A Needful President

By Tom Lamia

President Trump’s peculiarities are well known throughout the world; by friend and foe alike. Among those peculiarities are behaviors generally considered to be objectionable (such as insults, lies and bullying). Those who work with and for him must manage his negative impulses without crimping his effective combative style that has carried him to victory in two presidential campaigns. They have hugely important responsibilities. The president needs them. 

Trump’s behavior in office can be insufferable. Cabinet meetings feature round robin obeisance to the president and feigned gratitude by groveling cabinet officers thanking him for the opportunity to serve him. A bit strange, stiff and awkward, but no harm done, right? Wrong. 

This playacting is a barrier to good advice. The president is deprived of the independent wise counsel of experts.  Information flow is hedged by a brittle presidential ego and a temperamental short fuse. Trump seems to revel in these comic opera performances. Does he want to appear omniscient by being scornful of unfiltered advice? Or is he just monumentally insecure?  In any event, his “advisers” in the Cabinet and his supporters in Congress are failing in their duty to serve him to the best of their ability. Governance without essential information and advice is a risk that should be avoided. Why is it not? 

By his actions and often odd, corrosive or inflammatory statements, Trump may be seeking legitimacy as the elected leader of the American people. He appears to honestly believe in his policies and, regardless of polling data, he believes that most Americans agree with him. There are apparent racial or gender motivations behind many of his policies and executive actions, a fact that he sees as common sense. Why are some of those affected so accepting of these new directions? Because it is honest, not patronizing and even reformative, it appeals to some who suffer abuse and some who impose it. Talking turkey with a big mouth gets a message through. Trump’s most ardent supporters respond to it (“he talks the way we do”) and his detractors are confused by it (“how can he say such cruel, stupid and negative things?”). They are both right. This president is a highly unusual one. His presence in our history is a result of the democratic process. We must live with it, for now.

I was asked in November 2016 for my thoughts on candidate Donald Trump. I said that Trump was a buffoon. I now see that it was not enough. Trump supporters are drawn to some of his worst qualities. His threats of violence were discounted as not being serious. But they were serious; they have become policy. This now begs the question: “how could we have elected such a terrible person to our highest office?” 

Well, because he is the genuine article; flawed beyond measure yet convinced of his superiority to all others in all things.  His lies, including those that he tells himself about who he is and what he has accomplished, are the platform of his popular appeal. He believes in what he says and in what he is doing. And it is working.

Somewhere along the way Trump has figured out that the powers of the presidency can be unlimited, as are the powers of sovereigns and dictators. Our Constitution proscribes the path he is taking but it has been weakened by necessity or emergency too many times. There are three equal and separate branches by design, but in practice the executive branch has become the master of the other two. The president has usurped the power of the purse from Congress and now controls the funds that decide elections. Trump has appointed three Supreme Court justices and inherited two others who are firmly committed to him. Those five are a majority. Additionally, the chief justice is a disciple of judicial deference to presidential power, a critical sixth vote when presidential power is at issue. 

Is Trump unprecedented? Aaron Burr, who shot and killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, was one of the country’s Founding Fathers, a hero of the Revolutionary War. Burr served as a U.S. Senator from New York, and was a presidential candidate in 1786, losing to John Adams, and in 1800 he received an equal number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson. Burr then schemed to claim the presidency by vote of the House of Representatives, but was undone by Hamilton and others. Jefferson was elected and Burr became vice president. 

After his term ended, Burr led several efforts to take ownership of U.S. territories newly obtained in the Louisiana Purchase. Much intrigue and financial skullduggery was apparently involved. The efforts failed and Burr was indicted and tried for treason. Though ultimately acquitted, his reputation and political support were lost. He was also indicted for murder in the Hamilton duel but was never tried. Burr was so mistrusted by Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton that they separately sought his imprisonment. 

Burr’s personal life was a shambles, with sexual scandals, bankruptcies, exile, financial shortfalls, family conflicts, and character issues so profound that he was always in trouble. He married a wealthy widow at age 77 and died at 80 on the day her divorce from him became final. In that short time Burr had lost her fortune through his real estate speculation.  In the annals of profligate presidential players, Donald Trump is not alone.