Post by robeiae on Jun 17, 2017 19:43:40 GMT -5
An interesting piece at the Atlantic: Memo to Trump: This Is Why You're Losing
The writer posits that Trump is operating as if the Presidency--and the executive branch as a whole--mirrored the structure of his own business empire: a proprietary firm.
And this is why he's having such problems:
I think it's a pretty good bit of analysis; it seems to effectively explain Trump's "novel" (some might prefer "idiotic") approach in many situations.
But the writer assumes Trump is losing the game:
But is he? Allowing that he's losing specific battles, is he actually losing the overall game? Because what the writer here doesn't address is the change in media and technology in the same period and the consequences there. Because Trump does get the these two things, I think. His goals in this regard are just maybe not the goals most people in his position would have.
To this end, I was listening to Limbaugh by chance the other day and he offered his own interesting thesis: that Trump is becoming the most powerful American President ever, largely due to the the responses he engenders from the media and his political adversaries. Limbaugh's theory is that what Trump wants above all else is recognition (yes, I've said the same thing here, previously) from everyone. He wants to be so recognized that the world literally hangs on his every action, his every tweet, his every word. He wants everyone to feel obligated to have an opinion in this regard, no matter how minor any of these actions or comments might be.
So winning or losing this battle or that battle is not the critical thing, since there's almost always a way to get a do-over (from court decisions to legislation). What matters is that Trump will get to control the agenda and the corresponding conversations. And it seems to me that the business angle noted by the above piece fits this narrative perfectly; it's right in line with that objective.
Thoughts?
The writer posits that Trump is operating as if the Presidency--and the executive branch as a whole--mirrored the structure of his own business empire: a proprietary firm.
Trump’s business empire sprawls into hundreds of LLCs and licensing agreements, but at its core, it takes a familiar form: the proprietary firm. Built around its founder, generally branded with his name, its reputation intertwined with his, and its affairs directly under his management—this was the dominant form of business in the United States until the final decade of the 19th century...
It is a form almost perfectly adapted to play to Trump’s strengths, and cover his weaknesses. As a CEO hired by an independent board, he might not have survived the bankruptcies of some of his businesses, a string of failed ventures, constant lawsuits, or the other setbacks of his career. But the Trump Organization is his to do with as he pleases, and if not all the risks he chooses to take, the loopholes he exploits, the deals he strikes, or the ventures he launches have succeeded, enough have paid off to preserve and expand the fortune he inherited.
But America is now a century or more past its managerial revolution—the heyday of the proprietary firm is gone, displaced by the corporate bureaucracy. It swept through industry in the Great Merger Wave at the turn of the 20th century, and through the federal government in the decades that followed. Bureaucracies offer a solution to the challenge of scale; they create rules and procedures, and the corps of professionals who populate bureaucracies abide by them, allowing business to be performed in a predictable fashion, even between actors with no personal relationship. And they bring with them their own set of costs and benefits, requiring the surrender of a degree of autonomy and flexibility in exchange for stability and scale, and putting systems ahead of individual initiative.
It is a form almost perfectly adapted to play to Trump’s strengths, and cover his weaknesses. As a CEO hired by an independent board, he might not have survived the bankruptcies of some of his businesses, a string of failed ventures, constant lawsuits, or the other setbacks of his career. But the Trump Organization is his to do with as he pleases, and if not all the risks he chooses to take, the loopholes he exploits, the deals he strikes, or the ventures he launches have succeeded, enough have paid off to preserve and expand the fortune he inherited.
But America is now a century or more past its managerial revolution—the heyday of the proprietary firm is gone, displaced by the corporate bureaucracy. It swept through industry in the Great Merger Wave at the turn of the 20th century, and through the federal government in the decades that followed. Bureaucracies offer a solution to the challenge of scale; they create rules and procedures, and the corps of professionals who populate bureaucracies abide by them, allowing business to be performed in a predictable fashion, even between actors with no personal relationship. And they bring with them their own set of costs and benefits, requiring the surrender of a degree of autonomy and flexibility in exchange for stability and scale, and putting systems ahead of individual initiative.
It is a world against which Trump seems to rebel at every turn. He refuses to empower his chief of staff to create a rule-bound White House, preferring instead to pit advisers against each other in a more freewheeling style. He insists on reaching directly down to subordinates, instead of moving through the hierarchy—calling the acting head of the National Park Service to complain about a photo, tweeting his defense of his travel ban instead of issuing statements through his press office, and meeting with the FBI director instead of the attorney general.
And each time, he has only worsened the trouble he sought to address, or created new problems for himself—producing mockery of his exaggerated crowd-size claims, court injunctions against his executive orders, and now an investigation for obstruction of justice. His repeated defeats seem only to deepen his anger as he strains against bureaucratic rules, the thousands of Lilliputian strings that not even presidential giants can snap.
And each time, he has only worsened the trouble he sought to address, or created new problems for himself—producing mockery of his exaggerated crowd-size claims, court injunctions against his executive orders, and now an investigation for obstruction of justice. His repeated defeats seem only to deepen his anger as he strains against bureaucratic rules, the thousands of Lilliputian strings that not even presidential giants can snap.
But the writer assumes Trump is losing the game:
Memo to the president: You’re losing this game because you don’t understand its rules.
But is he? Allowing that he's losing specific battles, is he actually losing the overall game? Because what the writer here doesn't address is the change in media and technology in the same period and the consequences there. Because Trump does get the these two things, I think. His goals in this regard are just maybe not the goals most people in his position would have.
To this end, I was listening to Limbaugh by chance the other day and he offered his own interesting thesis: that Trump is becoming the most powerful American President ever, largely due to the the responses he engenders from the media and his political adversaries. Limbaugh's theory is that what Trump wants above all else is recognition (yes, I've said the same thing here, previously) from everyone. He wants to be so recognized that the world literally hangs on his every action, his every tweet, his every word. He wants everyone to feel obligated to have an opinion in this regard, no matter how minor any of these actions or comments might be.
So winning or losing this battle or that battle is not the critical thing, since there's almost always a way to get a do-over (from court decisions to legislation). What matters is that Trump will get to control the agenda and the corresponding conversations. And it seems to me that the business angle noted by the above piece fits this narrative perfectly; it's right in line with that objective.
Thoughts?
