A Special Duty
After only a week in office President Trump has revealed himself to be an imposter. His success in business does not translate to the management of government, the nuance of national politics or international diplomacy.
In that sense Trump posed throughout his campaign as something he is not. He is being run by aides who have no understanding of the limits of the powers of the presidency, and more troubling, do not have what it takes to tell the new president he is wrong or headed in the wrong direction. This at a time when the nation is forced to depend on White House insiders and leading Republicans to reign in Trump’s impulsive tendencies.
Very briefly, let’s review week one on the way to a more important point.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer was sent out to the briefing room repeatedly to explain the president’s uninformed view of the world. Sometimes using alternative facts and sometimes admitting the president’s beliefs do not align with reality.
President Trump was handled, for all the world to see, by British Prime Minister Theresa May, who used a televised news conference to steer U.S. foreign policy by putting — on the record — policy positions Trump apparently took with her in private. She did this to lock him in before he changed his mind. May was doing something Trump cannot do himself; assure the world that he has a basic understanding of world history and related U.S. policy.
Trump’s major accomplishment on the world stage was to do something no other president has done in more than 100 years. He managed to severely damage our relationship with Mexico by insisting on following through on the foolish campaign promise that the U.S. build a security wall on its southern border and have Mexico pay for it.
By the weekend, Trump had thrown the world into turmoil with an ill-advised, possibly illegal executive order, that disrupted the free travel of refugees, immigrants and others. A federal court had to step in to restore order as protests erupted around the country and nations as diverse as Canada and Iran used the controversy to position themselves as morally superior to the United States.
The easiest part of Trump’s job should be to sit at his desk and wait for the Republican controlled Congress to send him legislation he can sign into law and take credit for, but even here he shows signs of ineptitude, issuing a series of mostly meaningless orders and allowing aides to meddle in the details of legislation behind the scenes as if they believe Congress exists only to do the administration’s bidding.
Trump has set a bullying tone. It is not unusual to hear Trump staffers defend his outbursts against members of Congress, the media, or political opponents by claiming the other party “drew first blood.” Trump seems to believe he can instruct other countries to heel to his demands. His new — unqualified — U.N. ambassador put other countries on notice last week that the U.S. will be “taking names” of those nations that don’t bend to our will. As a matter of human nature, this is an approach that leads naturally to resentment and resistance. Again, Trump has set the tone.
Which brings me to a larger point. Trump is dangerous, but he is the president and he has managed to recruit people into his administration who are either willing to put up with him as a means to achieve their own power or are willing to serve because they think it is the patriotic thing to do.
There are people in and around the White House who know Trump’s ideas are destabilizing. They know the president’s instincts are wrong and that he has little idea what his new job entails. These people have a special responsibility to intervene on behalf of the American people.
Chief among them are Vice President Mike Pence, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Spicer. All three of these men are not members of Trump’s family, are not there to burn down the house, and all three understand how our government is supposed to work and how the United States is supposed to behave toward the rest of world. They are the chaperones at Trump’s endless 5th birthday party. They are our first line of defense. Whether they realize it or not, their job is to speak the hard truth to Trump, refuse his orders if necessary and resign if necessary to expose Trump’s excesses.
On Inauguration Day Vice President Pence took the oath of office, before Trump did, vowing to protect and defend the constitution of the United States. Later, Trump’s White House staff took an oath. That oath was not an oath to defend Donald Trump it was an oath to put their country before themselves. It requires them to stand up for the country even if that means standing against the president who appointed them and against their White House colleagues.
The same can be said for Republican leaders in Congress. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for the sake of the nation(and coincidentally their own party), have a responsibility to say no to Trump, in a very public way, when he goes off the rails.
It is disappointing to see Ryan, the hopeful face of the future of the Republican Party, twist himself against his own nature, to find a way to support Trump’s executive order on immigration, when he is on record having opposed such a ban as recently as 2016. There is only one reason for Ryan to abandon his correct instincts on this issue and that is to support a president, who claims to be a Republican, thus placing loyalty to party ahead of the nation’s interests.
More than half the people voting in the 2016 presidential election voted against Trump. The intensity of the opposition to his presidency is very high. Protests, like those that erupted this weekend over immigration, are inevitable. Inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, Trump’s appointees and top Republicans, have a duty to represent all Americans, not just those who voted for Trump. They have a duty to protect our country from Trump’s instinct to bully and his general incompetence even if it means losing their job or their standing.
