Another Date That Will Live In Infamy?

There are some notorious dates in American history.  FDR declared December 7, 1941, the date of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, “a date that will live in infamy.”  September 11, 2001 obviously is another, and so is April 14, 1865 — the day John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, and sent history veering off into a different direction.

Should February 5, 2013 join them in the annals of infamy?

Why?  Because, according to this interesting article in Politico, that’s the date Donald Trump learned how to send tweets all by himself.  Before then, all of The Donald’s tweets were typed and sent by his social media manager.  But on February 5, 2013, Trump personally composed and issued a tweet that was a simple thank-you to an actress who said something nice about him . . . and the rest was history.

Of course, you can’t really equate mastery of Twitter with a bombing that pulled America into World War II, or the assassination of the greatest President in American history — but the Twitter breakthrough clearly has had profound implications.  Before, politicians and Presidents tended to communicate with the American people primarily through speeches and prepared statements that could be carefully vetted.  Now, tweets are issued directly from the President himself, without any ghost-writing or review.  Ill-advised 140-character (now 280-character) blasts thumbed in at odd hours can set a new direction for American policy or radically change the news cycle.

In my view, that’s definitely not a good thing.  But the genie has escaped the bottle, and you wonder if we’ll ever get back to the day when there is some kind of gravitas and mystique — and distance from the masses — to the office of the Presidency again.

And here’s an even more disturbing thing:  according to the Politico piece, President Trump’s former social media manager is advising him to “up his game” on social media and engage more personally with his supporters, by making his Instagram account more interesting and doing things like live-streaming from the Oval Office.  Hey, what could go wrong with that?

On Genius

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” — Confucius

“To know, is to know that you know nothing.  That is the meaning of true knowledge.” — Socrates

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” — William Shakespeare

“I have no special talent.  I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein

“I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our own intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.” — Albert Einstein

“Wile E. Coyote — Super Genius!” — Wile E. Coyote

“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.” — President Donald Trump

“I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star . . . to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius . . . and a very stable genius at that!” — President Donald Trump

The Presidential Knife Fight Hypothetical

It’s the end of 2017, folks.  Time to stop worrying about the minor stuff, and to start thinking about big-picture issues — like whether Donald Trump or, say, Chester A. Arthur is more likely to prevail in a knife-fight to the death among American Presidents.

Believe it or not, people have given serious thought to this concept — so serious that they’ve even figured out what kind of motorized wheelcraft FDR would use in such a fight, and what kind of knives the Presidents would employ.  This is important stuff, far beyond the Hall of Presidents at Disney World and much more important than developing phony resolutions that you’ll forget within moments after the new year arrives.  Which Presidents are likely to survive until the bitter, bloody end — and, equally important, which Presidents are likely to be the first to give up the ghost?

The prevailing view seems to be that Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt are likely to be the last Presidents standing.  Jackson, because he was a bloodthirsty killer, Lincoln, because his height, rail-splitting strength, wrestling skills, and saintly notoriety make him somebody who would survive the initial killing frenzy, and Roosevelt, because his Bull Moose fitness and hunting prowess would give him a leg up over perceived presidential wimps like, say, Woodrow Wilson.  I’m not sure that the analysis gives sufficient credit to the more recent Presidents — like Harry Truman, who would be happy to stay in the kitchen heat, slashing away at his predecessors, or President Obama, who probably would enter the fray wearing a bicycle helmet and would use his basketball moves to avoid that fatal thrust.

That’s all well and good, but to me the more crucial question is which President would be the first to meet his maker.  I’d bet on James Buchanan, pictured above with his really horrible case of bed head.  Seriously, who cut this guy’s hair.  Putting aside the fact that he was a horrible President, who did nothing to prevent the Civil War — just look at the guy’s face.! Who wouldn’t want to stab this loser and probably punch him square in the mug, besides?  Add in the fact that he was the only bachelor President, who couldn’t even deal with having a spouse, and you can’t help but see Buchanan cowering in a corner once the bloodsport begins, ready to be stabbed repeatedly by other Chief Executives.  I’m convinced Buchanan would the first to go, before even out of shape guys like Tubby Taft or wheelchair-bound Presidents like Roosevelt.

As for Trump?  I think he’d cut a deal with somebody like Matthew Van Buren and make it past the first wave, then get cut down mid-tweet.  I’m convinced Trump would outlive the sideburned Chester A. Arthur, somehow.

The Big Disconnect

At some point in the future, perhaps, we’ll look back at the Trump presidency with some sense of perspective.  For now, though, as we’re in the midst of it, it’s just one weird thing after another.  And with each new, unseemly tweet or attempted put down, it becomes more and more apparent that there is a significant disconnect between the President and his supporters and at least some of the rest of us.

The President’s various petty feuds with members of the news media are the best example of this phenomenon.  Every day, the President seems to become locked into some bitter dispute with a TV show host or a network.  His crude, mean tweets about the hosts of the Morning Joe show on MSNBC are strange because you’d expect the President to be able to remain above the fray.  Surely the President has bigger things to deal with, right?  And, even if he did feel the need to respond to the comments of a particular broadcaster, couldn’t he do so in a fashion that doesn’t involve referring to somebody’s purported plastic surgery?  Wouldn’t most Presidents conclude that very few people out in the country watch, or are even aware of, Morning Joe and therefore responding to its hosts can only call attention to what they are saying?

The President’s recent video tweet, showing a tinkered version of footage of Donald Trump at a Wrestlemania broadcast, body-slamming somebody with the CNN logo superimposed on his head, is the latest example of the disconnect.  Trump evidently thinks that the footage shows, in graphic form, that he’s not afraid to take on CNN and other members of the “mainstream media,” and that his supporters will cheer because they think the press is biased and deserves its comeuppance.  But many of the rest of us shake our heads, and not just because it seems bizarre and childish that the President would tweet out doctored footage of himself engaging in an act of physical violence.

No, the President’s latest tweet also manages to remind some of us:  Oh my god, we’ve actually elected a President of the United States who once voluntarily agreed to appear on Wrestlemania!

Confirming That Standards Still Exist

I’ve always considered Kathy Griffin to be an unfunny, no-talent hack who always seems to be willing to do or say anything in a desperate bid to get some attention.  Calling her a “comedian” is an insult to people who have a legitimate sense of humor and make people laugh for a living.

So it was no surprise to me that Griffin did something stupidly provocative — in this case, posing for a photo with a mock-up of a bloody, severed head of Donald Trump — in a bid to try to remain “edgy” and in the news.   The fact that anyone, even a pathetic attention grubber like Griffin, would think that posing with the severed head of the President of the United States was funny, tells you something about how out of touch some people can be with prevailing human sensibilities.

What’s encouraging, though, is the reaction to Griffin’s photo.  She was universally criticized by everyone, left and right, liberal and conservative, irrespective of whether they support Trump or think he’s the worst President ever.  Griffin also was, not surprisingly, removed from gigs and jobs, including participating in the CNN New Year’s Eve show that I’ve never watched, because someone who thought, even for a second, that that kind of photo was funny is obviously so lacking in judgment that she’s capable of doing or saying other things that are grossly inappropriate.

The broad condemnation of Griffin’s ill-advised publicity stunt shows that we still have some standards of propriety in this country.  To be sure, drawing the line at posing for a photograph with the President’s head may be a low bar, but it’s nevertheless nice to know that the bar is still there.

When Griffin realized that she crossed the line and was being subjected to withering criticism by just about everyone, she issued an apology of sorts, asking for forgiveness, calling herself “a comic” and saying:  “I cross the line. I move the line, then I cross it. I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people. It wasn’t funny. I get it.”  You wonder, though, whether Griffin really does “get it” — and in fact she and her celebrity attorney are supposed to hold a press conference today where they will explain the “true motivation” behind Griffin’s bloody Trump head image, and “respond to the bullying from the Trump family she has endured.”   That’s right:  Griffin apparently is claiming that she has been “bullied” because the Trump family harshly criticized her callous and outrageous stunt.

Trying to reposition yourself as the victim is a classic, last-ditch tactic when you’ve done something so colossally wrong-headed, so it’s no surprise that Griffin is trying it.  It will be interesting to see whether anyone lets Griffin get away with it, when in reality she has only herself to blame for her witless, self-inflicted injury.

Looking “Presidential”?

Last week President Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian base that was implicated in a toxic chemical attack by the Syrian government against Syrian citizens.  This week we’ve got an array of U.S. Navy ships heading into the western Pacific regions, apparently as a show of force against North Korea, which has been engaged in repeated missile tests and is continuing to develop its nuclear weapons program.

Couple the military maneuvers with a few presidential summits with foreign leaders like the Chinese head of state and the president of Egypt, and you’ve also got a lot of people talking about Donald Trump looking “presidential.”  Of course, Presidents always are said to look “presidential” when they are dealing with foreign policy or ordering military action; that’s because those are areas where the President can act unilaterally, without having to try to convince balky Congresses to take one action or another.  It’s been a time-honored technique of the residents of the Oval Office for decades — if you’ve had a rough time on your domestic agenda, have a foreign leader over for a visit or try to shift the focus to the actions of a “rogue state” or “terrorist threat.”  So, whether through careful planning or happenstance, Donald Trump is following a well-thumbed presidential playbook.

It’s interesting that we frequently associate ordering military action and foreign policy positioning with looking “presidential,” because in doing so we’re really encouraging Presidents to spend their time on those areas rather than focusing on the domestic issues  that never seem to get addressed and actually trying to convince Congress to do something about those nagging problems.  How many Presidents, deep in their heart of hearts, have been tempted to engage in a little sabre-rattling or to lob a few missiles at a terrorist encampment or an air base to shift the focus of national attention and raise their approval ratings a few points?

Donald Trump isn’t the first President to receive the “looking presidential” kudos, and he probably won’t be the last, either.  But the association of military action and photo ops with foreign leaders with “looking presidential” troubles me.  Wouldn’t we rather incentivize our Presidents to focus on fixing what’s gone wrong in this country, and reserve the highest, gushing “looking presidential” praise for when the President does what the Constitution contemplates, and signs domestic legislation that has passed both Houses of Congress into law?

Trump’s Business Approach

Here’s a surprise:  Congress is mired in disputes about the new legislation that is supposed to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (or at least claims to do something to deal with the ongoing problems with President Obama’s signature legislation).  There was supposed to be a vote on the legislation on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday, but the tally got postponed over concerns that the legislation might fail.

President Trump has been involved in the wrangling, and last night he weighed in with what the Washington Post described as an “ultimatum.”  According to the Post, Trump told the Republicans in the House to either pass the legislation on Friday, or reject it, in which case Trump will move on to other items on his agenda.  Trump apparently will leave it up to the Republicans in the House to figure out whether they can agree or not.

It’s an interesting approach, and I suspect that it comes from Trump’s years of working in the business world.  Corporations typically don’t engage in open-ended negotiations, allowing events to marinate and slowly come together — which often seems to be how Congress works (if you believe that Congress works at all).  Instead, because there’s a time value to money and limits to corporate resources that can be expended on potential deals that don’t materialize, corporations set establish priorities, set deadlines, and push.  Once a deadline gets set, it becomes another means of applying pressure to the parties to reach an agreement, and if the deal doesn’t get done by the deadline, typically that takes the transaction off the table, the corporation moves on, and there is no going back.

Trump’s approach to this legislative test is, obviously, also informed by political considerations; he wants to set a deadline so members of Congress are actually forced to do something concrete, and we don’t have the lingering story of “what’s going to happen to Obamacare” attracting all of the media attention and detracting from the other things he’s trying to accomplish.  It’s a gamble, because if the legislation Trump is backing doesn’t pass, he could be painted as a failure in the early months of his Administration, making it less likely that he’ll be able to obtain passage of other parts of his agenda, like tax reform.  We already knew that Trump is a gambler, of course — his whole campaign was a bizarre, otherworldly gamble that paid off.  Now he’s bringing some of that high-stakes, business world approach to the legislative political realm.

We shouldn’t be surprised, by now, that Trump is going to continue to gamble and continue to do things in confounding ways.  Today we’ll get another lesson in whether his approach can actually work in Washington, D.C., even on a short term basis.

Trump’s 2005 Taxes

There was a dust-up yesterday about Donald Trump’s taxes.  MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow obtained two pages of Trump’s 2005 personal tax returns, which apparently had been leaked — by someone.  The two pages show that, in 2005, Trump reported income of $150 million, paid $38 million in taxes, primarily through the alternative minimum tax, and benefited from a continuing write-off of losses that apparently date back to 1995.

The White House bemoaned the leak of the two pages of the tax returns, noting that an unauthorized leak of tax returns is a violation of federal law.  At the same time, the White House noted that the two pages show that Trump paid a big chunk of money in federal taxes — while also pointing out that he has no obligation to pay one penny more in taxes than the law requires, a position that virtually every taxpayer heartily agrees with — and added that Trump also paid “tens of millions of dollars in other taxes, such as sales and excise taxes and employment taxes, and this illegally published return proves just that.”

In addition, some Trump supporters used the two pages of the return to refute some of the things said by Trump opponents during the presidential campaign — namely, that Trump wasn’t releasing his taxes because he was a poor businessman, his business empire really wasn’t that successful, and his returns would show that he paid no taxes at all.  As a result, some people are speculating that Trump himself engineered the leak and is using the 2005 return to play the media like a Stradivarius — by releasing limited documents that appear to refute opposition talking points, while at the same time objecting to leaks in violation of federal law.

It’s a messy story, and we’ll have to see whether we learn anything further about the source of the leak.  For now, I hold to two basic points:  (1) if Trump didn’t approve the leak and somebody in the federal government (specifically, the IRS) leaked the two pages of the 2005 return to advance their own personal political agenda, that is both illegal and a grossly inappropriate intrusion into Trump’s personal information and should be opposed by anyone, regardless of their political views, who has entrusted the government with their confidential information, via tax returns or otherwise; and (2) the returns show why presidential candidates should release their returns and why, if they object to such a release, voters should insist that they do so.  The 2005 returns indicate that Trump paid millions of dollars pursuant to the alternative minimum tax — a tax that Trump has talked about abolishing.  The public deserves to know whether political positions are motivated by a politician’s own self interest.

Nascar In The Age of Trump

If there’s one sport that I would associate with our new President, it’s Nascar.

Both Nascar drivers and Donald Trump like ballcaps with printed messages.  Both Nascar and the new President like to throw in the random commercial plug here and there.  Both Nascar drivers and Donald Trump need a lot of help from their pit crews.  And both Nascar and Trump appeal to older, rural white voters.  It’s no surprise that, last year, one of the Nascar execs endorsed Trump for President.

So it seems like a counterintuitive cultural disconnect that, with Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office, Nascar is really struggling — but that’s the case.  Ratings for Nascar broadcasts have been cut almost in half since 2005.  Racetrack owners have torn down sections of bleachers at their tracks due to declining attendance, but the remaining stands still aren’t filled.  TV executives are pushing the sport to make dramatic changes to reverse the decline.  And, according to the linked article, even with two years’ notice Nascar wasn’t able to find a new primary sponsor that was willing to pay its asking price and it therefore had to sell the sponsorship and naming rights on the cheap.

Why is Nascar on the downslope?  The article gets into a lot of inside baseball talk, but I think the reality is simple:  it’s boring to watch cars driving around a race track for hundreds of miles, no matter how garishly painted they might be and how many product stickers they might sport.  I’ve never understood Nascar’s appeal for that central reason — and the generations coming behind mine, growing up with Walkmans and cell phones and social media, apparently have even less of an attention span than I do.  When Nascar people are talking about installing wifi at the racetracks, that tells you all you need to know about the future of the sport.  People just aren’t willing to sit in the stands for hours, drinking beer and hoping for some aggressive driving on the turns and an exciting crash now and then.  Changing the rules of the races and trying to come up with nicknames that make the drivers more interesting aren’t going to change that central reality.

It would be weird if the term of President Donald Trump saw Nascar once again relegated to the status of a small, regional sport — but that may be the direction in which we’re heading.

Politics, Even On The Links

Rory McIlroy, of Ireland, is one of the best golfers in the world.  Recently he decided to tee it up in a friendly foursome that included President Donald Trump.

Apparently, that’s now forbidden.

McIlroy faced withering criticism on the Twitterzone from people who thought that simply playing golf with the President could be viewed as some kind of endorsement of Trump and his policies.  Our culture has grown so heated that even an amiable Irish guy, who doesn’t vote in American elections, can’t go out for 18 holes of golf with the President without facing a backlash and having people accuse him of “whoring” himself and trying to shame him.

Playing golf used to be viewed as a kind of politics-free space.  Celebrities, comedians, movie stars, and sports figures could hit the links with Presidents, Governors, Senators, and Congressmen without being accused of endorsing their political views.  But it wasn’t just American politics that weren’t transported to the golf course, either.  Gary Player was a beloved player in America and elsewhere, even though he hailed from South Africa during its apartheid era.  And golfers freely played in international competitions without people trying to ban them because their home countries enforced repressive policies or weren’t viewed as sufficiently following the prevailing political views of the day.   The golf course was a kind of sanctuary where people could just play golf.

And this was true even at the local level, where people playing in club tournaments or outings might detest the views of the people they’re paired with — but they play with them anyway, and treat them cordially and in the spirit of friendly competition.  It’s one of the great things about golf.

It’s just too bad that the concepts of tolerance and sportsmanship and getting away from the hurly-burly of the world while you’re out on the course aren’t shared by more people who apparently must view everything through a political lens, and hold everyone to rigid standards of acceptable political behavior.  When somebody can’t go out and just play golf with the President without getting ripped as a turncoat, it’s a sad statement.

Redefining “Presidential,” And Reconsidering Overreaction

In some way, Donald Trump is like the weather:  you’d like to ignore him, but you just can’t.  He’s like that blustering, loud summer thunderstorm that blows in on the day you’ve scheduled an outdoor party and requires everybody to change their plans whether they want to or not.

It’s pretty obvious, after only a few days in office, that the era of Trump is going to change how we look at our presidents, and what we consider to be “presidential” behavior.  In recent decades, we’ve become used to our presidents maintaining a certain public decorum and discretion.  Sure, there have been a few exceptions in the sexual dalliance department, but for the most part our modern presidents have tried to take the personal high road.  They leave the attacks to their minions and strive to stay above the fray.

Not President Trump.  He’s down there himself, throwing punches via Twitter.  His most recent activities in this regard involve lashing out at the federal district court judge that issued a temporary restraining order against Trump’s immigration executive order.  Trump referred to Judge James Robart as a “so-called judge” and said his ruling was ridiculous.  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer immediately attacked Trump, saying his comment “shows a disdain for an independent judiciary that doesn’t always bend to his wishes and a continued lack of respect for the Constitution.”

I’ve got mixed feelings about all of this.  I personally prefer the more genteel, above-the-fray presidential model; I think it’s more fitting for a great nation that seeks to inspire others and lead by example.  I wish our President wouldn’t “tweet.”  But I also recognize that American presidents haven’t always been that way.  The behavior of presidents of the 1800s — think Andrew Jackson, for example — was a lot more bare-knuckled than what has come since.

I also think there’s danger for the Democrats in repeatedly overreacting to Trump.  If you argue that everything Trump does is the most outrageous travesty in the history of the republic (and that’s pretty much what you get from the Democrats these days) you ultimately are going to be viewed as the boy who cried wolf — which means the townspeople aren’t going to pay attention when you really want them to listen.  And in this case the reality is that, since the very early days of our country, elected politicians have been strongly criticizing judges.  Andrew Jackson famously declined to enforce a Supreme Court ruling, and Abraham Lincoln harshly lambasted the Supreme Court, and its Chief Justice, after the Dred Scott decision.  More recently, the rulings of the Warren Court became a political lightning rod during the ’60s, and President Obama saw fit to directly criticize the current Supreme Court, sitting right in front of him during a State of the Union speech, about their Citizens United ruling.

So Trump’s reference to a “so-called judge” really isn’t that big a deal when viewed in the historical context.  What’s weird about it is that it comes out in tweets — which makes it seem less presidential and, because it’s a tweet, less serious.  When Trump has these little outbursts I think if the Democrats simply shook their heads and said that what Trump is doing is “regrettable,” without acting like his every move threatens to bring down the Constitution, Trump’s Twitter act will wear thin on its own.

But they can’t help themselves right now, and neither can Trump.  So we’re going to have to ride out a few of those thunderstorms.

Our First “You’re Fired!”

Last night President Trump issued the first high-level “You’re fired!” of his new Administration.  It’s like The Apprentice all over again.

The person being sacked was Sally Yates, who was serving as acting Attorney General prior to the confirmation of Trump’s selection, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.  An Obama appointee, Yates had issued an order to lawyers in the Justice Department instructing them not to make arguments defending Trump’s executive order on refugees and immigration.  Her order to the DOJ lawyers apparently was a unilateral decision, and it clearly wasn’t coordinated with the White House.  When the President learned of it he promptly dismissed Yates through a hand-delivered letter and replaced her with another acting AG, who immediately rescinded Yates’ decree and ordered DOJ lawyers to defend Trump’s immigration order.

In a letter, Yates stated that “[m]y responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts.”  The letter noted:  “In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right,” and concluded “[a]t present, I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful.”  The White House, for its part, said that Yates was sacked for “refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States.”

We’re going to be seeing a lot of this, I’m afraid.  Trump is taking actions that are making significant changes and provoking significant opposition.  Yates is of course entitled to her opinion about his immigration order — but I think her appropriate course was not to unilaterally act to thwart the order, but rather to publicly and noisily resign rather than enforce the order.  That’s the course that Attorney General Elliott Richardson took when President Nixon fired Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, and I think it is the right approach.

As for the President, I think he really had no choice but to fire Yates for her failure to follow the policy set by his Administration.  Trump clearly means to shake things up, and he’s going to encounter resistance in the sprawling federal bureaucracy.  If Trump hadn’t acted in the face of the first act of disobedience, he would have given a green light to the actions of other dissenters within the Executive Branch of the government and undercut his ability to make the changes he thinks voters elected him to make.

People serving in government have a right to their own views, and to act their conscience — but Presidents have a right to expect their policies to be followed and faithfully executed, unless and until other coordinate branches of government act to stop them, through court orders or new laws.  It’s how the checks and balances in our tripartite government is supposed to work.  We should all haul out our Civics textbooks — we’re going to be getting an ongoing refresher course with this new President.

Thin-Skinned

One of the most curious aspects of the first few days of the Trump Administration is the little dust-up about the size of the crowd at the new President’s inauguration.  Trump thinks the news media has intentionally underestimated the crowd to try to make him look less popular than he really is; the news media points to photos of the National Mall that indicate that the inaugural crowd was not as big as the crowd for the Women’s March the next day or the crowd for the Obama inauguration in 2009.

It’s a weird story, because no one really should care about the size of the crowd.  It’s an insignificant fact that has no lasting impact on the new President or the country.  No historian includes size of inaugural crowd as one of the factors used in ranking our Presidents from best to worst.

So why does Trump care about something that would otherwise be quickly and forever flushed down the memory hole?  I think it’s because he’s someone who’s convinced of his popularity — he just won the election, after all — and he’s a bit thin-skinned about suggestions that he’s not as popular as he thinks he is.  That’s why he’s struggling to let it go, and also keeps bringing up the claim that he would have won the overall popular vote if millions of purportedly illegal voters hadn’t cast their ballots.  Trump denies that he’s thin-skinned, of course, but the reaction to the inaugural crowd reports make it difficult to agree with his self-assessment.

I think this is one of the areas where Trump’s lack of a political career has had a real effect.  Most career politicians have gotten used to absorbing the slings and arrows of outrageous statements after a few years in the political arena.  By the time they get to the point of running for president, they’ve developed an outer coating tougher than a rhinoceros hide that allows them to slough off criticism.  But Trump hasn’t had that experience, and hasn’t developed that protective layer that allows him to ignore the slights and the barbs.

Trump presumably will develop a thick skin soon; it’s hard to imagine you could be President for long without it.  The concern for me is whether political opponents or foreign leaders will see Trump’s apparent hypersensitivity as an opportunity to be exploited:  can they goad our touchy President into taking a reckless step by playing to his pride and ego?  That’s why I’m hoping Mr. Trump stops worrying about crowd size — at least publicly — and starts to show that he’s not troubled by the little things.

The Women’s March

Today is one of those days when Facebook really serves a purpose.

Take a look at your Facebook page this morning, as I did mine.  You’ll probably see photos of some of your Facebook friends and family members out marching yesterday.  In Washington, D.C., Cleveland, San Antonio, California, and many other places across the country, women, and men, were out expressing their views, wearing their knit caps and serving notice to the new Administration that they would be watching.

It was an impressive display, and it makes a powerful statement about the strength of participatory democracy in our country.  When hundreds of thousands of people get off their duffs on a weekend and go out to protest, it shows they care in a way that a phone call or sending a form letter to a Senator or Representative can’t really express.  And speaking as someone who served my time working in a Congressman’s office in Washington, D.C., the politicians will take notice of this display, and think about what it means and how it should affect what they do going forward.

Regardless of our political views, we should all applaud this kind of exercise, where the ordinary people of the land see fit to act.  Our governmental system depends on people voting, of course, but it also depends on people actually paying attention — watching our elected representatives, learning about what they are doing, and holding them accountable when they err or stray.  We should all worry when the people are too bored, or apathetic, or trusting to keep track of the politicos.  Similarly, the news media doesn’t do its job when it’s too cozy with the inside-the-Beltway bigwigs and becomes a willing participant in the government’s desired messaging.

In the first days of his Administration, Donald Trump has already accomplished something important that he may well not appreciate:  he’s gotten people engaged, pro and con, in a way that simply didn’t exist before.  It’s a good thing.

About The Inaugural Address

At 11:30 today, Donald Trump will say the 35 words required by the United States Constitution — swearing on both the Bible used in Abraham  Lincoln’s inauguration and a Bible his mother gave Trump when he graduated from Sunday school in 1955 — and then, according to tradition, the new President will give an inaugural address.

I think the speech will be worth watching, or reading — not so much for what Mr. Trump says, but more for how he says it.

I think everyone would agree on one thing about Trump:  he’s not a conventional political speaker.  Most politicians employ speechwriters who draft carefully prepared remarks that are edited and polished to the nth degree and that strive to create memorable phrases that can be quoted by the press.  Trump doesn’t do that.  In the remarks I’ve seen him deliver, he doesn’t appear to follow a written speech, or even use a teleprompter.  Trump seems much more comfortable with Twitter, or with getting up to the podium with a few concepts in mind that he presents in a straightforward, conversational way, often repeating the same points several times during his remarks and mixing them in with observations about what he saw on TV last night or read in the paper that morning.

In the history of the United States, there have been a few memorable inaugural addresses and lots of totally forgettable ones — does anyone remember what Richard Nixon, for example, said in his first inaugural address? — but all of them have followed the pattern of a conventional political speech, where the newly sworn Chief Executive tries to inspire Americans with his vision for the country and present some enduring rhetoric.  Will Trump follow that pattern, or will he break from the mold in this instance as he has done so often in the past?

It’s hard to imagine Donald Trump trying to deliver the kind of lengthy, formal, scripted address that we’ve seen at other presidential inaugurations.  I’ll be interested to see if he even tries, or if he decides to go in a different direction altogether.