I just want to make sure I understand what is going on. The COVID crisis is continuing to ravage this country. Over 300,000 Americans have died and daily infections and deaths continue to set records. Numerous US Government agencies have been hacked and we are just beginning to assess the damage. The prime suspect, once again, is Russia. A COVID relief package has been stuck in Congressional gridlock for months while millions of Americans are out of work, losing their homes and struggling to put food on the table. That would seem like more than a full plate for someone who is supposedly ‘leading’ this country.
However, our fearless leader, has assumed a bunker mentality and refused to engage on any of these issues. Three major crises are crippling this country and Trump is spending his time sulking about his election loss and spewing baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud and a rigged election. If I were Vladimir Putin, I could not imagine a better ‘agent’ or plan to undermine America than the one that is currently sitting in the White House. I would argue that this might be the most vulnerable the US has been since the famous Cuban missile crisis in the 60’s that occurred during Kennedy’s administration.
The real irony in this whole nightmare is that Trump seems to be fighting to keep a job that he is not interested in doing. It has been apparent during his four years in office that he enjoys the trappings of being President. He can live a grandiose lifestyle without having to spend his own money. He loves the adulation he gets. He loves the sense of power he gets when he can pull the levers of government for his own personal benefit or to go after political enemies. But he doesn’t really like the job.
He doesn’t regularly read the Presidential Daily Briefing prepared by the intelligence community. He certainly doesn’t do anything to try to mitigate the divisiveness in country but rather continues to pour gasoline on these flames. He has continuously tried to undermine every government agency in one way or another, usually by purging these agencies of professionals and installing Trump loyalists. He has not been successful at all in the area of foreign policy as he has alienated allies, failed to engage adversaries, and ceded America’s stature and influence on the world stage.
How long do you think the CEO of a company would last if they came to work, hunkered down in their fancy corner office, spent much of their day watching TV and on phone calls with their friends, and refused to have regular staff meetings during a time when the company was being sued for millions of dollars, revenues were falling, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and a hostile takeover was being waged by a rival company? You’re right, that CEO would be bounced out on his ass in a heartbeat. So why should we tolerate such behavior in the highest office in the land?
If you imagine that the Congressional Republicans have been kind of like the Board of Directors in the above example, they have enabled this behavior for 4 years. They have failed to hold this CEO (Trump) accountable and now they are wondering why the hell the company (country) is teetering on the brink of disaster. There is no doubt that Trump failed to do his job, but the Republican led Senate (the Board of Directors, as it were) failed to their jobs as well. And what as happened in this country is that there has been a shareholder revolt. Enough ‘shareholders’ in this country got together and were fed up by this systemic failure of the Trump government that they voted to oust the CEO because the Board of Directors would not do their jobs. It’s just that simple.
The Boards of Directors in large corporations are generally made up of wealthy, powerful, (primarily white male) people and, in general, they do not like shareholder revolts. They like to think that they alone know what is best for the company and they should have the final say on who the CEO is and what his/her tenure will be. Boards of Directors are supposed to operate in the best interest of the shareholders, not the best interests of the CEO. However, there are numerous examples in corporate American where the Board got corrupted and did not follow those guidelines. That is essentially what we have witnessed over the last four years when the Republican Senate failed to hold Trump to account.
If Trump wishes to hide in his office and not deal with the crises facing this country for the next month, so be it. Since he has abandoned his job, we should probably just ignore him. If he doesn’t have the backbone to come out, face the American people and address these crises head on, he is unworthy of the office. More than 80 million Americans have made this same assessment. It’s well past time for the Republican-led Senate (the Board of Directors) to exercise their Constitutional duty and inform Trump that he has been relieved of his duties and he is free to pursue other opportunities! Perhaps they should do it by Tweet!!
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” –Peter F. Drucker