Category Archives: Problem Practices

Communication behavior or analysis that is often counter-productive

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Fit For Service?

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Donald Trump was elected to be the next president by a plurality of the nation’s voters, who apparently wanted lower food prices even more than they wanted competence.

Those working in a governmental capacity need to be “fit for service,” meaning capable of representing the interests of the public they have sworn to serve. Taxpayers have a right to expect that they will be treated fairly by those officials who will be paid from public funds. Does this prohibit the election of a felon also convicted of sexual harassment? Apparently not. This particular felon was elected to be the next president by a plurality of the nation’s voters who probably wanted lower food prices even more than they wanted competence. His immediate task is to select department and agency heads that can administer the vast number of workers and tasks that have evolved over the years. The Department of Defense, for example, has almost three million employees. The Department of Transportation is smaller, but oversees 11 agencies, covering vital areas including aviation, highways and railroads. No corner of American life is neglected for oversight of a federal agency.

The federal establishment is so vast, and because this is politics, it seems improbable that any president could consistently make appointments of people who are fully versed in the needs of stakeholders they are meant to serve.  This is because every president taps friends and supporters for plum agency and overseas positions. Luckily, there are also real experts with career-long work already in staff support positions.

It is also useful to think counterintuitively for a moment. Most administrative agencies are actually needed by the businesses and groups they regulate. They serve in part to reassure  citizens that important governmental functions are monitored. As political scientist Murray Edelman pointed out years ago in The Symbolic Uses of Politics, agencies like the FAA or the department of Agriculture have useful symbiotic relationships to the businesses they ostensibly regulate. The perception may be that the agencies serve all Americans. The reality is that they often foster policies favored by special interests, sometimes at the expense of the larger public. Laws passed in Congress and enforced by the agencies are often written by interest groups themselves. Writing in the 1960s, Edelman’s point was that organizations need the legitimacy of an apparent watchdog who can share in the blame if a key function goes off the rails. Businesses are anxious to win government certifications. FDA approval of a prescription drug, or FAA certification of an airplane can act as a buffer for complaints from citizens or public interest groups.

It is also true that agency heads come disproportionately from the enterprises they would regulate. For that reason, many fit the characterization of being potential wolves guarding a henhouse. Will Elon Musk, a co-chair of an invention called the Department of Governmental Efficiency, be a fair arbiter of how many staffers remain at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? The agency sets standards for auto safety, including Musk’s Tesla vehicles. And how will NPR, Amtrak and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—all quasi-public enterprises–fare against the world’s richest man and the and billionaires lined up behind Trump?

The question of fitness for office promotes reasonable queries about those selected to lead various major departments and agencies. The problem is complex, with some  disturbing results.

The final cabinet is still evolving. But had Matt Gaetz continued as Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, he would have carried a legacy of open legal challenges arising from charges of statutory rape, using illegal drugs, and accepting gifts prohibited by congressional rules. The idea of Gaetz as the nation’s face of law enforcement left many Americans aghast.

And the list goes on and on. Pat Bondi as the present Department of Justice nominee has also been a lobbyist for private prison companies sued by the Justice Department for polluting. Dr. Mehmet Oz as the nominated head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has been accused of promoting dubious medical products on his TV shows. And Pete Hegseth, who has an impressive record as a soldier, still comes to the position of Secretary of Defense as a Fox News host, along with allegations of a sexual assault and a clear record of alcohol abuse. He has the usual MAGA list of aggressive opinions: that Muslim Americans represent “an existential threat;” that the military could be used against other Americans in places like Seattle, that Mexico might be a legitimate target for unleashing American firepower, and so on. Even Trump allies wonder if Hegseth is up to leading one of the most consequential federal departments.

We can wonder if gross incompetence posed by some of Trump’s nominees is greater than the external threats that he loves to promote. In this bewildering new government, even very supportive NATO allies Canada and Denmark are potential adversaries. There is shame in misusing American “leadership” in this way, and we will pay a price. Attacking our friends has all the grace of shouting insults to neighbors across the backyard fence. More crucially, it gives our enemies openings they can exploit.

Donald Trump’s Rhetorical Demonology

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The rhetorical sleight of hand that turns individuals or nations into objects of scorn is not that unusual. But it is crippling to a nation when a leader charged with serving the public makes it his signature style.

Would we be naïve to assume that political discourse should be centered on questions of policy? Perhaps. But most individuals who want to serve in the political arena have action plans they would like to apply to intransigent problems. The language that results is usually melioristic; it suggests improved conditions for many, meaning the action would be better, more effective, more efficient in moving the nation (county, town, state) forward. If this is not what politics is about, what is left is a mostly a pathetic form of performance art.

Donald Trump’s rhetoric unfortunately fits this darker pattern, being almost consistently adversarial, reducing even structural problems to individual action, and resting most heavily on a rhetoric of personal invective. It is his dominant and recurring rhetorical motif. Any expression of opponents undergoes a transformation into a demonology of vilification. If half the nation is weary of his presence on the national scene, it is because he has personalized nearly every discussion by turning it into gladiatorial contest using terms that savage doubters. It is a binary logic that results in threatened lawsuits against journalists, media operators and sometimes members of his own party. Pick a national figure who must work with Trump and, as in a schoolyard taunt, their given names are prefaced with infantile adjectives or nouns: “dopey,” “Lyin,’” “fat,” “crooked,” “shady,” “slimeball,” “ditzy” “birdbrain,” and so on. It’s as if Trump acquired a kind of verbal aphasia that made him incapable of learning the art of conversation. No wonder that those who know him well says that he really has no friends. What is left is the brash language of a Las Vegas comedian, often with a touch of menace reminiscent of a crime boss in an old Warner Brothers film. Just through 2021, the New York Times had catalogued nearly 10,000 insults Trump hurled at his opponents, often in his party, and often made while he was President the first time. A sample describing Robert Mueller’s investigative team appointed by the Department of Justice:

A “gang of treasonous thugs,”
“18 Angry Democrats”

“illegally in on the SCAM?”

“losers”

a “hit squad”

These are mild compared to hundreds of other samples that could be cited. Even so, these labels are wounding to those singled out as enemies of the state.

Even an advisory that this President us mostly unfit to be heard by children would not out of line.

The hortatory language of political persuasion was never meant to rest on ad hominem put downs. Ad hominem comments (attacks on an individual rather than their ideas) reside in a dark cellar of public discourse. They play surprisingly well to television viewers accustomed to the melodramatic language of the streets. But this language is a tedious crutch that conceals Trump’s incompetence at explaining policy on its own terms,

The rhetorical sleight of hand that turns individuals into objects of scorn is not completely unusual in American political rhetoric. But when used by a leader formally charged with serving the needs of a vast nation, it is crippling to all of us. Think of how Trump has already treated our friends in Canada, deconstructing an important relationship built over decades. In contrast, the norm for virtually every President has been to celebrate the citizenry rather than hide behind childish put-downs. All modern presidents have attempted to offer hope and words that inspire. Their body language is usually open, not aggressive. It would not “old fashioned” to ask this leader to give his discussions a degree of dignity. This approach is an essential attribute of problem-solvers who seek to reduce their differences with others by sticking to transcendant rather than divisive terms.

Studies indicate that the president is the first public official children recognize. It might seem like a joke, but an advisory that this President is mostly unfit to be seen and heard by children would not be out of line. It is something the American Academy of Pediatrics might consider, since they are interested in media effects on younger Americans. Sadly, many in the nation are only too happy to be entertained by the performances.