Tag Archives: Trump’s presidency

Listening to Elders

Retired U.S. military officers as well as diplomats have recently voiced alarm over Donald Trump’s presidency.

General James Mattis, Trump’s former secretary of defense, finally broke a long silence and wrote in an article for The Atlantic:

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try,” Mattis wrote. “Instead he tries to divide us.”

Further, he wrote: “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort,”

Mattis is one of several retired officers who have spoken of their alarm at what they see as Trump’s damage to American democracy.

Retired diplomats also have spoken out against politicizing the U.S. Foreign Service. Writes a former assistant secretary of state with over three decades of diplomatic experience:

“By using his public office for personal gain, Trump has affirmed Putin’s long-held conviction—shared by autocrats the world over—that Americans are just as venal and self-absorbed as they are, just more hypocritical about it. For dictators, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, a non-stop advertisement for Western self-dealing.” (William J. Burns, “Demolition of U.S. Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs, 14 October 2019.)

What are we to make of this unprecedented outpouring?

Pointing to a way out, Mattis. writing after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, said, “We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”

Corporate Boss Versus Public Servant

The Economist, in a recent issue (December 10, 2016) , pointed to signs that Donald Trump’s presidency would follow a business model.

Leaders of corporations are not elected by the people. In a sense, company heads are dictators, as far as the everyday running of the company is concerned. They may answer to stockholders, but for most businesses, profit is king. Only very enlightened CEO’s believe that they exist primarily to serve their customers.

But if the government of the United States, as Abraham Lincoln famously said, is “of the people, by the people, for the people,” it exists to serve. It exists for the people, not for the leaders or their political parties.

Trump, in his business dealings, can hire and fire at will. He decides, and his companies do what he orders.

Can Trump adjust to being a public servant? Can he, for example, with no experience in airplane building, order Boeing to come up with a cheaper airplane? Can he discriminate based on religion, even though the U.S. Constitution forbids it?

It will be interesting to see if Trump intends to use the dictator model or the constitutional model as his guide.