There’s a popular myth, a cliché even, that America should be run like a company and only a successful businessman can get the job done. That’s a nice soundbite, but countries and governments are not corporations, and historically most businesspersons turned politicians are not to be successful presidents.
As mentioned here before, while Trump is a businessperson – with occasional success and regular failure — he has never run anything like a large corporation where he’s accountable to shareholders. Rather, his managerial experience is limited to running a small family business with a fairly simply business model, where the only ones to enjoy in his venture’s success are family members and those who suffer its losses are employees and consumers.
It follows logically then that when Mr. Trump has no expertise on a subject or bandwidth – which as it relates to both domestic and foreign policy is always – instead of listening or delegating to professional bureaucrats, Trump defers to his children or people that have worked on his business dealings in the past, no matter how unrelated to the issue at hand.
Therefore it is no surprise that as President, instead of letting the seasoned pros do their jobs, Trump sends out his daughter to act as the official U.S. representative in front of foreign leaders, his son – who resembles the rich-kid bad guy from every Hollywood movie you’ve ever seen – or his son-in-law or bankruptcy lawyer to do his billing. Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers questions this in today’s Washington Post:
It is rare for heads of government to step away from the table during major summits. When this is necessary, their place is normally taken by foreign ministers or other very senior government officials. There is no precedent for a head of government’s adult child taking a seat, as was the case when Ivanka Trump took her father’s place at the G-20 on Saturday. There is no precedent for good reason. It was insulting to the others present and sent a signal of disempowerment regarding senior government officials.
So the question for Americans is: do we want the United States of America to be run like a family business?
Grave Error 