I ran across a phrase today in the news: “exculpatory ineptitude”. With it, the writer was attempting to encapsulate the Republican Party’s excuses for President Trump’s many pratfalls and the inability of the GOP-led Congress to get anything accomplished. The GOP translation: excuse us, because we don’t know what we’re doing.
It reminds me of these guys. Just substitute President Trump, Senate Majority Leader McConnell, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Ryan.
President Trump, who has been in office less than five months, has demonstrated quite clearly that he has no idea what he’s doing, committing gaffe upon gaffe, insulting allies, embarrassing America, and accomplishing almost nothing. According to him, his achievements have been “Yuge”, even though America knows better. But, in admitting that Trump is drowning in his own man-made quicksand, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan this past week defended the President by saying that, “He’s new to this.”
That would excuse Mr. Trump, presumably, for insisting that the FBI Director honor personal loyalty to the President over his duty to country, or publicly disparaging judges who rule against his ill-conceived Executive Orders, or disrespecting the Mayor of London after a terror attack in that city, or stocking his Administration with business cronies, former lobbyists, and relatives, among other things.
Also, being “new to this” would excuse his refusal to honor Washington D.C. norms, like revealing his tax returns to American voters and making public the visitor logs to the White House. In addition, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, the public also needs to cut him some slack on conflicts of interest, the lack of detail in any of the policy proposals that he’s put forward, and his continual lying about…well, just about any subject that comes up.
His fibs, exaggerations, falsehoods, canards, lies, and damned lies have damaged his credibility (and, America’s?) to the extent that he has taken to adding the following phrase to virtually every statement he makes: “Believe me.” He knows he’s lying, and he’s pretty sure that you know, but, sales is what he’s good at (not governing), so he doubles down on his outrageous claims, hoping to bluff his way to credibility. Donald Trump is definitely not “new to this” when it comes to lying. His typical response when he’s screwed the pooch is, “Fake news!”
At the rate he’s going, Mr. Trump may become remembered as the “Fake President”.
Similarly, the Republican Party is trying to come to grips with the fact that it controls the Federal government right now and can’t seem to get anything of consequence done.
Again, House Speaker Ryan has come to the defense of the GOP, by making the lame excuse that Republicans were out of power so long in Washington D.C. that they’ve forgotten how to get things done. “We’ve been an opposition party for the past 10 years; we’ve got to become a proposition, governing party.” In essence, they’re “new to this” idea of actually trying to accomplish things for the American public, instead of shooting spitwads in Congress, obstructing then-President Obama, and trashing any and all ideas that the other party offered up. It must be tough changing one’s spots…to try to become constructive rather than destructive.
So, America is supposed to give them a pass on their ineptitude, because they’re “new to this”, even though the GOP has controlled Congress for 18 of the past 22 years. Question: Were you asleep in class, or what?
The bottom line is that no one in D.C. is working together on anything. The Republicans aren’t working out differences with Democrats, factions in the Republican Party can’t cooperative to get anything done in Congress, and President Trump is doing his own thing, not working effectively with the GOP, disdaining any dialogue with Democrats, and not even communicating very well with his own Cabinet officials and close advisors. In essence, there is no leadership.
Government is a team sport, and the team is the whole nation. Leadership is required to get the whole nation enthused and working together to accomplish important goals.
One problem that we have is that President Trump is trying (mostly by himself) to enact policy changes that are not supported by most Americans. Ninety million eligible voters didn’t vote for Mr. Trump, and less than half of the people who did vote chose Trump over Clinton (which Mr. Trump denies to this day). So, the President has no solid mandate to do what he wants to do.
His own party, the GOP, is aware of this, as is the Federal bureaucracy, which the Trump Administration is attempting to dismantle. Hence, there is resistance to Executive authority, rebellion in the ranks, embarrassing leaks, etc. GOP Congressmen have to run for re-election in 2018, and they don’t want to get hog-tied to some of the President’s unpopular ideas.
The second problem is that Donald Trump doesn’t understand the Constitution or, more likely, doesn’t want to play ball according to the rules laid down in it.
President Trump seems to think that, because he won the Electoral College vote, he is now clear to do whatever he deems fit, and that everyone should just cooperate or get out of the way. This includes Congress, the Judiciary, and the professional bureaucracy, which is the infrastructure of the Federal government. As far as Trump is concerned, Federal officials need to show fealty to him, rather than honor their oath to uphold the Constitution.
For legal, moral, and political reasons, there is resistance to this imperial approach, so President Trump is frustrated and lashes out in daily tweetstorms, further demonstrating his lack of wisdom, temperament and maturity. And, thus, makes a fool of himself and, unfortunately, the United States of America.
But, it’s not Trump’s fault, because he’s new to this.