Nearly eight years ago, on the evening of Inauguration Day
2009, a group of leading Republicans gathered for dinner and vowed to make the
president inaugurated that same day a one term president. President Obama had
nominated to the Cabinet two Republicans (including the Secretary of Defense)
and reached across the aisle in his Inauguration Speech to champion a government for all Americans. But his
presidency was to be undermined from day one by the dogged pursuit of the political goal of restoring a Republican
to the White House above all. This in spite of the U.S. being involved in two ground wars and in the depth
of an economic recession the likes of which had not been seen since the Great
Depression. A situation that would seem to clamor for bipartisanship.
The conspiracy begat that evening eventually led to, among
other things, the scuttling of the budget deal and the demonization of
immigration reform, as well as to a few government shutdowns. The Republican opposition
to President Obama relished, encouraged, grew and supported factions and groups
that distorted his origins, mocked his race in the most disturbing ways and
generally were visceral and toxic to government institutions in general and the
president in particular.
The environment emanating from such confrontational
partisanship is at the root of destructive interactions between and within
our political parties. It is an environment that, fueled by the contrived
hyperbole of fringe media (radio and on-line), desensitizes a basic sense of
civility that allows social co-existence. Incendiary talk radio and web sites
that are just a notch below in their rhetoric of the ones used by Hutus in Rwanda or Serbs in Bosnia to inspire genocidal rampages have become increasingly
pervasive in the partisan dialogue and in social media. And with no doubt within this environment we can find the origin of that
political Frankenstein monster: Mr. Donald Trump. A creature nurtured by an
unfettered sense of entitlement, a sublimated inferiority complex and a craving
for attention at any price. A creature pieced together and supported by a
coalition of people exactly like him showcasing in social media and any other vehicle they may find their blinder constrained narcissism. These are not Bush or Romney Republicans, not Reagan
or Clinton Democrats, confrontational and antagonistic, but they are politically alienated, for lack of a
better word, anarchists. Après nous, le déluge!
Trump’s claim to fame and biggest selling point is that he is a
successful businessman, that he knows how to run a business, knows about money
and that it is time someone with his credentials ran the country. Setting aside the fact that he has not
demonstrated that he has had the acumen to use his inherited fortune to
grow it over market returns (without bilking thousands of customers, contractors
and even state and federal government), the notion that a nation can be run like a
business is spurious. The last time that was attempted here was by Calvin
Coolidge and it led to the Great Depression.
A successful business is a closed system with a clear goal:
survive market competition and the innovation forces of creative destruction to
maximize the profits to its limited number of shareholders. A successful nation is an
open system that by regulating market failures, externalities and common goods
seeks to maximize the well-being of all its citizens. The set of skills and
knowledge that lead to success in one endeavor are not the same for the other.
If it were granted that Trump has been a successful CEO, to
transfer his skill set to running the government could lead to the worst cases
of influence peddling and conflicts of interest since Spiro Agnew (when America
was great?). In a perfectly logical pursuit of benefitting his present and
future investments, decisions impacting markets and regulations would be taken
in “best for the business” mode, disregarding the overarching economic and political reasons
for national government.
Of course, that is what some in the Republican leadership
are counting on. Not that Trump will use the government to benefit himself
personally (like any businessman would naturally tend to do), but that his lack
of skills for governing will force Trump to call on them for assistance in
running the country--at which point they will just tell him what to do. This party leadership tries to convince itself and a diminishing group of their followers that Trump
is “politically manageable.” However that, a risky proposition at best, does not account
for the obvious personality traits embodied in Trump.
Because power limits through checks and balances do exist, a temperament recognizing such limits and acquiescing to this most basic tenet of our government is one of the fundamental reasons to choose a candidate over another. Trump has made clear he does not believe in limits to his use and manipulation of power. The latest evidence of his sense of entitled power and his willingness to abuse it is the “Access Hollywood” video where he says: “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Because power limits through checks and balances do exist, a temperament recognizing such limits and acquiescing to this most basic tenet of our government is one of the fundamental reasons to choose a candidate over another. Trump has made clear he does not believe in limits to his use and manipulation of power. The latest evidence of his sense of entitled power and his willingness to abuse it is the “Access Hollywood” video where he says: “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
President Trump as a risky proposition does not even begin to describe the possible scenarios of
uncontrolled abuse of power that could occur with a White House occupied by an
unapologetic reckless bully. A bully directly descended and nurtured by the blind partisan interest wrought upon the nation that cold January evening in 2009. This is a risk that America should not allow itself
to take. It has a lot to lose.
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