Montpelier
One of the visions dangled before my eyes when I was a child was the notion that any American boy, if he worked hard, could become president. In some waggish left-leaning circles it’s being said nowadays that the current occupant of the office proves the proposition: Any boy, obviously, can become president. I’m still waiting eagerly for “any boy” to be dropped from the adage and changed to “anyone,” and hope devoutly to see a woman president — preferably the daughter of immigrants — before I depart this vale.
Be that as it may, watching and listening to the news the past couple of weeks, any rational person would have to conclude that only a madman (or madwoman) would even want to be president. There’s the burden of knowing that about half of your constituents think you unworthy of the position, and some would gladly run you over should you blunder between their headlights. The Secret Service’s constant vigilance is a reminder of the perils of the office and the hatred or disdain of a good portion of the populace. It must be hard to shut out or rationalize that.
Then there are the complexities and never-ending demands of the office. We watched George W. Bush and Barack Obama go gray during their tenures — though I suspect Trump will not. The job requires being on call 24 hours a day, every day. I recall when a college of my acquaintance once elected a corporate chief like Trump to its presidency. The poor man, accustomed to, with his board, making unilateral decisions and having them carried out, seemed flummoxed by meetings of the faculty in which obscure professors, some quite impassioned and prolix, held the floor at length to gainsay his latest announced plans.
An increasingly large staff, even in these days of “deconstruction of the administrative state,” is required to run all the departments of the White House. Keeping track of what they are — let alone what they’re up to — must call for a mind a few cuts above the average. Naturally, the duty of monitoring them is assigned to subordinates, who must be trusted to be competent, as well as loyal. Two little chips of Shakespeare bubble up in this regard: “… ships are but boards, sailors but men” (a poetic description of Murphy’s Law); and “… we are at the stake and bayed about with enemies, and some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs.”
Executive branch underlings, I daresay most of them, have no plans to remain underlings forever. If they see advantage in sticking with the ship, they’ll stick; if they’re looking for the life jackets, they’ll still stick with it, but flavor the boss’ interests with their own. I remember an old English professor of mine, a B-24 bombardier in World War II, who one day reminisced, “The enlisted men on the ship — the bombadier’s an officer — had a way of saying, ‘Sir,’ that really meant (deleted).”
Surrounded and advised as he is by his weird congeries of family members, party hacks, fellow oligarchs and alt-right activists, Trump’s made-for-television signings of executive orders remind me of nothing more than a scene in the film Blazing Saddles, in which the governor, played by a manic, cross-eyed Mel Brooks, signs whatever his crooked assistant, Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) puts in front of him, alternately gazing down the cleavage of his comely secretary. I can’t help but wonder who’s in charge.
It’s a timeworn tradition for other nations to test the mettle of each incoming president, and these early months have been no exception. The image that comes to mind is of a boy trying to put a dozen jumping frogs into a low box without any top: Nothing stands still. And the frustration, for me, at least, has been trying to determine not only the direction, but the motives as well, of all the recent apparently unfocused announcements and actions.
How’d you like this for a day? After breakfast — maybe even before or during — you learn that the fiery president of the Philippines has sent military occupiers to several tiny disputed islands in the South China Sea, poking a stick into the eye of a “friendly nation” you really need to stay on the right side of. Many cities, and now even a few states, have declared themselves sanctuaries — meaning they will not help the feds with identification of and raids on undocumented immigrants. Photos of sarin-gassed Syrians are going viral on the Internet, and some sort of well-publicized response seems required — keeping in mind that these are the types of people to whom you’ve refused asylum, and that Russia’s ego is involved.
There’s the protracted and bloody assault on ISIS in Mosul. Polls are showing Americans increasingly restive about expanded Jewish settlement in the occupied territories; but Benjamin Netanyahu is our pal, so what do we do? The coal miners have sent a delegation to ask when the expected jobs may begin to return to Appalachia. The conservationists are up in arms about the resolution allowing states to permit the killing of “non-game” predators and their offspring in their winter and natal dens. European tourists, finding the United States less attractive because of violent streets and enhanced security, are staying away in droves, and the tourism people are hollering. Why are we sending a naval battle group to the western Pacific? Don’t we believe that North Korea’s leader is a psychopath, and that his sort thrive on attention? What about China? Oh, and what time will you be needing the plane Friday? Do you have an afternoon tee time?
See what I mean? You’d have to be nuts to want a job like that.
Willem Lange can be reached at willem.lange@comcast.net.
