It has become painfully obvious that President Donald Trump does the ranting, and the generals (one still a three-star, the other two retired) do the governing. That’s a problem for democracy and also for domestic policy.
Trump tweets and bellows at campaign events. He threatens lawmakers of his own party and raises the possibility of a government shutdown. He incites racial animosity and turns his crowds against the media, declaring the latter to be disloyal Americans. (“I really think they don’t like our country. I really believe that,” he said in Phoenix.) He pardons former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff Joe Arpaio as a reward for supporting Trump’s noxious birther campaign and without consulting the Justice Department, thereby siding with a racial profiler and disgraced law enforcement officer who had been found guilty of criminal contempt. Again he aims to incite anti-immigrant vitriol and demonstrate his own disregard for equal protection of the law. Likewise, he sends out his order to bar transgender Americans from serving in the military, again without waiting for the official review process to be completed. He cowardly announces both these measures late on Friday as the country is focused on an impending hurricane.
The impulsive, unsupervised and divisive Trump who disregards careful, expert review of decision is the “real” Trump. One can imagine that Trump considers threats, tweets and press relations to be critical parts of the president’s job; after all, that’s what he seems the most energized about and what he spends most of his time doing.
When it comes to reading a speech on Afghanistan or on veterans’ health, that’s not Trump’s authentic voice, nor do we know if he fully comprehends what he is saying or even agrees with it. Someone should quiz him about his own Afghanistan policy. (How is it a total reversal of President Barack Obama’s policy if he is still nation-building - yes, he is - and maintaining a minimal number of troops with an outcome not designed to destroy the Taliban?) The words are written by others, and the ideas are formulated by Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
When it comes to major policy initiatives (as opposed to unilateral stunts for which he does not need to deal with Congress) in which the generals and retired generals have little expertise, nothing much gets said or done. Bloomberg reports:
“Republican congressional leaders don’t expect to release a joint tax plan with the White House next month, and they’ll rely instead on House and Senate tax-writing committees to solve the big tax questions that remain unanswered, according to two people familiar with the matter. ...
“The shift comes during a chaotic month for the White House that has seen President Donald Trump’s attention diverted to public feuds with Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and to weathering heavy criticism over his response to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”
An infrastructure plan? Nothing from the White House. Anything from Trump on health care (other than complaints about McConnell)? Nope. The good news on that is the possibility of a bipartisan bill. USA Today reported:
“Senators looking for ways to stabilize the individual health insurance market will hear from governors and state health insurance commissioners at their first bipartisan hearings next month.
“The hearings, set for Sept. 6-7, will focus on stabilizing premiums and helping people in the individual market in light of Congress’ failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, plans to have legislation by the end of September. If he succeeds, the president will have played no role.
To recap, we have a functioning national security apparatus because three experienced men with decades of military training are there to steer the ship and point Trump in the right direction. (Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appears irrelevant.) That’s a disturbing inversion of the democratic rule of civilian control of the military, but if the alternative is nuclear war or other catastrophic decisions, I am willing to play along and treat Trump as though he is “really” - wink, wink - performing as commander in chief. He’s in essence playing the president on TV, but the country can be thankful that grown-ups are there to do the real work.
On the domestic side, there is no one with the gravitas and substantive experience to be the president-behind-the-president. The White House grown-ups may figure they can leave it to Congress to deal with taxes, the budget, etc. In any event, Kelly has only so much bandwidth. After policing the paper flow and keeping aides out of meetings to which they are not invited, there’s hardly room in the day to do all the domestic policy work as well. Domestic policy therefore runs aground, with savvier Republicans in Congress resigned to achieving nothing in the coming months (no tax plan, no infrastructure bill) and to very possibly suffering the embarrassment of a shutdown when they control Congress and the White House. And sadly, they have utterly failed to curtail the impulsive, race-baiting unilateral actions of a president who has no desire to unify the country and serve all Americans.
Members of Congress and the media have taken to saying that Trump is unfit to govern. That’s true, but it understates the absurdity of the situation. Trump is not governing at all. That marks a deviation from our democratic system and leaves a slew of domestic initiatives adrift. This is far from ideal; indeed, it’s a situation we should never, ever repeat. That said, does anyone really want Trump to do the job of president?
Jennifer Rubin | The Washington Post
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