This is not the post I had planned to write today. That one will have to wait. This post is, once again, a response to statements made by the current President. In an interview with Reuters Thursday April 27, 2017, The President said he thought being President would be easier than being a businessman. Who would have thought that? Who might have imagined and/or considered that being the President of a country would be a difficult job? Well, someone with a background in politics might have had a clue. Someone with an understanding of how the government works might have had an inkling. Someone with an understanding of the Constitution, the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches and the concept of checks and balances might have had an indication.
Electing someone from the business sector with zero political experience was clearly not the wisest choice because the United States Government does not run like a business. There is no Chief Executive Officer. There are no Board of Directors and absolute power resides with no one person and no one branch of government. Nor does it run like a dictatorship. It runs like a government struggling with and at times paralyzed by partisan politics due to the loss of centrists and moderates.
Electing someone from the business sector with zero political experience who then chooses advisers who have limited to no political experience makes the job even more difficult. While it is not impossible for someone to make the transition from the corporate world to the political world, it is extremely difficult to make that transition competently without taking the time to at least become familiar with the basics of how the government runs prior to announcing the intention to run for office. Politics is never something to be done on a whim. Campaign promises and rhetoric should never be spewed from the mouth like lava from an uncontrollable erupting volcano just for the sake of applause and popularity.
Along with not realizing how difficult being President would be, the current President also admitted that he knew nothing about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, more commonly known as NATO, when he repeatedly called NATO obsolete. A simple web search would have enabled him to connect to the NATO web site and find out even some basic information. Now that he knows what NATO is and what it does, he has decided it is no longer obsolete and is actually a good organization.
Throughout his campaign he vowed to "repeal and replace failing Obamacare" on day one of his Presidency. With his Republican Party in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act might not have happened on day one, but certainly there was the expectation that it would happen. But "repeal and replace" has not happened. The first attempt was met with widespread resistance from the Republican members of the House of Representatives for a variety of reasons including the bill being too harsh for some and not harsh enough for others. "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated" was the current President's response for the Republicans in the House of Representatives being unable to secure the votes to pass the bill.
The negative responses to the President's statement were swift, many and well-deserved. Anyone who had been paying any attention at all to the previous fight to pass health care knew how hard getting the Affordable Care Act was. As a businessman with companies and employees who would be affected by the passage and enactment of the Affordable Care Act, one would think the current President would have had some knowledge about the difficulties of getting health care legislation passed and enacted. But like so many other issues and topics that he spoke about during the campaign, this was yet another one about which he was woefully uninformed.
His ignorance regarding trade and global politics and dealing with foreign countries, whether allies or adversaries, is not just something that can be excused or overlooked due to his lack of political experience. He has made statements which have caused tensions with our allies and not just Mexico over payment for a wall. His statements and tweets are both reckless and dangerous not just for the citizens of United States but for the citizens other countries, including our allies. In that same Thursday night interview, he also said that there could be "major, major conflict with North Korea."
That is the kind of statement responsible, thoughtful Presidents simply do not make to the Press or in any public forum unless there is grave danger and action must be taken. Those words will not be taken by the North Koreans as some sort of warning that they should behave. Those words will be perceived as a threat and North Korea's justification for accelerating their nuclear arms program. Additionally and just as important, those words have placed our allies who are geographically close to North Korea in more danger. The missiles North Korea has already developed can easily hit targets in South Korea and Japan.
Of course we could have chosen a President who was knowledgeable and well-informed with diplomatic experience. A President who knew our allies and adversaries as well as all the risks involved in attempting to negotiate with both friendly and hostile leaders. A President who understood that making compromises may be the only way to move forward and that making idle threats, reckless statements and attempting to bully people can have dangerous consequences. But that candidate did not get elected despite receiving more popular votes.
There were emails and an FBI investigation that proved there was no wrongdoing yet was mysteriously reopened in days before the election only to once again result in no wrongdoing. There was that "pay for play" scandal that never happened but drew widespread media attention and coverage and that money from GoldMan Sachs for speeches. There was Russian interference with an avalanche of fake news and thirty years of hate perpetuated by the Right and accepted by some on the Left. There was the certainty that the candidate would lead us into war. There was also one other fact: the candidate was a woman.
So the woman who was prepared, competent and qualified lost to the man who was unprepared, incompetent and unqualified.
There are no words to describe how tragic this is. Whatever happens as a result of the actions of the current President, his administration and this Congress to our country and our citizens, to other countries and their citizens, to our planet and to our environment will not only rest heavily on the shoulders of the current President, his administration and Congress, but on all those who voted for him and his party as well as those who voted third party and those who did not vote.
No comments:
Post a Comment