Jonathan Bernstein @ Good Politics/Bad Politics
So Tuesday night Donald Trump said that he’s going to sign an executive order changing the way that aircraft carriers work, something he’s had a weird fetish about since his first term.
Wednesday night Donald Trump said that he’s going to order the US to resume nuclear testing, in a rambling tweet that was about as factually challenged as you might suspect….
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(I don’t think Trump knows even vague basics about the ACA; I’m not sure he realizes it’s about health insurance, rather than health providers.2 I’m not even sure he knows what health insurance is; you would think so, but I’ve never heard him discuss it as if he did).
So the problem isn’t so much that Trump doesn’t know much about nuclear weapons or aircraft carriers, or health care or how tariffs work or how NATO works. It’s a problem, but it’s not nearly as much of a problem is his insistence that everyone should just do whatever his gut tells him is right. Not in the sense of “his gut” as a description of political instincts based on every input he can gather, but in the sense of his “Donald from Queens on line two” talk-radio caller persona, the guy who has opinions on whether Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame and that a White House ballroom would be cool and that wind power is bad. And that tariffs produce money in some practically magic way. And that the US should start testing nuclear weapons.
Those are his opinions; he won the election; that’s what the US must do. That Trump believes. Indeed, as I’ve said, he has organized his entire second presidency to prevent him from having to hear information that might contradict his impulses.
It’s a recipe for disaster. For disasters. Indeed, it’s why autocracies are generally filled with policy disasters; either the glorious leader refuses to listen to anyone, or everyone is afraid to speak up, or both.
But beyond Trump?
Look for presidents with excellent political skills.3 Not electioneering skills; those are fine to have, and will help a bit from the Oval Office, but mostly as long as you’re not 2024 Joe Biden it’s not going to matter much. What you want is someone who deeply understands the politics of the White House, of executive branch agencies, of the courts, and on and on, and knows how to use that understanding. Someone who demonstrates an ability to learn from experts and from others in the political system. Someone who craves the information that the US presidency is uniquely good at producing for a president who knows what to do with it.
Such as: You need to know how to conduct a campaign to destroy fishing boats that might be smuggling drugs, and you also have to know that it’s illegal and morally monstrous and besides a terrible foreign policy move with lots of complex short, medium, and long-run risks of damage to the nation doing it.
Yes, I know, there was some provider stuff in the ACA as well. Sorry. (I’m really tempted to add: “I’m no expert”, but that would be wrong.)
Most changes to nomination system come from someone’s interests at the moment, not grand design, but for what it’s worth: This means that the party is well-served if they find a way to reward political skills broadly, including but not limited to electioneering skills, within the nomination process. I sort of think that the current system does that, at least on the Democratic side, but others disagree…..
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