Tag Archives: Donald Trump

A Heritage Script, but the Performance is all Trump

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Trump’s actions seem to come with little input or deliberation.

Descriptions of the various forms of presidential leadership usually include several basic patterns. A President can lead by deliberating with various stakeholders in and out of government. It is clear The Heritage Foundation headquartered a short walk from the Capitol almost always has ear of this president. But is doubtful their ideas were subject to much presidential deliberation. Or a leader can make a concerted effort to shape public opinion. We have been reminded recently that President Carter employed this form repeatedly in messages, arguing to the nation to be more frugal and conservation minded. Alternatively, a president can demonstrate intent by acting on his or her own ideas. In the words of political scientist James David Barber, he or she can “show an orientation toward productiveness as a value,” flooding the daily news agenda with gestures of decisiveness. George W. Bush liked to use the location that he was “the decider:” a single-minded leader with little patience for parsing various other views.

Trump is definitely not the West Wings’ Jeb Bartlett, testing ideas with insiders and outsiders from morning to night. Instead, proposals like taking over Panama or invading Iceland, you will pardon the pun, seem half-baked: made mostly in private, but announced with calculated theatrics. The theatre of stale “manly” declarations is his rhetorical method, and about 25 years out of date. The result is that we might get better outcomes with a throw of some dice.

One could fairly ask how the preposterous idea of taking over a foreign land was not fully studied and discussed by security analysts, both sides of Congress, military leaders, and, most egregiously, the effected governments themselves. After all, these decisions involve sovereign states that were–not long ago–our allies. Ditto on unilaterally renaming Denali, the beautiful word indigenous and more recent residents of Alaska prefer for this grand North American mountain. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (R) disagrees with Trump’s decision. “You can’t improve upon the name that Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans bestowed on North America’s tallest peak.” Obviously, place names of indigenous Americans rightfully figure in every corner of the nation. Politico suggests he is just getting started on a binge of unilateral name-changes. Who knows what is in store for the residents of Minnesota, Montana, or New York?

Aside from the blunt instrument of random tariffs, which has all of the grace of shooting out the neighbor’s windows, the single biggest marvel of executive overreach is his decision to rename internationally recognized name for the Gulf of Mexico. He seems uninterested in Mexico’s or Cuba’s views or, more significantly, the weight of history and tradition that governs long-established geographical features. Changing the name of an international body of water is roughly the equivalent of announcing that Florida will henceforth be known as Swamplandia. Floridians might have other ideas. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names would normally vet name changes. But even a leader who craves the appearance of authority should know that sometimes ‘saying it doesn’t make it so.’

In the parlance of decision-making theory, these are all “low knowledge/non-incremental” changes with important ramifications that reach far beyond what the impulsive Donald Trump envisions. Consultation with effected parties on these decisions appears to have been minimal.

Students of how decisions are made note that non-incremental changes preceded by little deliberation represent the least desirable path to change. It’s a theatrical style of leadership more at home in movie script than in our elaborately interconnected world. We now must wait with our former friends for the unintended consequences to roll in.

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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.