Analysis: A leader like none before
At noon Friday, the political world will change. And no one, not even newly inaugurated Republican President Donald Trump, has any idea how the changes he has promised to bring will work out for the country.
Since his shocking victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8, Trump has run his transition as little
more than an extension of his successful campaign, holding raucous rallies in front of adoring supporters, picking Twitter fights, making policy seemingly on the fly, slamming U.S. allies like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and boosting foes like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There’s no sign Trump sees any reason to change when he moves to the White House. He campaigned as a supremely confident leader, arguing that he alone has the answer to the country’s problems and the strength and ability to make the dramatic changes needed. That belief, which was seconded by nearly 63 million voters, is still there.
It’s part of the quandary in which the country finds itself after Trump’s surprise election, said David McCuan, a political science professor at Sonoma State University.
Trump is “unusual, unnerving and unlike anything we’ve seen,” he said.
People thinking that they will see a new, restrained and more presidential Trump after he takes the oath of office Friday haven’t been paying attention, said Jessica Levinson, a professor and political commentator at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Trump is “not going to have a personality transplant” after he’s inaugurated, she said. “Fundamentally, the thing he trusts most is his gut, and his gut doesn’t need to go through briefing books.”
Trump and his supporters exude confidence that the businessman has the common sense, deal-making ability and clear vision of the country’s future to make good on his promise to “make America great again.” But getting there may take a very different path than previous presidents have chosen.
For the first time in this country’s history, the United States will be led by someone with no experience at any level of government, a powerful businessman used to making decisions on his own, ordering his subordinates to make it happen and being able to fire them if he doesn’t like the job they did.
But now Trump will run the world’s most important “business,” a huge operation with 535 elected board members, many of them actively working against his plans. And even with Republicans controlling both the House and the Senate, the government is not designed to move quickly on major changes.
As outgoing President Harry Truman gleefully observed of his successor, former Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen. Poor Ike — it won’t be a bit like the Army.”
Substitute “the business” for “the Army” and Trump’s dilemma becomes clear. It’s a recipe for frustration, if not chaos. And Trump — along with the country — will have to live with it.
“It’s going to be a fight between Trump and the Constitution,” said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California. “Trump wants to do big things and do them fast, but the Constitution was designed to prevent that.”
Trump takes pride in pushing aside many of the traditions and customs of government, arguing they no longer meet the needs of a country he sees on the cusp of disaster. But there are no guarantees that change will be for the better.
“Soon we’re going to see why we have these traditions and customs when it comes to governing,” Pitney said.
There are ways around Trump’s lack of legislative experience. His vice president, Mike Pence, spent a dozen years in Congress before becoming governor of Indiana. He knows how the House works and still has plenty of friends there.