Governing is choosing.
By
this I mean that, in the end, leaders have to make specific choices in
specific circumstances, choices that benefit particular people and harm
or disappoint others. This is, as it happens, fundamentally
different than campaigning. In campaigns, candidates seek to be vague
enough to convince a wide variety of people that the candidate supports
their position. If enough people, sometimes holding contradictory views,
think the candidate is on their side, the candidate can win. The key to
success is winning the vagueness game.
But once you get to office the vagueness goes away. It has to: leaders make choices, and in doing so they inevitably alienate some of their former supporters. After all, some of those supporters thought the candidate would do things they just decided to not do, and vice versa.
There’s no escaping this fact, no matter how great a leader you might be, and from whatever party.
This problem is going to be particularly intense for Donald Trump, however. The reason is simple: Trump’s success was grounded on a series of monumental lies. Whether it was climate change as a Chinese hoax, or late term abortions as scenes from a horror film, or the notion you can casually abrogate our treaty and financial commitments to the world, Trump’s positions on these (and many, many other issues) were lies, manipulations and distortions of well-established facts.
So a tension is going to emerge in Trump’s term, one that cannot be avoided with a dog and pony show. This is the tension between the people who know what they’re talking about, and the masses you elected Trump to NOT DO WHAT THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT WANT HIM TO DO.
If Trump follows the experts, he will inevitably alienate his core supporters. If he tries to govern based on his campaign promises, he will face resistance from the experts AND will screw things up so badly we’ll fantasize about the Depression as the “good old days.”
The craziness is only getting started. Welcome to the Trump administration.
But once you get to office the vagueness goes away. It has to: leaders make choices, and in doing so they inevitably alienate some of their former supporters. After all, some of those supporters thought the candidate would do things they just decided to not do, and vice versa.
There’s no escaping this fact, no matter how great a leader you might be, and from whatever party.
This problem is going to be particularly intense for Donald Trump, however. The reason is simple: Trump’s success was grounded on a series of monumental lies. Whether it was climate change as a Chinese hoax, or late term abortions as scenes from a horror film, or the notion you can casually abrogate our treaty and financial commitments to the world, Trump’s positions on these (and many, many other issues) were lies, manipulations and distortions of well-established facts.
So a tension is going to emerge in Trump’s term, one that cannot be avoided with a dog and pony show. This is the tension between the people who know what they’re talking about, and the masses you elected Trump to NOT DO WHAT THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT WANT HIM TO DO.
If Trump follows the experts, he will inevitably alienate his core supporters. If he tries to govern based on his campaign promises, he will face resistance from the experts AND will screw things up so badly we’ll fantasize about the Depression as the “good old days.”
The craziness is only getting started. Welcome to the Trump administration.
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