It's Nobody's Business

A recent article in Politco has the headline, "Trump Vexed by Challenges, Scale of Government."  The sub-heading is more to the point.  It reads -- "The new president’s allies say he has been surprised that government can’t be run like his business."

Nooooo.  Go figure.  Who would have thought??!!!  You mean you can't just ban a religion and the courts have to go along with it?  You mean you can't have your National Security Advisor negotiate with Russia before you're in office and the country has to accept it?  

Really??  No??  Wow, that's like so unfair.

I know full-well that I am not the first person to make this observation, especially in regards to Trump, that running a business is Absolutely Nothing like government, and most-especially like being president of the United States, but I've not only made it several times on these pages, and as far back as May 23 of last year.  That was initially in an article here titled, "A Short Talk with the Mind of a Trump Supporter."

It's not a unique thought, as I said.  But given that's the issue has hit reality and is now in the news, I thought it worthwhile repeating the appropriate passage, if only to drill the point home.  And to continue drilling it.

The point of that original article was to take the Talking Points that we repeatedly heard from diehard Trump supporters and explain why they were utterly meaningless.  And so, hearken back with me to an earlier time, as the passage in question from May 23, 2016, reads --


“He can run the government because he knows business.”

(Actually, no. Politics is nothing like running a business. Nothing. And being President of the United States is not only less-so, but has absolutely zero to do with running a business. In business, if you’re in charge, you can decide everything that you want done. You can order people around and tell all your employees how to do their job. You can fire people, for any reason. In politics, most especially if you’re the president, Congress makes the laws and decides what gets done. You can’t fire elected representatives or even civil service employees. You have a complete separate political party that can disagree with you about everything and block everything you want. And worse, they might be in the majority and push their own agenda. You have to compromise. You have to be a diplomat. You have to be, literally, a military general, since you’re commander-in-chief of all the armed forces. You have to know about outer space, science, macroeconomics, transportation, education, social welfare and on and on, areas far out of your expertise. And then, just when you’ve been inundated by all that — there’s every other country in the world. You can’t order them to do anything. You can’t know most of anything about what they’re doing. And those are your friends and allies. It doesn’t even take into consideration enemy nations that oppose you. And not just oppose, but may be trying, literally, to destroy you. Business?? You know how to run a business?? Swell, buy a chain of 7-11’s. This international global politics, bucko.)