It also announced that President Trump was nominating the White House physician to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. What do these announcements have in common?
The answer is that both are indicators of how Trump views his job. He doesn’t seem to see actual policymaking as important; instead, he treats it all as an exercise in reality TV.
.. The point, instead, is that running veterans’ health is a management, not medical, job — and Jackson has no managerial experience.
.. Once you start looking at the Trump administration as an exercise in publicity, not policy, you see signs of it everywhere.
.. Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn in that role, Kudlow’s remarkable track record on the economy — he’s been wrong about everything
.. nothing in Kudlow’s role as a shouting head on cable TV has prepared him for the job he’s supposed to do.
.. So Trump is acting as if his job were to run up ratings for his TV show, not to make actual policies.
.. Wall Street had a big relief rally when investors tentatively concluded that Trump wants to only play at trade war, and can be bought off with symbolic wins that change nothing real.
.. Trump hasn’t managed to repeal Obamacare, but his officials have undermined the program’s efficiency, driving up premiums and reducing coverage.
.. if and when America needs real leadership, there will be nobody home.
.. So far, the Trump era has been almost free from crises Trump didn’t generate himself. One of the few such events demanding an effective response was Hurricane Maria — and the response was disastrously inadequate.
.. So what happens if there’s a foreign policy crisis, a financial crisis, a health crisis
.. we’ll need actual policies. And who’s going to devise those policies? Lincoln had a team of rivals; Trump has assembled a team of poseurs.
.. And even if Trump should come to realize he needs better people, he probably couldn’t get them.
.. Trump can’t even hire good lawyers!
.. one of these days, the reality TV administration is going to bump up against actual reality. And it’s not going to end well.