Trump presidency still seeking shape, form, discipline
After a month in the Oval Office, it is clear Donald Trump’s presidency is like Winston Churchill’s regrettable pudding: it lacks a theme. Things may change, of course, but thus far the Trump White House is one best described as a swamp of chaos, contradiction and disarray, driven by a scattershot approach to foreign and domestic policy, one conspicuous for its leaks reflecting the rivalries for power that Shakespeare would have appreciated.
This newly minted presidency is off to a ragged, confusing start. Trump has claimed the White House is a “fine-tuned machine.” The evidence is to the contrary. While President Trump says the U.S. should seize Iranian oil, Secretary of Defense James Mattis says America will not seize Iranian oil, mindful that such an act would violate the Geneva Convention and International Oil. While Trump says NATO is “obsolete,” Mattis praises the value of America’s oldest post-war alliance and says it would have to be invented if it didn’t already exist.
Trump’s disparagement of NATO and his encouragement of the fragmentation of the European Union, bolstered by White House adviser Steve Bannon’s celebration of economic nationalism, have left our allies in a state of confusion. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has it right: “Trump’s uncontrolled communications are unsettling the world.” History reminds us that powerful, absolutist assertions of executive authority punctuate policy-making.
Stephen Miller, a White House adviser, declared last week in defense of Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven nations in the Middle East, one repudiated by the courts, that “the president’s national security decisions will not be questioned.”
“Will not be questioned.” Really?
Miller’s is a chilling voice from another time and another country, not the voice of American Constitutionalism created by our Founding Fathers who rejected the concept of executive infallibility and cast their lot with the separation of powers, checks and balances and the rule of law.
Questions, concerns and, yes, fears, about the aims, intentions and direction of the Trump Administration reverberate across the nation. His dark declaration that the American press is “the enemy of the people,” was a page drawn from the playbooks of Lenin and Mussolini, who sought to discredit and delegitimize institutions that hold officials accountable. The outrageous and scurrilous attack on the press, so critical to the maintenance of the American Republic, faces pushback from the public which, in a recent Quinnipiac Poll, indicated by a 52-37 percent margin that they trust the media more than they trust Trump.
President Trump’s penchant for doubling down on his false representations, so easily crushed by verifiable evidence, are puzzling and worrisome. School children across the nation can fact-check the historical ranking of Trump’s electoral victory. Contrary to his soaring claims, his electoral college victory ranks in the bottom 25 percent of electoral victories. His persistence in falsely representing the size of the crowds that attended his inaugural address remains puzzling. Why?
A painting of President Andrew Jackson hangs from a wall in the Oval Office. Trump likes to characterize himself as a “disrupter” and flatters himself with comparisons to Old Hickory. Jackson once said that the president must be “accountable at the bar of public opinion for every act of his Administration.” For Jackson, accountability was the essence of democracy. This means, at a minimum, that Trump must be accountable to our most fundamental values and standards — truth, evidence, facts, tolerance and the rule of law. The moral leadership of a president is defined by his willingness to measure up to those standards. We are only 30 days into the Trump Presidency and Americans are holding that measuring stick.
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David Adler is president of the Alturas Institute, established to promote the Constitution and education. He has lectured nationally and internationally on presidential power and the Constitution.