, division and possibly hand the election to Trump. 

The sky is not falling.

Orange Is The New Extra Long Red Tie

No, Losin' Don will not spend one day in prison. 

Maybe I'm wrong, but even if he loses the election in November, even if he's convicted in one or more of his criminal trials, it ain't happening. 

Unlike ordinary people who can't afford bail, who can't afford to pay lawyers' fees for months and years on end, Trump has the means to drag these proceedings on and on and on. How many delaying tactics can he and his attorneys throw against the wall, hoping something will stick? He's trying to get at least one trial thrown out because he claims presidents are have absolute immunity; another because the chief prosecutor hired an old boyfriend. Even if he's convicted he'll appeal. If he loses his appeals he'll take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Look at the situation: we're six months away from the general election and only one of the criminal trials has started, and that one, based on what I read from the legal experts, is pretty weak. 

Trump and his cultish supporters want you to believe that it is a politically motivated "witch hunt". That it's "election interference". That President Biden is directing all the prosecutions. On one hand Losin Don claims that "they" are attempting to "rig" the election, on the other he is bragging that every indictment helps him in the polls. So why is he being charged with all these crimes? (not to mention the civil suits)

The simplistic answer is that he's a criminal. He acted criminally with impunity his whole life and his time as president did nothing to make him more law-abiding. He thumbed his nose at the legal system and virtually dared it to do something about it. I think that the various prosecutors said "Fuck this guy, I'm tired of his shit" and decided that he'd gotten away with too much for too long and something had to be done about it. Did politics enter into it? Insomuch that Republican prosecutors probably wouldn't have sought indictments, it was, but the motivation of the prosecutors is irrelevant if there was probable cause to indict. 

Grand juries are different than petit, or trial, juries. The purpose is not to decide guilt or innocence, but to determine whether there is sufficient cause for a trial. In Nebraska, the prosecutor has no role in grand jury selection and I assume the same is true in other jurisdictions. But if the prosecutor is seeking an indictment, they have to convince 12 out of 16 grand jurors that there is sufficient cause to proceed with a trial. They have done so. Multiple times. It's obvious that there is at least enough evidence to suggest that criminal activity probably happened and that a trial is needed to determine if there is enough to convict. It remains to be seen whether or not there will be convictions, but prosecutors rarely seek indictments if they don't think they can secure a conviction. There's no upside to a loss in a high profile trial. 

The Trumpists cry that if someone like their hero can be dragged into court, then it can happen to any of us. As if ordinary citizens aren't already subject to prosecution for crimes that they are alleged to have committed.  As if they and their hero haven't been advocating for the last eight years to "lock up" and even execute their political opponents.

The horrifying part of it all is that even if Losin' Don was incarcerated, it would not prevent him from being elected president.

Free Press

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not similarly entitled to their own facts. Two things have contributed in recent years to the belief that everyone is entitled to their own facts. One is the proliferation of easy-to-use platforms such as blogs and podcasts. The ubiquity of cell phone cameras make everyone an on-the-spot reporter. These platforms are also easy to access. We have at our fingertips more information than previous generations could have imagined possible. The other contributing factor is the attacks that have sought to undermine any trust that we had in corporate, mainstream news sources. Do the "big dogs" get it right all the time? Do they sometimes rush to get a story out and get the facts wrong? Do they often have agendas, biases? Of course they do. They're run by human beings! But the belief that there's some kind of media conspiracy among multiple information outlets that are in competition with each other is not supported by facts. 

While there have always been people who were skeptical of what "the media" was telling them, it's only been since Donald Trump entered politics that previously respected news organizations were routinely labeled, without evidence, as "fake news". Most of us don't remember that the term fake news briefly referred to web sites that purposely "flooded the zone" with intentionally false information. The goal of these sites was to start rumors that would spawn and multiply throughout the information ecosystem until ordinary people would just assume that they were true. Trump quickly appropriated the label and applied it to any news that reported on his shortcomings. 

A big difference between news organizations like The New York Times, Fox News or CNN and the typical blogger or podcaster is one of access to information and experts to explain that information. Another is the time to sift through the multitude of events and tie to together multiple threads of information into a coherent narrative. This is their full-time job. This is what they do! Not a week goes by that I don't encounter someone who is skeptical of some news story...based on nothing more than their feelings. None are ever able to support their skepticism with facts. 

What confuses many people is the difference between the news and opinion sides of any news organization. "News" is what happened. "Opinion" (or editorial) is why it happened (according to the columnist). Yes, sometimes they get the facts wrong or jump the gun before all the facts are in, but you would be hard-pressed to find an actual lies, or even major errors in the reporting of  mainstream media. Editorial or opinion pieces are different since they are presenting...opinion.  "Senator 'A' hates children" is opinion. It's subjective and you could argue that Senator 'A'  doesn't hate children. "Senator 'A' voted for XYZ legislation which will decrease the funding for free school lunches for impoverished children" would be an example of a fact. Various conclusions can be drawn from that fact, and those conclusions are...opinion. An argument can be made that a news outlet shows bias by spending time identifying problems with one politician while ignoring issues with another. It very well might be bias. Or it might just be that one of them has a lot more problems than the other. Showing bias doesn't mean that the information being presented is wrong, just that the choice of what to publish is a function of what the outlet believes is important. 

We hear a lot about the "media narrative". Whether it's the recent speech by football player Harrison Butker or coverage of Losin' Don's various legal woes or Ron DeSantis' weird laugh, media skeptics insist that there's a "narrative", a story about how "they" want you to think and act that pervades everything that you hear, see and read in "the media". For this to be true there would have to be some shadowy cabal behind every newspaper and television network - puppet masters pulling all our strings. Somehow the media skeptics find this easier to believe than the possibility that they're simply reporting the facts. I've also noticed that when people complain about some unflattering information about them being disseminated they blame "the media", when often what's keeping the information alive is social media chatter. Are social media participants brainlessly parroting what "they" want them to believe, or is it just opinionated people latching on to something that confirms what they already think? 

Personally I try to keep informed with various sources of information. I trust that the news professionals are doing their jobs, but know that I'm not always hearing the whole story. 

Running Government Like a Business

It never seems to go away - an election is coming up and the challenger, who runs a business of some sort, claims to be "not a politician" and promises to run government like a business. This is usually in the context of budget balancing, but can also be in reference to perceived competence in something. My position is that the last thing that you want an elected official to do is run government like you would run a business. 

What is the purpose of a business? It's primary purpose is to make money for its owners. There may be ancillary benefits, such as job creation, or providing a product of benefit to the community, but first and last, a business exists to benefit its owners. I used to work for a company that was (mostly) locally owned. In the 70's it instituted an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). ESOP's, using various formulas, award employees with company stock from profits which they can receive as cash when the retire or otherwise leave the company. The company president, who at the time was the son of the company founder, liked to promote this ESOP as an example of how the company cared about its employees  (euphemistically called "associates"), treating them like family. In an unguarded moment at a shareholders' meeting, the company founder admitted that he instituted the ESOP because it allowed the company to legally avoid  taxes on that portion of the profits while still having access to the cash. (The percentage of profits that were the ESOP allocation existed as cash. Since the employees did not receive cash, but shares of stock, the cash still existed in the company's bank account and could be used for other priorities) So, the existence of the ESOP, even though employees benefitted as a side effect, had as the main beneficiaries  the primary owners, the founder's family. (In the wake of the 2017 corporate tax reductions, this company bought back all the ESOP stock and converted the shares to 401(k)  balances)

One wouldn't have to search for long to come up with examples of companies that laid off long serving employees in order to increase profits, or whole subsidiaries being shut down completely because they weren't generating enough revenue. Even pay increases are structured to benefit the owners. The legend of Henry Ford altruistically doubling pay rates so that his employees could afford to buy his cars is mostly myth. Anyone who knows anything about Ford knows that he wasn't the warm and fuzzy fatherly type. Ford was a control freak who attempted to control every aspect of his employees lives. But he also realized that his turnover rate was unacceptable. He was hiring 52,000 men a year to maintain a 14,000 man work force. The pay increase was his solution to the high turnover. Even so, his investors balked at this move, seeing it as counter to their interests. Maximizing profit for the owners is the primary, if not the only, goal of running a business. 

In contrast, the purpose of a government is to serve the people. In this country's founding document, the reason a government is being established is to (1) establish justice, (2) insure domestic tranquility, (3) provide for the common defense, (4) promote the general welfare and (5) secure the blessings of liberty. One can debate the specific meaning and application of these things, but it's pretty evident that "turn a profit" isn't on the list. "Run it like a business" advocates point out that government services cost money, and that it is irresponsible to spend more than is being taken in. Or spend so much in some areas that there are no funds available for other needed programs. This is a fair point, in many jurisdictions deficit spending is not an option, and it is good stewardship to not spend the public's money frivolously or wastefully. But the criteria by which it is determined what is and isn't waste is necessarily different in a service organization, i.e. a government, than it is in a for profit entity. 

A current example is the unilateral decision to eliminate state government positions that have been unfilled for more than 90 days. In a typical private business labor budgets are set in part by looking at the payroll expenditures for the previous year. The assumption is that the business was able to operate at the lower staffing level so it should be able to do it again. This outlook does not take into account the effect lower staffing levels had on anything other than the bottom line. I was a grocery store manager ten years ago when the unemployment rate locally was starting to consistently dip below 3%. Some of our departments were always understaffed. The Deli in particular was hard hit - it was a high sales volume, labor intensive department. Being even one person short negatively effected productivity, customer service and even basic sanitation. As it dragged on, it effected morale and turnover increased. When it was time to write the budget for the new year, the payroll expenditure for the short staffed year was the baseline. We were doomed to continue being overworked, providing bad customer service, unsanitary conditions and eventually losing sales. That's the business mindset. Until it could be demonstrated unambiguously that the decrease in sales exceeded the labor savings did the company's owners take any action - it wasn't a problem until it affected the bottom line. The executive order eliminating close to one thousand state jobs assumes the profit mindset and not the service mindset. All that is being scrutinized is the potential money savings, rather than attempting to find out why these positions haven't been filled. 

In addition to the differing views of finances, the role of a leader is necessarily different in government and business. In most businesses the owner is a virtual dictator. This is especially true in a privately held company, but can also be true in a publicly traded firm. Boards of Directors can fire a CEO, but in practice a company's management team acts virtually independently and with little oversight. A smart CEO will have a team of accountants, lawyers and other advisors, but in practice there's nothing to reign in a CEO from taking unilateral action. Government is structured differently. Executives, i.e. governors, mayors, presidents, are constrained by a web of rules limiting their power. Legislatures constitutionally have co-equal authority, as does the judiciary. A newly elected government executive whose "qualifications" were running a business is often surprised that they cannot do whatever they like once in office. They certainly don't want to hear "You can't do that". I even heard our current governor, in a meeting at my workplace, say "I'm the governor, I can do what I want". 

Related to the fallacy that a businessman will bring skills to the table that will make them a good elected official is the "outsider" myth. While there is some validity to the premise that we sometimes need fresh ideas, new faces and "change", you still have to know what the rules are before you can decide to break them. There is a very noticeable difference in approach between a president or governor who spent time in Congress, or even as a local executive, from one who was elected with no government experience. In the sports world, teams will often bring in new coaches to shake things up. But what doesn't happen is an NFL team bringing in a hockey coach, even if his team won the Stanley Cup. Sure, he was successful. Very successful! But the success was in an entirely different field, even if both were "sports", both involved "teams" and the goal in both was "winning". 

Someone wants you to vote for them because of success in the business world? Vote for someone else.