To Govern or Not to Govern

 Among the debilitating effects of identity politics is this: too many of us cheer when a person of a certain ethnicity or skin color is given a job. Too few of us care about how well the person in question does the job.

And, worse yet, when that person shows a manifest inability to do the job, our media mavens and politicians trot out the usual response. They say that it’s all about the messaging. So-and-so was doing great, only no one knew it, because the media failed to report it. 

This is strange indeed. After all, the media promoted nothing but positive stories about Kamala Harris and nothing but negative stories about Donald Trump. And the American public responded by tuning out the media.

Truth be told, the Trump campaign, long on showmanship and short on decorum, seems to have worked. Trump dominated the media because he used the media to his advantage. He sought exposure and he overcame a funding disadvantage by going on every manner of television show, radio show and podcast. He was everywhere.

The American people did not especially like the show. They did not especially like Trump. And yet, they voted for him, because they believed that he could do the job. They understood that the mealy mouthed subliterate Kamala could not. And would never be able to do it.

It should not even need to be said, but being the first of anything does not compensate for the inability to govern. And the bottom line, when it comes to electing politicians, is governance.

And no one can govern unless he suppresses his personality and lets his actions speak for him. It is a far better approach than using soaring rhetoric to overcompensate for failure.

And it is certainly better than to complain constantly about bad press coverage.

As it now appears, the less people see of Donald Trump the more they like him. Fewer rallies; higher approval ratings. Go figure.

Now, Susan Quinn makes the salient point. Trump is currently engaged in governing. This is not the same as putting on a show.

It means that he is taking actions and unfolding a plan. In many cases his actions feel like moves in a game. Leaders in Canada and Mexico are trying to get used to the new regime.

The simple fact is, now someone is in charge. Whereas Trump is willing to use tariffs as an instrument of policy, the Biden administration has refused to upset our relationships with Mexico and Canada. Joe said so himself-- and his mealy-mouthed rejection of tariffs, because they might hurt someone’s feelings, shows precisely what was wrong with his administration.

Sane and sensible people around the world understood full well that Joe was not governing, but was reacting. 

Trump’s moves have shown him to be a negotiator. He is trying to leverage his advantages to produce a successful, negotiated outcome. He will try to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine and will try to do the same in the Middle East.

Trump is seeking a middle ground. Biden was veering between being gun-shy and being trigger-happy. He showed manifest cowardice in Afghanistan and then provoked armed conflicts that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Because then no one could call him weak.

Rather than negotiate an end to the Middle East conflict, Biden kept whining about a cease fire. 

Many of us imagine that leadership involves giving orders and pushing people around. In truth, leadership requires an ability to negotiate, among the different views of different team members. If everyone is not on board, they will not do their best to implement policy.

The other side of governing is staff loyalty. Yes, one recognizes that the talking heads on television throw out the concept of loyalty as though it is a flaw. 

They do not believe that those who are appointed to executive office should be loyal to the president. They keep saying that appointees should be loyal to the country, as though there is a contradiction between the two loyalties. One understands that prior presidents had loyal cabinet secretaries and no one said a disparaging word about it.

In truth, loyalty is a good thing. It is a basic virtue. 

Obviously, the Trump of 2016 was an amateur. He had never been in government. He chose advisors and staff people who had been recommended by others. Their loyalty was not to him or to his agenda-- the agenda that the American people had voted for.

In his first administration too many of Trump’s appointees seemed to be less concerned with advancing the president’s agenda and more concerned with saving the world from Trump. That is, they were looking for good press.

Whatever their goal, the notion that a White House chief of staff would betray a confidence ought to be appalling. And yet, when John Kelly announced something that President Trump had supposedly confided in him, television’s talking heads immediately sprung to his defense, explaining that military officers do not lie.

And yet, honorable officers do not betray confidences either. Strangely, no one seemed to care about this aspect of the affair.      

So, more loyalty, a more coherent administration. It’s called governing.         

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